Food Network Chefs' Top Cold Appetizers

My lemon caper deviled eggs. I love deviled eggs. Deviled eggs just scream spring too. I think that they've got to be on your spring table for a feast for sure. It's not a party at my house without deviled eggs. I've maybe made them on here once or twice but you know gonna do a little different version. So I've got my boiled egg whites here. What I like to do is I make this completely and then before serving that's when I fill it. So I cut the eggs. I've got a few left here. Separate the yellow and the white. Is that a 12 minute egg Katie? I usually do about 10 minutes actually. You know I like to bring the water to a boil and then add the eggs. I think that that makes it a lot easier to peel. I always get questions on social media. Plus you don't get that green funky thing around. Yeah I think that that's the easiest way to do it. So just pop those out and then I put them in my deviled egg plate because I have a deviled egg plate. I love those. You do. Uh-huh I got it at a yard sale. What you do? And this I just cover in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge until it's serving time. Now let's get started on our filling. So into the food processor. I like creamy deviled eggs so I use a food processor. You need this chop? You can use just a fork though. Yeah I'm gonna use that for garnish. So just give me like a rough chop on it. Rough chopping. And also zest that lemon for me because these are lemon caper deviled eggs. Of course. So I always do a quick pulse of the yolks first before I add in the mayonnaise. I think it gives you a better texture. It helps you achieve that creaminess faster. Mayonnaise. Now I suppose if you want it to be lighter, I have done this before, you use half Greek yogurt, half mayonnaise. So it does work. And then I'm gonna add in a clove of grated garlic. I like the Greek yogurt or even maybe sour cream idea. Sour cream would work too. Half and half. Yeah. It adds just a little tang to it that's nice. Yellow mustard. I love yellow mustard. Again I think it adds a nice tang. You could totally use Dijon in this. Capers. I love that brininess of the caper. Little salt. Little pep. Lemon zest. This just brightens the whole thing up. All right so now I'm gonna puree this until it gets nice and creamy. So now it's time to transfer this. Now if you have a fancy pastry piping bag, which I never do, you can use it. Or you can just take a gallon zip top bag. Put it into a glass. That makes this so much easier to put it into a glass. And then transfer it. Because if you're trying to hold the bag and transfer it just gets everywhere. You'll be left holding the bag. Yeah. All right so slowly in. You know what I'm thinking of right now? Like wouldn't that be a great spread for like a ham sandwich? Oh my gosh that'd be so good. I love deviled eggs. So we're clear. Right? Yeah I can't ever get enough. All right there we go. Now I'm just gonna close this up. Need a scissor? Uh-huh. And this is how you make your own little piping bag. That's a clever idea right? Oh I love this. You don't have a pastry bag? Yeah. You don't. There you go. Don't need it. And then just snip off the very end. Okay now it's time to fill. So what I do, I put this into the refrigerator. This is in the refrigerator just before serving time. Get it out. Snip that end and fill up your eggs. Just like that. Aren't they pretty? I've got some paprika here. I'm gonna just do a little. Ooh a lot came out. Oh! Oh gosh. We're getting crazy with a couple of these. And crazy. All right I'm gonna hit them with some parsley. You know I get questions about, you did a real rough chop on this parsley. You said rough chop. Yeah. I get a lot of questions when I post deviled eggs on my deviled egg plate about what you're supposed to do in the middle here. You can fill it up with more eggs or I like to put a little crudite in there. So like maybe some sliced radishes and celery. And if you have extra of your egg filling, put a little in the center and put some radishes around it. People can dip in it. Or if you don't want to do that, put this in the fridge and like Jeffrey said, put it on a ham sandwich. Delicious. So good. Best condiment in the world. All right Alex, would you like a deviled egg? Of course. I'll serve you. Of course. I'm gonna take a really heavily. A little paprika-ed one. Yeah it's a verb, to paprika. It is. Jeffrey would you like a deviled egg? Yes sure. Can I have one with mint? And peas. I might go fork with this. I'll do this. Oh. I'll go spoon. You know what's so funny? I ate with a fork. He ate with a spoon and you took it in your hands. Yeah. Deviled eggs are so personal. You know what I love? The white is just pure. And then the caper just comes in with this salty punch. You get that little bit of spice on top. It's so beautifully balanced and seasoned. The lemon, the parsley, the capers. It's one of the best deviled eggs I've ever had. I would love this with a thin slice. Transparent smoked salmon on top. One bite. Zucchini caprese sliders. These are beautiful and scrumptious and fresh and flavorful. And they happen