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Home / Advice / The Basics / The Basics, Lesson 12 – Clever Cuts

The Basics, Lesson 12 – Clever Cuts

Monday, February 19, 2024

Soup and Salad. “Yawn. Right?” Even everyday food like a sandwich or wrap can transcend ordinary and become special just by virtue of the way it’s presented.

One clever cut can make an astonishing difference.

The meal was simple: Cauliflower soup (garnished with chopped bacon, cheese, and a jalapeno slice, and a ham and swiss cheese sandwich made on a tortilla wrap with a little lettuce and mayo. After I had rolled up the ingredients, I discovered the tortilla was too long to fit in the space to the left of the bowl. I asked my friend Deloris to cut the wraps into pieces. I’m so glad I did, because she chose an approach I would not have thought of. The result is below:


Rather than administering straight-across chops, Deloris cut the top half of each chunk at a diagonal. Then she tucked in a sliver of cooked butternut squash into each for color that tied in with the serving pieces. The result was so much more inviting. Each of the little towers displayed what awaited the taste buds. The pieces fit beautifully on the plate and perfectly into the mouth! It took just a few seconds longer, but the wait was most certainly worth it!

Here are some other examples:


We cut our finger sandwiches into small rectangles and gave them an edible “fringe” of finely chopped parsley.


A scalloped edge cookie cutter made the shapes of the tortillas we used for these cucumber sandwiches much prettier than ordinary circles would have been.


We took a variegated approach to shapes for our Benedictine Sandwiches.

Be a shape-shifter! Try a new way to present your faves.

Stay tuned for the next lesson!

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