A Pre-Dinner Nibble in Town

Having something out to nibble on while you have cocktails with your dinner guests is always a lovely addition to the evening. I find it really helps to spark lively conversation before the main meal, and keeps your guests from becoming ravenous. If we are serving a heavy meal, we keep the options fairly limited, but still tasty. The other evening when we had guests over, we were serving a light dinner of fish, so I put out a much heartier fare.

A bowl of cashews because I always like some sort of nut option, and cashews are almost always at the top of my list. My new fav combo is feta with a really good aged balsamic drizzled on top. I poured the balsamic to just one side, so if a guest was not into the flavor combination, they could opt to just have the feta. A spreadable sheep’s milk cheese the woman at the cheese shop highly recommended was a huge hit. I put out 2 different jams to have with it. The sweet and the tart really playing off one another. We served both with a softer crusted baguette. Delaurenti makes a superb artichoke dip, so that was added too.

All of the above worked great with the champagne, as the conversation, as well as the bubbly, flowed.