to be very low carb. So that's a bonus. I just grilled a bunch of zucchini slices. I brushed them with a little olive oil and sprinkled them with salt and pepper. They're so pretty. And I took them off the grill before they got too flimsy and mushy. Now I'm going to make a delicious dressing that goes in the sliders. And it starts with about a cup of mayonnaise, give or take. And a few tablespoons of jarred pesto. The mixture of pesto and mayo is pretty much my favorite condiment. I use it all the time. I'm going to stir it a little bit. And then I'll splash in some red wine vinegar just to give it a little bit of a tang. And I'll stir it until it's combined. This kind of light party food is one of my favorite categories of food in general. If I didn't have two football playing teenagers and a busy cattle rancher at home, I would eat like this all the time. Okay, that looks fantastic. Now I'm going to grab a couple of slices of the zucchini. And I'll start building these things. I've got a big block of mozzarella. And I'll cut a slice. And then I'll cut the slice in half. And then I need a slice of tomato. These are great because you can make two or three sliders. Or you can make a big old platter full depending on how many people you need to feed. Okay, to put them together, I'll just grab a spoonful of the pesto mayo. And I don't like to be shy with this stuff. I really want to taste it. The mozzarella and tomato and zucchini are delicious, but they're really mild. So this dressing just makes them so flavorful. And then I'll take one of the half slices of mozzarella. And a slice of tomato. And if a little bit of that pesto mayo runs over the side, that's a good thing because it means it's going to be delicious. Now I have a pile of beautiful basil leaves. So I'll put a whole leaf right on top of the tomato. And then a little bit more of pesto mayo on the top slice of zucchini. And put that upside down. Look at that. I want the sliders to stay together on my trip to town. So I'll stick in a toothpick to hold it together. So pretty. I'll finish the sliders with a drizzle of balsamic glaze and a sprinkling of basil leaves. Hasselback tomatoes. We're going to make these little thin wedge cuts. So one down and then see that the chopsticks kind of help guide you. And then you're going to take a nice little thin one there. And you're going to make a bunch of these cuts just like that. Next, fresh basil, a little fresh mozzarella. And you're going to wedge those right in there just like I've done there. And of course, we're not done yet. Every great caprese or Hasselback tomato needs a little drizzle of balsamic glaze. That is fantastic. It's simply a lovely addition to any salad plate. I'm making my Annie Pasto salad with prosciutto wrapped breadsticks. I'm going to make the dressing first. And I'm going to start with two tablespoons of olive brine since I'm going to be topping the salad with a bunch of olives. And this is going to add really nice acidity and a lot of salt. So I'm not going to need to add any more salt after the brine. I'll add a teaspoon of mustard. Add that little zinginess. I'll whisk this together. And as I whisk, I'm going to drizzle in some olive oil. Okay, this has thickened. It's creamy. I'm going to add some black pepper. And that's it for the dressing. I'll grab the greens. I'm using a mix of spinach and arugula here. Spinach is just great and tender. And arugula gives that awesome peppery bite. I want to toss it with my dressing. And I'm doing it now because once all of the Annie Pasto toppings are on there, I don't want to have to toss it because they're so pretty as they are. I'll get these completely coated. And I always use a nice big wide serving platter for this. And now I'll pretty up this salad with some beautiful Annie Pasto elements. Here are all my favorite foods. A bunch of cheese and loads of meat. And now I'm going to pile them on top of these greens. I'm going to start with some parmesan cheese. And I love to really bite into my parmesan cheese. So rather than grating it, I've crumbled it. And I'm going to keep all of the toppings in their own little piles. That way people can grab the things that they like and arrange their own salad adventure. Next, I'd like to do the olives. I love olives. I used to hate olives. But learning to love olives is just part of becoming a grown-up. I'll add some roasted red peppers for color and smokiness. I like this salad in the dead of winter when it's sometimes hard to come across good fresh vegetables. It's a good standby. A few creamy artichokes. A big old handful of salty fatty salami. You'll find me at this section of the salad plate. Some pickled sweet peppers. Wow, these are so bright. Some juicy tomatoes. Put them right next to the parmesan because tomatoes need a little salt. And parmesan is really salty. Perfect pair. I'm leaving a section in the center for some marinated mozzarella balls. Because they look really cute. I'll tear them up and plop them in the middle. So this salad is inspired by this gigantic Annie Pasto spread at this restaurant right behind Carnegie Hall. I used