I love this book and I will definitely be making a ton of these boards for future parties with friends!

Quick fun read on board presentations and different food pairings. I have made a few of them and have been really delicious

Loved reading this book. I can't wait to make more foods using it. I hope you enjoy it too. Having eating

Charcuterie boards are the latest craze, and there are already hundreds of cookbooks out showcasing them. Around the Board: Boards, Platters, and Plates: Seasonal Cheese and Charcuterie for Year-Round Celebrations and Elevated Gatherings is one such cookbook. The cookbook is divided up into seasons rather than traditional chapters. This makes it more useful for those who like to make seasonal boards. It isn’t filled with just charcuterie (the actual definition of charcuterie is sausages, ham, pâtés, and other cooked or processed meats, or a delicatessen serving them), but also cheese and fruit boards as well as dessert boards.

Included for each board is a list of suggestions to add to the board, as well as pairings that work and most importantly, a beautiful photograph. According to Delaney, each board should include 5 items: cheese, crunch, meat, accoutrements, and produce. She has used a very vivid imagination to create beautiful , mouthwatering, and luscious boards throughout the year and on special holidays. Each board includes a shopping list, which, since there is very little cooking involved in these boards, is very helpful.

Even though there are books being released daily on the subject of boards, this one is recommended because it is easy to read, straightforward, and includes enough ideas to make anyone a star when using Delaney’s ideas. This is definitely an excellent book for anyone wanting to entertain with boards.

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

Emily Delaney has produced a delightfully delicious guide to creating scrumptious boards for all times of the year. "Around the Board" is structured around season eating and provides boards geared to holidays and seasonal additions available throughout the year. If you are an adult who is a fan of snacking and beautiful displays this book is for you! I personally have found myself overwhelmed by charcuterie boards but the way they are presented in "Around the Board" I feel like I could make something tasty and delicious. I for one will definitely be trying out the Caprese board this summer when tomatoes are back in season! Happy arranging!

I am seriously obsessed with all things entertaining. Plus, these days, how can you not entertain without a cheeseboard?

This is going to the top of my list as go to gifts for all my entertaining and cheese loving friends.

Lastly, this would make an amazing conversation starter or coffee table book!

First words that come to mind when I started looking through "Around the board" was whimsical and beautiful. I usually like all cookbooks I review, but this one really knocks it out of the park! The images do not do it justice as an ebook. Seeing these artful boards in glossy pages would make the best addition for any coffee table. The colors of every board are so eye catching and pleasing. The description of common charcuterie meats and cheeses is thorough for any novice. The categorization of seasonal boards was something I never would have thought of. The creativity and pictures of this book are amazing. I will for sure buy more than one copy, as it would make a great hostess gift!

This book is beautiful and should be displayed! I love the gorgeous photos and layouts and just everything about this book! I love making and photographing food and boards and this book was right up my alley!

Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy of this book!

I was unable to download this book so sadly I cannot give a review. I do plan on purchasing my own copy as I love a good Board book.

Yes - get it.

I happened to compare two charcuterie books at the same time. This was by far and away the better resource for doing boards.

I like that with a few exception, it mainly was charcuterie. It wasn't just prettily presented food. I think there is a science behind charcuterie. I loved the different seasonal boards and each one fulfilled that basic definition of what charcuterie is.

I received an ARC from Netgalley to help me prepare my honest review.

I've read, cooked, and reviewed A LOT of books about boards and building them. What makes this one stand out particularly is how Emily shows you how to build that board, just the way she has it pictured. I've built a lot of boards/tried to make them pretty like the picture, and sometimes it works out. With her guide, it looks that way every single time. I also like how each season is broken out and includes a pantry for each season. Making "The Boardament" was really fun and one I will do again for Christmas. The snow day fondue board was really fun- we did it on a particularly crummy day and it made it really enjoyable. Ever wonder how they make salami roses and perfect proscuitto crinkles? Look no further. Emily has you covered. This is a very enjoyable book and one that is particularly good for beginners or those looking to have photo worthy boards that they don't have to try to figure out.

5 delicious, beautiful, every-occasion stars for this amazing charcuterie cookbook and guide!

