The days of tepid cheese platters with stale crackers and bland and/or rancid Hors d’oeuvres is finally over. Starting at celebrity shindigs in Australia back in 2017, the concept of hosting a grazing table instead of a traditional snacks and buffet offering has now taken hold here in the United States on the West Coast. Celebrities are now pulling out all the stops in order to top one another when it comes to compiling a completely rustic and organic grazing table for guests at weddings, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, and other social gatherings.
So what exactly is a grazing table? Simple. The food offerings are raw fruits and vegetables, with some basic dips. Artisan bread in abundance. Fruit and vegetable salads. Domestic and foreign unsliced cheese (NOT cheeseballs!) and a plethora of other attractive and uncooked items that guests can nibble at — or, in other words, graze on without having to fill a plate with gooey, sticky, slippery warmed up items that will slide into their lap.
Ashley Greene and Paul Khoury tied the knot last year with a lavish celebration in Los Gatos, California, that included an amazing grazing table for the select two dozen guests. The couple decided to make it strictly locavore as well. It featured raw almonds from local orchards, wines from local vineyards, a brilliant goat cheese from a local creamery, and a dozen different eggplant and tomato dishes made from local produce.