HOW TO BUILD A CHEESE BOARD.

Here’s how to do ( and how not to do) a big, fancy grazing platter for your next party. Or, seriously, just for your next meal at home by the fire.

“Can you bring the cheeses?”

Yep, sure can. If the careful purchase of a few good cheeses mean entry to a gathering of good people in the country, I’m there.

But this time I wanted to do more than that. This time, I wanted to try my hand at the sort of crazy, over-the-top cheese boards I see on Instagram. The sort I usually just roll my eyes at and scroll on. And…

It was so much fun. And it was just so easy and relaxed to set out a big, vibrant board of goodies right from the start, rather than wait until the end of the night when you’re too full anyway.

This is my inaugural attempt, and it’s not too bad, though my next one will be better. (I’m looking at you, quince paste).

Here’s what I learned by doing my first cheese board for the cheese bored.

GET THE BOARD RIGHT.

It will decide everything – shape, vibe, height, amount of cheese to buy. My mother had a large, plain bamboo tray (60cm x 45 cm) with a bit of a lip to it, so we threw that in the back of the car.

DO A SHOPPING LIST

Cheese, obviously. Fruits of the season - crimson pomegranate, vibrant blood oranges, little red apples and green-skinned pears. Salami (it was a big hit), prosciutto, coppa, bresaola? Tinned fish – sardines, fat anchovies, marinated octopus? Dried fruits - apricots, figs. Crisp veg - baby carrots, radishes, celery. Crackers, breads, fruit breads, taralli, grissini.

RAID THE CUPBOARD

There’s inspiration in your own cupboard at home. Those crackers you never opened, those very expensive stuffed red chillies you got for Christmas, that half-eaten pack of cashews, those zucchini pickles at the back of the fridge – use them all. I’m not suggesting you use the occasion of a cheeseboard to clear out your fridge, but – yes, I am.

Also, don’t go spending a fortune on those $12 cheese crackers in the deli. People don’t always need fancy, and there’s a reason supermarket biscuits and crackers are popular - people love them, they stay crisp, and they don’t collapse.

THINK OF IT AS A LANDSCAPE.

And you are the seagull flying above, looking down. You need your mountains (the cheeses), your lakes (small bowls of dips and olives), and your rivers (meandering lines of crackers).

Place the big cheeses down first, then the bowls, then just keep adding things. When you’re happy with the initial placement, slice up anything that can be sliced, and put it back on the board in its original shape or fanned out. Get in the zone. Go for colour and freshness, textural contrast, surprise, crunch, strong diagonals, light and shade. And don’t snack too much.

Tip: Get one or two small whole, soft salamis and slice them yourself, then arrange re-assembled into shape. If you prefer pre-sliced, roll up each slice into a cigar and arrange them sticking up out of a jar.

THE CHEESES

Try for one hard, one firm, one soft and one gooey, technically speaking. You’ll be wanting a plain cheddar-like one that’s easy to slice, because slices look AMAZING to a seagull flying above.

You could accommodate the tastes of those in attendance, but I always find that if I get exactly what I feel like eating, then at least I’m happy.

That means a Comte or Gruyere, a tangy, fresh goat’s milk cheese, an interesting Asiago or Parmigiano, a blue (the creamy dolcelatte is always popular), and a gooey triple crème or buttery double cream fromage d’affinois. Top marks for Holy Goat La Luna, Fleur de Maquis from Corsica, Le Duc Vacherin, the soft and spreadable Aphrodite Galotyri and Will Studd’s Brillat-Savarin.

NO GAPS.

You get a much stronger impact when you paint the whole canvas. Fill in the gaps with dried fruits and nuts, or as shown here, with rosemary pinched from your mother’s garden.

WAIT FOR THE CURVEBALLS.

There will always be something that throws a spanner into your cheese board. I had walnuts in the shell, and salted roasted almonds ready to go when I remembered there’s one cuz with a nut allergy. Quick pivot to pretzels. Oh, and the quince paste just became a black hole in the board, you can’t even see it in the pic. Sorry, quince paste. You’re fired.

BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME.

Place it somewhere central where people can gather around it, then move on. There will be other food going out, so this is where they can go just for a quiet nibble, or to grab something that will help fill up the kids.

DO A RE-SET

After two or three hours, it will look very lived-in. The good cheese will have gone, Terry will have eaten all the salami, the olive pits will have gathered in one corner, the knives will be dirty, the cut fruit will need a spritz. Place a smaller tray or board next to it and transfer all the good stuff across, then disappear the big tray. I may have left this one too late…

SUPPORT A CHEESE-MAKER

This is a great opportunity to discover some new cheeses from small makers in your region and beyond. Go talk cheese at one of the evangelical cheese shops around, from Penny’s Cheese Shop, Formaggi Ocello and Simon Johnson in Sydney, to Harper & Blohm in Fitzroy, Spring Street Cheese Cellar and Anthony Femia’s Maker & Monger at Prahran Market. The Essential Ingredient in Canberra is cheese central, and these days, any good food store and even supermarket (omg, Aldi!) will have some interesting choices. Mine came from my favourite one-stop shop, Geelong Fresh Foods. And online, Bruny Island Cheeses does an incredible job of getting their cheeses to you in good nick.

I know, you want to see some of that crazy Insta inspo don’t you? Here you go.

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Thanks for reading! Tell us your own favourite cheeses and cheese shops here in the comments, or anything you’ve done on the cheese board front that could be helpful to the rest of us.

And special thanks to my sister for having a birthday bash that warranted a cheese board, and to my right-hand man, Terry Durack, for throwing himself into this idea big-time. We’ll be doing a cheese-and-things board for two for dinner next week, because the next party isn’t for ages, and because the idea of snacking, nibbling and crunching our way through a board of our favourite things actually sounds like a dinner that’s better than dinner.

I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s about time, folks.