How do you take food delivered in throw-away containers and serve it in style? [Waving hand wildly in air, shouting, “I know! I know!”]
But first, a little backstory. In case you ever wonder what to get me for an occasion, my advice is “Just bring food.” That’s exactly what my friend CC did on the occasion of my birthday one year. She let me know days in advance so I could anticipate and salivate and showed up at my door the morning of the celebration looking like Mary Poppins, only with edibles in her giant satchel.
Homemade fruit muffins made with almond flour. Delicate egg cups fashioned from canadian bacon that each held an egg and cheese. The most fabulous breakfast casserole with a secret ingredient (cauliflower!!! — one vegetable serving down for the day!), and a medley of fresh berries.
As I swooned from the aromas, she accepted my undying gratitude and charged me with the task of taking it all out of the little aluminum containers and making it look pretty. Because that’s what I do.
Here is what I did and why:
In terms of flowers, I had lots of zinnias and celosia, so I chose a wildly painted ceramic vase that played well off the colors in the flowers. That went in the center.
Two different colors, shapes, and sizes of placemats where chosen to be layered. The hot pink and lovely lilac combined well with the wild vase and flowers. If I had then gone with traditional stainless or heirloom sterling flatware, our table would have gone down the road to pretty and formal. That wasn’t the look we were going for, so I got into the funky silverware drawer instead. More color, more pattern.
With all that going on, the plates needed to be white to show up. They didn’t need to be boring white, however. Nubby, cute white plates were up to bat. No harm in using wildly colored beverage glasses, however, so that’s what I did.
The eggs in the Canadian Bacon had already earn their cuteness badges, but what to do with the casserole? Using a triangular-shaped mold, I made each piece a distinctive triangle shape. The muffins watched from their own bread plates hovering nearby. What about the fruit? Choosing just the right size container for realistic portions was key. The fact that the right size containers happened to be in just the right colors was a bonus.
What about garnish? Chives go well with savory breakfast dishes, so I used both chopped chives and uncut chive stems artfully placed around the plate and threw a little fresh mint on the berries.
Something was missing, however. The Eureka moment came when I saw an avocado sitting on my counter, begging to be invited. Slices of avocado and a dollop of spicy salsa completed the amazing meal. (For those dining with me who don’t adore avocados, I left them off because they would have gone to waste.)
Lime green napkins. Turquoise napkin rings. Here is the whole tablescape. Beautimous, don’t you think?
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