Thank you to NetGalley and DK, Alpha for providing a digital ARC for review!

This charcuterie cookbook and guide is absolutely gorgeous. It is filled with boards and spreads for every holiday or occasion you could possibly think of, from Christmas to Game Day. Delaney also guides the reader with charcuterie tools, pairings, and displays for each type of board.

These spreads all look so delicious and almost like a work of edible art. These boards are not entirely savory either by the way - I'm particularly excited over the Valentine's day and other sweets spreads that feature chocolate fondue!

I recommend this to the charcuterie lover or friend who loves to entertain.

Around the Board is a well written and beautifully illustrated guide to charcuterie and cheese boards by Emily Delaney. Due out 29th March 2022 from Penguin Random House on their DK imprint, it's 192 pages and will be available in hardcover and ebook formats.

DK's dependability with nonfiction is well documented. They're really good with illustrated how-to guides and this one is no exception. The author presents a comprehensive general introduction full of basic instructions on how to make boards, how to choose ingredients, how to serve them and more. The introduction is followed by seasonal specialty servings (Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall) full of appropriate and attractive food, well curated and presented.

The book is full to bursting with useful tables and choices; showing what cheese goes with which fruit and showing readers how to pair ingredients to show them at their best. I'm generally fairly clueless about *what* will complement *which* and I felt that the information contained here gave me enough confidence to make a somewhat educated choice as far as arrangement and choices. Not just enough with specific advice about which types of cheese and meat to provide, the author goes a step further and shows how to slice, fold, and prepare meats and cheeses so that they're accessible and portable for serving.

Each of the specific board tutorials in the book contains an introduction, a bullet point shopping list, a tutorial for building the recipe, (with ingredients on a color photo showing how to build it), and suggestions for pairings of food for flavor and texture. All the photos in the book are large, high contrast, and in color, without hands or anything in the way.

Many of the ingredients will be easy to find at any large supermarket or box-store. Some of the more specialized cheeses and charcuterie will require mail order or access to a large urban area, or specialist grocer. Serving suggestions are beautifully styled and attractive (it's the high point of the book for me).

Five stars. This would make a great choice for library acquisition, for the home cook, or possibly as a thoughtful hostess gift.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Around the Board is a great book for the avid host who is a lover of a good board. TLDR: Beautiful photography with a lot of board ideas that center around a season and/or holiday. You get a few simple recipes, some nice pairings within a board, and simple wine and beer pairings.

Now to some more details - I really enjoyed the formatting and layout to this book. Breaking it up into season was a great idea and worked out well for me. I found the first section: The Art of the Board to be a highlight. The Pairing Guide was nice, but I wish there has been more cheeses, especially ones that are maybe less known to the general public. I can pretty much say the same for the pages on Cheese and Charcuterie & Salume. The explanations for each category was fantastic, but I would have likes more details on specific cheeses, but that may just not have been the project of the book, which is cool too. The Prep & Serve section was also nice. I liked having explanations on all the different knives.

Now to the sections with the actual boards. I generally make boards that would fall into the category of Fall and Winter, so I liked getting ideas for the Spring and Summer seasons. There were some combinations I had not though of. I especially liked the the Picnic Box and how it had a how-to guide of physically building it. I also liked how at the beginning of each season it had pairings for each cheese for the first board.

The wine and beer pairings were OK, but I think if they wanted to go there with this book they needed to go into more details. The sparkling wine was done the most successfully in my opinion - they separated it into 4 types of sparkling wines, which makes sense! The beers pairings were done a bit better, but should have considered a few more flavor profiles than 4. What I think was the largest disservice is wine was put into Red, Rose, White, and Sparkling. They either should have worked with a sommelier to break down grapes/wine types more or just left it out altogether, but I can see why the author added them as people typically are drinking as they eat a board. If this is my biggest gripe with this book, it's still doing pretty well.

I think this is a great book for beginners, it shows you how to make a salami rose, fold prosciutto, and cut different cheeses. There's also some basic dip, whipped cheese, and fondue recipes I think people would like. It also has a baked brie recipe, which is always a hit during the winter holidays. Overall I enjoyed this book and think it's really accessible to the everyday person who wants to feel a bit fancier in their everyday life. I'll be implementing some of the things into my future board 100%!

