But I’ve been concocting all kinds of late-night improvisational meals and desserts and sharing only with my closest friends. Omnomicon’s mission statement is really to share dinner parties with the Internet-at-large, and so I feel like I’ve really been leaving some important guests off the list. The improvisational nature of these goodies really impede their shareability—I’m most creative around midnight, substituting everything for what I have on hand with guests gracing my living room, and I never know if it will truly come out. To photograph would be rude, and seems to jinx my success anyway.

So despite a lack of photographs, I have to share what turned out to be my most incredible late-night cheese platter to date. Use your colourful imagination to pretend that my house is impeccably kept and my serving platters not chipped. Imagine also the excellent company eccentrics such as Dano and myself might keep, and you’re probably right on.

World’s Most Incredible Improvisational Cheese Platter
intended to be served at least two hours after dessert, between the hours of 12am and 3am

Please amend according to your own stockpile of cheese & emergency guest crackers. I’ve paired the components together in the manner in which they are intended to be enjoyed, but of course experimentation is bound to occur.

1 box Water Crackers
8 oz whipped Neufchatel cheese mixed with 2 tbsp pesto concentrate (found in the fancy part of the pasta aisle in a paint-tube)

Leftover cheese from dinner, in this case, fresh mozzarella
1 tbsp leftover fig paste (just dab the mozzarella in there…this stuff can be overpowering)

Lindt Excellence Dark Chocolate Chili Chocolate bar, each square cut into four pieces
Cold tart green grapes, to cool the mouth after each piece of chocolate

Babybel cheese (the delicious little round things in red wax, just because they are hell of fun)

Ideas for variations:
Whole sugar-toasted almonds
Frozen sliced Ho-Hos (don’t laugh, they’re surprising and delicious)
Some kind of meat and earn yourself the right to call it charcuterie
Apricot jam substituted for fig paste
Make a cheese ball of the pesto cream cheese: roll in pine nuts & stick on dried cranberries

If you don’t hear from me in the meantime, Happy Holidays from Omnomicon! Treat yourself to something delicious on my behalf.

<3,
Aleta