If you’re having a few friends over for drinks and nibbles, making an antipasti board is a great way to impress. It looks good and you can fill it with a selection of your favorite foods. Creating a platter of meats and cheeses is so easy with all the great independent food stores we have in Deal. You can find some really interesting treats beyond the go to easy option; cheese and pineapple on a stick.
We went to No Name Street where they helped us pick out a selection of food for our guests. Walmer Court Farm Shop is a great place to pick up quality fruit and veg that won't rot within a day (unlike most supermarket fruit), you can also find other local treats like Kentish apple juice and cakes. Finally, we made use of Rook’s discount day on a Wednesday to fill out our cheese and meat supply.
When you’re setting up the food, we’d recommend playing around with the layout of your boards and dishes to find the best arrangement, you want things to be close together and to look as full as possible to make the most impact. Use your most interesting bowls, boards and dishes. You can source some from charity shops for cheap, we got some of ours from Pilgrims Hospice in Deal. It looks even better if they are all a little miss-matching.
We made two drinks options for our guests, a raspberry mojito and a grapefruit and rosemary mocktail. Just in case you have anyone who is driving or does not drink a mocktail is a good option to have on stand by. Heres how we made ours:
Mojito Ingredients (makes one cocktail)
Raspberry Syrup Ingredients (makes four)
In a saucepan, add the water, sugar and raspberries. Let it simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring constantly, until the raspberries break down and mix with water. Let cool for 10-15 mins then strain through sieve. Juice the limes into a glass, then muddle in mint, try to be gentle enough not to destroy them but strong enough to release the flavour. Add ice cubes, the raspberry simple syrup, rum and top with lemonade till the glass is full then stir to combine. If you want to make your drink look more refined, you can add raspberries and extra mint to the drink to garnish.
Ingredients (makes six to eight cocktail)