Boards are the biggest trend going nowadays, so Maria Zizka’s cookbook, Boards, Platters, Plates: Recipes for Entertaining, Sharing, and Snacking is very timely. This beautiful cookbook is full of excellent ideas for presenting good food in an artistic way. It will inspire everyone to make their presentations more beautiful and appealing to their guests.

The recipes are presented in an easy-to-follow format, and there is a beautiful photograph of each board, platter, or plate so that anyone can create a beautiful display of food. This cookbook includes displays of different foods gathered from all over the world, including France, Middle East, Japan, Italy, Korea, and China, as well as America. There are appetizer boards and displays, lunch displays, full dinner displays, snack displays, and dessert displays. All of them are attractive and the food is arranged so that they are easy to eat from. The displays included will inspire most people to make some of their own.
The recipes include dipping sauces, dips, fondues, breads, and other accompaniments to make a complete presentation. The boards are both sweet and savory, and some even make complete meals. During the holidays, this cookbook will most likely be used often for holiday parties and dinners. It includes instructions for everything needed to duplicate what is in the cookbook and make substitutions that will make them personal.

Food always tastes better when it’s presented beautifully, and this book will give everyone good ideas to make their food more appealing. This is a fun book.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

Great book of how to create charcuterie boards! A favorite for entertaining. This book is beautiful to page through, and the inspiration is boundless. A great addition for anyone who loves hosting and wants to add to the usual rep·er·toire of dinner menus and appetizers.

Really great book for entertaining. I love how not only are recipes included, but store bought inclusions, possible substitutions, and most importantly composition and arrangement ideas. The pictures were wonderful. Can’t wait to try these out!

This book had a lot of good ideas - nothing outrageous or new. A lot of interesting combinations but I would have loved to have more recipes or variations which would have taken this cookbook over the top.

This book was ok. The pictures are lovely but I have read much better in terms of how to assemble a platter for guests, how to choose what goes on it, how to lay it out to look pretty, how to pair varying things. This one is on a much smaller scale, the boards hold less options and seem more appropriate for little groups of 3 to 5, They usually focus on one main home-made thing with a little trimming.

The photographs in this book are so beautiful! The food looks delicious and I always appreciate a nice presentation.

I was interested in this book because of the popularity of snack boards. It is interesting and has beautiful photography and good tips, but it is quite specific. The introduction includes a brief cheese and charcuterie board guide. Then there are chapters - to start, vegetable focused, all-day, cocktail parties, and sweet. Each chapter has six boards, each including some recipes and then store bought items. They are themed, but not necessarily always something I found to be a good board. Some of them only had photos of ingredients or some portion of the components but not all. Only 5 of the boards were indicated to be "party size." This could be a good book for someone who really enjoys this style of cooking and serving in smaller quantities, or has already mastered board assembly and is looking for new ideas.

Excellent book. Good tips throughout. Easy to follow instructions on how to create your own well-crafted board, including cheese boards as well as charcuterie boards. It also features boards for vegetarians and vegans.

Thank you to Maria Zizka, NetGalley and Artisan for the ARC of this book.

What a beautiful book! The pictures in this book inspire me to create so many fun boards for my family! Maria Zizka is an absolute creative genious! There were so many ideas here that had never occured to me! I am so excited to make board after board now!

These boards all look so nice - yet every time I try to make a board of delicious cheeses and snacks, they always look like I just piled a bunch of food onto a plate. Try as I might, I never could make my charcuterie board look as artistic as the ones in this book. Why can't mine look like the ones in this book?

Also, 2oz of cheese is not enough cheese for me. I'm going to need all the cheese. All of it.

A good, concise guide to making delicious-looking plates of food. Perhaps yours will look as good as the pictures in this book. Mine, however, do not.

Thank you NetGalley for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Boards, Platters, Plates is a fun new cookbook with themed entertaining snacks and shareables centered around the idea of well curated charcutier boards. Each section has a specific concept with a handful of recipes to create each theme. The recipes are detailed with easy to follow recipes and all of the photos included are vibrant and beautiful. I was a tad disappointed by the ideas and recipes themselves since they felt fairly basic. This is a nice cookbook to generate some new ideas for a fun party.

I love what I call “snacky” plates, meals made of plating up some of my favorite things to munch on, rather than doing too much cooking. This book has given me a lot of inspiration for creating those kinds of lunches and dinners (like the Lebanese Lunch board), but it’s also great inspiration for parties and receptions that goes far beyond just cheese and charcuterie boards. There’s even a Vegan Rainbow board (more visually appealing than a veggie tray) and dessert boards like the Chocolate Deluxe. I’ll definitely be buying this for our collection!

5/5 stars

Genre: Cooking

Description:

Casual, Vibrant, Delicious

Choose from a dazzling collection of thirty beautiful, well-crafted boards, whether you’re serving a group of two or ten. Try Catalonian Summer with romesco, charred green onions, anchovy toasts, and Manchego for an intimate outdoor gathering. Make a dinner of the Korean BBQ platter with bulgogi-style beef, lettuce cups, gochujang dipping sauce, and kimchi. Or go straight for the sweets with a dessert like S’mores Without a Campfire. Plus, check out the party-size boards for your next holiday or celebration.

Start with the four principles for creating the right board for any occasion: Looks matter Stay flexible Make it fun to eat Embrace store-bought components You’ll find that every meal becomes one worth sharing.

Pros:

- Very visually appealing and appetizing pictures.
- Recipes look delicious and have detailed instructions.
- Each section has an informative page about what different things you should include to host a successful get-together.

Cons:

- At first glance the recipes are pretty intimidating. Many have lots of ingredients and steps.

Would I recommend it?

Yes.

I will definitely buy myself a copy of this book. I love the photography, not to mention the great food ideas in this book. I’m a big fan of hosting friends (when it’s safe to do so...) and this book is full of great recipes, exciting themes, and simple intrusions that even this not-so-great cook can follow.

A great, creative cookbook for entertaining or just a fun Saturday afternoon. I got some fresh ideas and Zizka makes everything very approachable. I recommend for people who love to entertain.

As we (hopefully) continue to move closer and closer to the time when we can once again gather with friends, this book makes its debut at the perfect time. I love the deceiving simplicity (easy to put together but looks like you spent ages!) of these beautiful platters that can be scaled up for a group or down for a party of one. With many new ideas and themes, Boards, Platters, and Plates is a must-have for any cheese-board lover.

Boards, platters and plates are all the rage right now and this book did a great job on teaching a beginner how to build a great one from scratch!

Thank you to netgalley for providing me with an arc for an honest review!

This is a really good book on charcuterie for beginners. I would have no idea where to start when making a board, so this gave me some really good ideas! The pictures are really beautifully done and are very helpful.

#BoardsPlattersPlates #NetGalley

It's really nice to think of a time in the future (near?) when we can gather together safely. When that time comes, and thanks to this book -- I'll have some simple ideas on what to feed guests. I used to go above and beyond when entertaining because I loved the kitchen, however times have changed and I'm not above putting something simple together to focus on more time with my guests. It's a beautiful and simply designed book which great ideas. I really like the simplicity of recipes, the spread and the fact it doesn't take too much time or effort. Presentation-wise, I'm thrilled that I can do it all on just one board (but I'll be investing in more). A nice resource.

I like to host get-together but always struggle to put together a nice appetizer spread. This book helped me solve that issue.

I love how they have delicious dips/salad spreads with how to pair it with sides with it. So many mouth watering recipes that are easy to follow.