to go there with my dad after he would play concerts there. And it was the best thing ever. There was so much cheese and meat. And now there's one last open spot. I'll slice up a sweet pear. I'll pile these right on and drizzle them with a little balsamic glaze. It's sweet and sticky and really pretty. And now comes the time where I get to wrap these breadsticks with prosciutto, which is really good. They get a little soft when they're wrapped in prosciutto because they soak up the fat. And they're fun to eat. So I'm going to take half a slice of prosciutto and just wrap it around a breadstick. Just like that. I'll plop this on the salad and then keep on wrapping. Prosciutto is so good. How pretty is this? And now for the final touch, I'll tear some fresh basil all over. Fresh basil makes me feel like I'm in Italy. I don't think anyone's going to notice if I have a bite. A little mozzarella, a little salami, an olive. This is the salad of my dreams. This is my triple tomato salad, which could be quadruple or what's the word for five? Quintuple. Yes. So at the end of the season, tomatoes are everywhere, right? So the tomatoes you thought were ripe are now overripe. The tomatoes that are overripe are on the way out. So this is kind of a way to use all of them. And I like tomatoes plain and in a salad, but I love the texture of them cooked, raw, and marinated. So that's what we're doing. So we're taking the tomatoes that aren't so great. And these are little cherry tomatoes that I like. They're good, but they're not really as good as they should be. We're going to roast them, okay, in a 350 degree oven. Very simple until I like to say they give it up. They're just like, okay, I'm done, right? Throw a little olive oil, throw the tomatoes, a little smoked sea salt or regular sea salt, some dried thyme, which I love for roasting, and a few pieces of garlic. This is not confit of tomatoes. This is just a quick roast. You put it in there and you leave it alone for about 20 minutes. Just like that, all right? All right. 350. And that is that what you have. You see, they've sort of given it up. Kind of crinkly, but really nice. And what the beauty of this is that stuff on the bottom. We want to keep that. That is really gorgeous. So I'm going to put that aside for step one. Step two, we're going to make a marinated salad. Now, these are those jelly bean tomatoes that are just like, you keep eating them and you can't stop. They're so sweet. They're usually orange or yellow and they call them grape or jelly beans. There's all kinds of names. These are really fresh. First, I'm going to make a little vinaigrette with a little bit of honey, some mustard, and a little bit of Calabrian chili. This guy, I guess. Just a touch. His favorite. Joey Calabrese over here from the old neighborhood. And a little bit of white wine vinegar and olive oil. That's it. And that's, it's done, right? So you're just going to take this, let it sit. Maybe a little salt and pepper. Okay. And that is the marinade. So we're going to just cut the rest of them up. And now we have two tomatoes working. So two of our three are done. Okay. Jeffrey, my favorite tip that you ever taught here on the kitchen was when you made a BLT and you sliced the tomatoes and you took the tomato juice left on the board and brushed it on the bacon. There you go. I remember. Okay. So in that we have, I put a few raw red onions. Wow. Yeah. And I'm going to put that in there and leave it sort of to marinate. And that's step two. Boom. So this is, you know, heirloom tomatoes, which means? It's like original OG tomato from the Yale yesteryears. Original seeds. Yeah. Of the plant. 60 years or something. Yeah. We're going to cut it down around. You're going to hold the core with your finger, go around the core. Very important. This piece is the best part of the tomato right there. That piece to me. I like to put that aside and save it. And then. It's like the oyster of the tomato. I sort of trim them up just a bit and we won't throw any of this away. I love these heirloom tomatoes. When you go to the farm stand, there's all these different ones. Oh, look at that. Beautiful. So with the tomato, I just want to show you that piece there. Isn't that beautiful? It almost looks like a melon, right? So pretty. So the fresh is going to be on top. The marinated and the roast are going to be sort of spread around. So every bite you have a little bit of a different style of tomato. So for this, just to loosen it, I'm going to put a touch of vinegar on the bottom. That's just to loosen it. And all of that, all of that tomato and salt has just created this gorgeous little vinaigrette. We're just going to drop it down. And you can just see that these tomatoes now have like sort of dehydrated and become more intense. So important when you marinate things to stir them right before you plate. Oh, and then we're just going to have some fun with this because these just deserve one thing. And that's salt and olive oil, like you said earlier, because they are so beautiful. Maybe some of that smoked sea salt you had over there would be good. Are you going