Thank you NetGalley and DK, Alpha for the advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This wasn’t my favorite of charcuterie books I’ve read, but it was a really great guide. I loved that the book was separated Into understanding the art of creating a board and then launches into practical examples.

Particularly I liked the way this was broken down to show how you can style these all year. Definitely will look at buying a physical copy of this book when available.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was around 3.5 stars for me.

Unlike other cheese board plates this book really focuses on cheese. Maybe the first third of the book talks about cheese and how to pair them with different foods. The rest of the book gives examples and information on how to plate food, different supplies, and themes. The book shares different dips and other foods and talks about how to make everything look nice. There are some interesting plates to mimic in this book, but I wasn't wowed like some of the others I've read. There also aren't a lot of recipes, this book includes mostly foods that are already ready to eat.

This book surpassed my expectations by far and I can't wait to create charcuterie boards with tips and tricks I learned from this book! It is such a beautiful book filled with gorgeous photos that make you want to start building your own charcuterie boards and shows easy how-tos with ingredients that are readily available at most grocery supermarkets.

It has four chapters by season and each chapter has different themes/celebrations, and every single one of them is a very doable board using various ingredients. It is very colorful, so it pleases your eyes, and I can't imagine why it wouldn't please your palates just the way it does your eyes! All the recipes are creative, fun, unique, and look delightful and I have no doubt they will be the center of attention whether it's just for a family gathering or a big celebration or a party. I have enjoyed this book so much and will gift this to close family and friends!

Using boards/platters to serve food both at home for you family and when your entertaining is a fun way to be fun and creative with food. This particular book shows the best way to plan your boards by using foods that are currently in season. There are also different theme boards presented such as, my favorite, the dessert board!

I loved this book. The boards are broken down into seasons so you can always have fresh produce and products. The author for sure is the Board Queen.

The pictures are beautiful and I’m excited to try so many of these boards throughout the year.

Around the Board was the second book about entertaining on boards and platters that I had read in the space of two weeks. I was really eager to see how this particular book distinguished itself from the Chronicle Books book that I had at my house and the Clarkson Potter book that I had read the week before.

The first thirty or so pages are about “The Art of the Board,” which provides the foundational knowledge and skills to execute the fifty or so different boards in the book. The basic philosophy of this book is that a board should be accessible, approachable, and personal. The Pairing Guide on page 15 is almost worth the price of admission because it catalogs the complementary and contrasting pairings for each of the five most common cheeses. Other random pairing charts are sprinkled throughout the book, including one for sparkling wines and cheeses, one for all types of wines and cheeses, and one for beers and cheeses.

The remaining 150 or so pages are divided by season into four sections, beginning with Winter. Each section starts with a page about the pantry for that season and a board based on the seasonal pantry. Each arrangement is basically built from cheese, meat, accoutrements, produce, and crunch. There are no measurements, although the author does include recommendations about serving sizes in the foundational chapter. Sometimes the requirements list also calls out supplies, like toothpicks, skewers, or cutters of a certain shape. Since the author is the self-proclaimed Cheese Board Queen, the majority of the arrangements in this book are variations on what a reader would normally conceive of as a cheese board or a charcuterie board. There are also chocolate themed dessert boards, fruit boards, antipasto boards, a Build Your Own Burger board, and Mediterranean mezze boards in the mix as well.

To be clear, this book is predominantly about pairing and styling cheese, meat, and produce into arrangements that feed four to six people. There are a few basic recipes, like holiday baked Brie, Swiss fondue, whipped feta, quick strawberry jam, and beer cheese; however, this is not a book to buy for its recipes. For example, there isn’t even a chocolate fondue recipe for the St Valentine’s Day Chocolate Fondue Board; it just requires melting chocolate discs in a bowl. The instructions for the arrangements typically just require washing and cutting produce, slicing cheese and meats, arranging everything on a board, and the garnishing with fresh herbs.

Overall, if you are looking to make a quick and pretty board from easily obtainable ingredients, then this is the book for you.

I received this book as a digital advance reader copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion. I have yet to attempt any recipes from this book, but I will update this review when I do.