Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

Caprice salad: sun ripened tomatoes with buffalo milk mozzarella cheese
with olive oil, basil, black pepper and salt.
Photo © J E Nilsson for CMC, 2009

Planning is a big part of the fun to holding events. It’s a phase that allows you to be creative and fantasize the possibilities!

In a few weeks, we’ll be holding a dinner for friends with a French-Italian theme and thought that a lunch buffé the same day should set the stage for the evening event.

So far, we have thought that the following should be in there somehow:

Pictured above, a Caprice salad with tomatoes, buffalo milk mozzarella cheese from Campania, southern Italy, topped with fresh basil, a tasty low-acid virgin olive oil and marine salt. This salad is filling with the olive oil and cheese but it’s generally a light dish.

Dark bread served with sweet virgin olive oil and
balsamic vinegar and natural sea salt.

Un-pasteurised camembert with some calvados flavoured apple marmalade on the side, if we can manage that.

One of the best combinations ever, sweet and salty: sun dried prosciutto on a small slice of honey melon

Slices of Italian parmigiano-reggiano hard cheese, with acacia honey and
maybe some roasted walnuts on the side.

Slices of salami with rosemary.

Well, we can’t leave Italy without a few slices of Salami. Different areas of Italy specialize in different kinds and we’ll try to serve, from top to bottom in the picture above: finely ground salami Milano, mild with a hint of white pepper; in the middle, Spinata Calabra, thickly minced pork sausage with dried tomatoes and a chilli bite, and bottom, Magnifico Salami, medium large grounded ham with a sweet salty flavour.

We’re thus far enjoying ourselves with the brainstorming and more ideas might come up along the way. On the shortlist to be tried out soon is a garden salad with garlic, olives and sun dried tomatoes. We’ll see. What have we forgot? Anything obvious we should add? All ideas that can make a contribution to a French-Italian theme buffé are most welcome!