to do it? I'm going to do it. Yeah, buddy. And then I like dill on tomatoes. I don't know why. It's just so good. I love dill. And a few pieces of basil. So I just like to throw a few on top. And there you have our three expressions or three-part tomato salad, roasted, marinated. Someone's dipping in already. Ready to go on this. Isn't that pretty? That is beautiful. Beautiful. Katie, I'm going to give you a little love. Yes, I really want to try this. Seared piece of fish, like a sea bass with that would be very good. There you are, Katie. I can't wait to try this. Look how beautiful that is. Gosh, I wouldn't expect anything less so of a Jeffrey's Zuccherian tomato salad. Now, what's acceptable to add to this? Can I add some shrimp? Can I add mozzarella? If you want a small piece of burrata, we go with this. But texturally, this should be enough. Jeffrey, the way that you added the roasted in there, the marinated, which has such a zing from the vinegar and their own natural acidity, and then paired it with the dill and the basil. I don't need anything else. I can just end the meal. The starter is plenty. I mean, star. A plus. Love it. Tortilla pinwheels. And I'm going to make them three ways. OK, so I'm starting with the cream cheese mixture. And this is going to go on all three tortillas. It's just a mixture of cream cheese and pesto. So then I have three different colors of tortilla. Look, isn't that fun? Wow. I'm going to start with the spinach. And I'm going to take probably a third of the cream cheese mixture, which looks like a lot. And then I'm going to spread it out until it totally covers the tortilla. And these get rolled up and sliced. So you just want to make sure the cream cheese mixture goes to the very, very edge. Otherwise, you will wind up with lonely, sad, depressing end pieces that don't have any substance whatsoever, literally. OK, and so this is going to be a veggie version. So I've got sun-dried tomatoes. And I'm just going to sprinkle everything over. Now, I've got some artichoke hearts. And they're chopped really fine. And then my weakness, olives. And then some chopped spinach. You want to roll them up and then just put them seam side down. OK, second tortilla pinwheel is going to be sort of a meaty variety. So on goes the cream cheese. OK, so I got it on the plain tortilla. So now I've got a mixture of pepperoni. Yum, yum. Is this a charcuterie wrap? That's what this is, a charcuterie wrap. Ding, ding, ding. Salami. But you're getting the point here that you can basically open your fridge. I've got some prosciutto. This is kind of elevated here. Just whatever you have works in a tortilla pinwheel. Swiss cheese. Alex for the win, calling this a charcuterie tortilla wrap. OK, so I'll wrap this up. And when you do roll it up, you want to tuck as you go. So then when you get to the point of slicing it, you don't have like big gaps in the center. Now, really the secret to these is making them ahead of time and then popping them in the fridge. So I'm doing a spicy version. And this is a jalapeno cheddar tortilla, which is kind of exciting. And then I just have these sweet mini peppers to buy in the grocery store in bags. Sliced thin. And some hot cherry peppers. And those go over. And then some arugula, which is sort of inherently spicy. And then pepper jack cheese. And then roll this up. OK, so three kinds of tortilla pinwheels. Check it out, Paige. So beautiful. I love the colors. Spicy, veggie, and just charcuterie. So hold that thought. I'm going to slice them up. But I've already got some that I made and they're in the fridge. I actually made these yesterday. So the tortillas are just kind of soft and at one with all of the ingredients. OK, things are about to get exciting. I'm going to unwrap and slice all of these and then put them on the platter. I ran out of platter space. But look at these, Paige. Look how cute. It looks like a sushi board. Isn't that beautiful? It's beautiful. Which one should I eat? That one. The spicy one? OK. Winner. You know what I like best about tomatoes and burrata? It's so elegant. So I'm starting with a pint of heirloom cherry tomatoes. And I'm cutting them in half. And I just cut them through the stem. They're heirloom tomatoes because the seeds have been handed down from generation to generation. And they have incredible colors and flavors. You can actually grow these yourself. Just get heirloom tomato seeds and grow them in the ground or in pots. So easy. So that's the tomatoes. So next is the burrata. And what burrata is, it's mozzarella with a very soft center. I'll show you when I cut it. And this is enough for two. It always comes in water to stay moist. And I'm going to cut it in half. And you'll see the center is really creamy. And what I do is put the creamy side down on the plate, just like that. You're not going to believe how easy this dish is to make. And I'm going to put the tomatoes right around. It'll look gorgeous. It's going to be delicious. It's a really nice lunch or a first course before dinner. Look how pretty this looks. OK. I'm going to drizzle it with olive oil. Don't even need