Building the Perfect Cheese Board
Cheese and crackers: it's a classic pairing, simple enough for a kitchen snack yet complex enough for gourmet dessert menus. Tony Naylor at the Guardian has compiled his own guide for constructing the perfect cheese plate, rating everything from cheese to grapes to serving temperature.
A restaurant should be purchasing with more discretion. It should be aiming for cheeseboard perfection.
Which is what? Six to eight artisan cheeses, an even mix of hard and semi-hard, with at least one soft and one blue (more than one third blue, given how many people don't like it, is bad planning, if not bad manners). I also like this idea of ensuring variety by serving at least one goat's, ewe's and cow's milk cheese. All British cheeses too, please. This is one area where you can minimise food miles without compromising on quality.