to make a vinaigrette. Just do it right on the plate. Sprinkle it with sea salt. I use sea salt like a finishing salt. Fleur de sel. A little pepper. And some basil because, of course, you have to have basil with tomatoes and mozzarella. I mean, sometimes you can even just take small basil leaves and put them right on or tear them. But I think it looks pretty also to chiffonade them. So that's what I'm going to do. This is a real summer dish. You don't want to turn on the stove. You've got something on the grill. The perfect first course. A little basil around. And then the last ingredient's really important. It's really good syrupy balsamic vinegar. And I'm just going to drizzle it right over the top. It's sweet. It's acidic. It's everything you could possibly want in a tomato mozzarella and basil salad. Iron Chef spicy shrimp cocktail. So two bay leaves, water, no salt, none, zero. Peppercorns. End of story. Right here, I have my shrimp. U16, U12, U11. It's per pound. So U16 are slightly smaller. U8s are jumbos. Big ones. Anything too big, it becomes like a first course entree. It's chewy. It's too much shrimp at one time. This is something you should dip with the tail into the sauce, eat it, throw this tail away and go back for more right away. So just to clarify, U12 means is under 12 pieces. Is a pound in weight, which is a medium size. So U8, under eight, is bigger. Giant. As the numbers get smaller, the shrimp gets bigger. U1's a lobster. Are you ready? Ketchup. Do you use ketchup when you're making this? Love. Okay. What else would you use? Well, there's other chili sauce and stuff like that. No. I use ketchup. That's the best. Okay. The shinier, the better. Yeah. Horseradish. Like so much, it's ridiculous. Jeffrey, that is a lot of horseradish. Okay, be careful. Hot sauce. Who are you? A little bit of chili. Oh, a little chili? Sweet chili glaze, yeah. Chili glaze. Lemon juice. Worcestershire sauce. There it is from the hometown. I can't with the sweet chili sauce. That really surprised me. I love that. So it should not appear red. It should appear almost like that. You see that? We're gonna let that sit and hang out. Now, our shrimp are going in right here. I let that cook just a little bit just to get some of that. It's changed color. The peppercorn has changed color of the water. In boiling water. And now what we're gonna do is the most important thing. I don't keep my shrimp on ice. I don't put my shrimp in an ice bath after because guess what they soak up? Water. And I put them in the fridge after I cook them on this right away. No shocking. No shocking whatsoever because it's another step. It's another waste of water and waste of time and a dish you got to prepare. It shouldn't be hard to do this. This shrimp was thawed in the fridge overnight. I bought it peeled, cleaned, ready to go, frozen. Wow. Okay? You don't have to buy fresh shrimp for this. So now we're just gonna mend and we're gonna take our time and look at this. You see? Right away, they're always starting to curl a bit. So if you can see right now, they're starting to get white and translucent. This is gonna take not a lot of time, but you must cook them fully. I would err on the side of, should I say this? Of slightly overcooking them. If you're gonna go this route, be careful you don't want to undercook them. Somebody write down the date. The nose heat is getting to his brain, I hear. When you cut a shrimp in half that's cooked, it should be white the whole time. You're moving them around a lot as you cook. Why are you doing that? Just because it'll cook evenly. This is just a little method. I don't have a lot of water. I don't have a big pot of water. It's at a boil. These go right on a paper towel. Oh, you did it. They're fully cooked. I'm gonna let you just take a smell of that. You tell me what you smell. Just pass it down. Just shrimp. Okay, you don't smell lemon. You don't smell 5,000 exotic weird... It smells like shrimp cocktail. Old-fashioned shrimp cocktail. In the fridge, just like this, uncovered. In five minutes it cools down, you're ready to serve it. That's it. Can you blast chill it in the freezer? No, you don't have to do that. Don't waste your time. All right. Put some more Sinatra on, make another martini. There you go. That sounds delicious. A dirty martini and a shrimp cocktail. Oh, nothing like it. Now, I don't put these on ice. When I serve them, shock them, or store them, they're always off ice. You put these out in small quantities, not large quantities. So they get eaten, then you take out more small quantities and fill up. You don't put like a whole stuff on ice. I hate them when they're on ice, because invariably you get a piece of ice and you're eating ice. I hate that. Okay, you ready? Here's our beautiful spicy sauce. This should destroy my nose. And that's where I like it to be at. Very aggressive approach. Jeffrey. I think your septum's gonna melt. Here we go. Ready? Oh my god. Stage five clinger. My mouth is watering. It is. Snappy? Snappy the shrimp? Uh-oh. Good. You saw the horseradish. It's not too much. The sweet chili sauce actually tames it down. The long-range effect of this is you want more. And that's what a shrimp cocktail should want you to make. This is so delicious. This sauce I just made for you, you can make a big batch of it. It's one of these things that last, actually gets better. And this is so simple. There's no reason to ever make this and overcook it again. Taking my inspiration from a traditional Easter favorite, deviled eggs, to make my easy rosemary deviled potatoes. What do you guys think? Sunny, you can devil just about anything and it would be delicious. Well, Katie, this is really an homage to you, because I know you always say it's not a party unless there are deviled eggs. That is true. And since people are used to having like scalloped potatoes, maybe around this holiday season, I thought we'd do a mash-up of the two. I'm really gonna mash them up. So I've got some red bliss potatoes in here. We're going to boil them and infuse them with some rosemary. So drop that in there. Nice bit of salt to season it up. And then over the top, some water. You don't get the water hot before you put the potatoes into the pot. You want to make sure the water and the potatoes and everything else cooks at the same time. So the outside and the very inside of the potatoes are nice and tender. And that's what we're going for here. Fork tender, so it shouldn't take too long. So I'm going to start up that pot right there, but let me show you what it looks like. Now I've got them here on the sheet. It's really smart to bring them out of the pot, but this is what it is here. Find its natural bottom, right? And then just come through and get a nice slice. And that's going to go into our bowl and become the filling. Just kind of like when you deviled the eggs, you want to scoop out the center. This is going to remind you of a twice-baked potato that we did not bake twice. We didn't even bake it, okay? We just boil it really quick. And if you get those potatoes in the bag that you can steam, just steam them like maybe two minutes under the recommended amount of time, and they'll be perfect for this recipe. Hey, Sunny, is there a reason you're using Red Bliss potatoes for this? Yeah, I mean, I like Red Bliss. They're easy to find. I like the waxy, you know, content of them. But you can also use new potatoes that are yellow skin or brown skin, if you will. And I like to do this with three pounds, but, you know, a half recipe is great for your backyard party. Okay, so they're in our food processor here. What I'm going to add to that to add some flavor. Now, remember, they're already infused with the rosemary, so a little bit of lemon zest. And then it could be sour cream or what I love to use, which is whole fat Greek yogurt. And then to that, some grained Dijon mustard. Get that in there. Those are great flavors. I like the combination of lemon rosemary. You know, I feel like potatoes are good by themselves. You just boil them and sprinkle over some salt and pepper and you're good to go. But if we're going to make a presentation and we're going to double them, might as well fill them up with something nice and bright, like a little bit of lemon zest. You can also do orange zest. That would be fun right here as well. But we're just keeping it simple with the lemon zest, a little bit of whole fat Greek yogurt and the whole grain mustard. Now you see lots of pepper. And then to the side here, just a little bit of that water that we boiled the potatoes in. It's going to help it be a little bit loose so we can pipe it later on. Not too much. Okay, now. Now this is an important part. You don't want to overmix this because it'll become kind of gluey and sticky. So you just want to turn it on and pulse it. Just mix it. And you see as you get in here, it's getting to that texture where you say to yourself, all right, I can get this into a piping bag and go to town. So that's what we're going to do right now. And here is everything in here. Remember the tops of the potatoes, little lemon zest, and then you just kind of squeeze it out. See all those little pieces of mustard? Get in there. You got to give it the curb appeal. So the piping is great. If you don't want to put this in a plastic bag and cut off the corner, you can always just do what I call the two-spoon method. All right, over the top, just some chives. And then a little deviled egg curb appeal from my youth. My mom used to always hit the deviled eggs with a little bit of paprika. Now, you know, this is my hot Hungarian paprika, but you can use sweet or smoked. And just hit it high so everything gets an even distribution of the paprika. And there you have it. Perfect for Easter. We break the rules and make it delicious. Three things I love about a cheese platter are, first, that it's an entire course at a dinner party. No cooking at all. How great is that? And the second thing I like is, when you bring it to the table and put it down in the middle, people just go crazy. It's really simple to do, but it's so impressive. And I think the third thing is, even though it's very elegant, it's really served family style. Everybody helps themselves, and it's really fun. And you know my motto is, if it's not fun, it's not done. So let's make a cheese platter. I'm on the hunt for fig leaves. So the dirty little secret of East Hampton is, the season's really too short for the figs to develop, but I use fig leaves for all kinds of things. Platters, cheese trays. They're really great because they're flat, and they're big, and they're gorgeous. I just take them in, wash them off, dry them, and use them. And you can save them in the fridge. So the first thing I always do with a cheese platter is put down some green leaves. These are fig leaves from my garden, but if you don't have a fig tree in your garden, you can use hydrangea leaves, you can go to the florist and get Galax leaves. Whatever you have that's sort of big, green, and flat. Okay, and the next thing I always do is I always put a big bunch of grapes right in the middle. It can be a couple of bunches of grapes, actually. The first time I did a cheese platter was like 40 years ago, and my friend Anna Pump was with me. And I did, I don't know what it looked like, but it probably looked like a dog's breakfast. And she came over to me and she said, okay, now take everything off the platter. I was like, okay. And then she said, okay, now put the grapes in the middle, the cheese around the outside, and big blocks of crackers and apricots. And then she said, and stop. Those are two really good lessons, is to do it really simply and beautifully, and then stop. Okay, so we've got a big bunch of grapes in the middle, and then I'm gonna put the cheeses on the outside, as Anna taught me. So I have different kinds of cheeses. I like soft ripening cheeses like Brie, like this is one. I have a blue cheese. This is English Stilton, which I adore. And you want the rinds in and the cheese facing out. And this is incredible. This is pecorino with truffles. So it's an Italian cheese that's just so flavorful. And the last one is a goat cheese. So now I've got all different shapes and flavors. I've got creamy things. I've got crumbly things. I've got hard, sharp things. And the goat cheese, which is called fleur vert, is a very creamy goat cheese with herbs on the outside. So just put that right there. So now I've got extra space on the platter to put other things. And I love things that like go with cheese. So fresh strawberries are great. So I'm just gonna put a big bunch of fresh strawberries on. And just kind of paint it, you know, just keep it really casual. So when I do a cheese platter, I always do it as a second course. So there's a main course, the cheese course, and dessert. And you want to do it not when you're making filet beef for dinner and like chocolate mousse for dessert, because people will go home holding their bellies going, oh, I'm never eating again. You don't want that. So I always do it when I have something light, like fish or a stew, like a fish stew. And then I serve something like granita for dessert, because this is a pretty rich course. So that's strawberries. Then I'm gonna do some, maybe some apricots in the middle. So big blocks of color. You don't want it to look like that original one that I did, which looked like a dog's breakfast. And then I always like other things that taste good with it. So a little fig jam is wonderful. Like the blue cheese and the fig jam is great together. So I'm just gonna, I mean, really, it's all store-bought. Just put a little bowl in with fresh fig jam, a little knife, and everybody can help themselves. Sometimes people serve cheese as a first course, like before dinner. I just think people fill up on cheese. You want it to be like a treat after dinner. I love this. I love fig jam and stilton together. Okay, now crackers. So I have different shaped crackers and different colors of crackers. So I have light crackers like these sticks. They're really delicious, just like that. Just put them right on. And then I have dark crackers that are like little crisp things. So I'm just gonna put them around. I don't even need room, which is exactly what's, when it looks the best, when it's all like full and sumptuous. If you're gonna make cheese platter for a lot of people, don't get more kinds of cheese, just get big, bigger pieces. Or cheese platter for a smaller group, the same thing. Smaller pieces of cheese. Okay, I think I'm gonna do one more thing. I like a little height on this brie. So what I'm gonna do is take a little piece of it and just put it right on top. So now it's got a little more height, kind of matches the other ones. And I've got one more thing. I've got a fig ball. This is dried figs. Let's see how this is gonna go on. And I'm just gonna, I'm gonna open the fig ball and it's dried and wrapped in fig leaves. And just open the whole thing so people can help themselves. Maybe I'll cut it in half. That's a good idea. And you'll see all the figs inside. Oh, all these dried figs. That's really great. I mean, that doesn't look half bad, does it? Hang on a moment. Let me just show you that again. I mean, how easy was that? It's five minutes. It looks really impressive. And there's no cooking at all. That's what I call fun.