Antipasti Platter

Crystal and I just got back from a very relaxing trip to Scottsdale, AZ for an extended weekend.  We had a wonderful time and mainly just hung by the pool, walked around Old Town, and of course ate well.  There were a few standout restaurants on the trip, including FnB (Food and Beverage), that I will get into in a later post (want to give them their proper due).  Tonight, I wanted to write about something that we ate for lunch two of the days that was really enjoyable.  That something is an antipasti platter.  The first platter we got was at a place called 5th and Wine, where we enjoyed a nice relaxing lunch in their courtyard patio.  We had tomatoes and basil, three different cheeses (white cheddar, a goat cheese, and a hard italian cheese), two types of cured meats, house marinated olives and some bread and olive oil.  It felt very nice just to pick at the food at our own pace, and paired well with the wines we were drinking.

Now the next day we were so inspired by our antipasti platter that we decided to get another one to start off our meal at Culinary Dropout.  This was a terrific gastropub very close to the fashion square mall in Scottsdale.  This place took its antipasti platters very seriously, with separate stations in the kitchen for the cheeses and where they sliced (paper-thin) to order cured meats.  We got a great Bresaola Salumi as our meat, oven roasted tomatoes mixed with basil and for the cheeses we had Tete de Moine cheese from Switzerland and Port Salut from France.  The Tete de Moine came shaved and assembled in the shape of a flower petal, very cool!  The Port Salut was almost like a butter, soft like a brie or camerbet, but with a slightly more balanced flavor.  Excellent on some good crusty bread.

So, why do I feel compelled to write about this tonight?  Well, we loved the concept so much (not that is new in anyway) that we decided to have it again for dinner tonight.  Friday nights are almost always takeout food for us, we anxiously await for it to arrive and then devour it as if we had not eaten in weeks; but always feel a little unsatisfied after eating it.  In Scottsdale, we thought doing our own antipasti on Friday nights may be an easy, delicious dinner option for us.  It is simple to put together, very satisfying and cheaper than takeout.  Crystal actually was able to find both cheeses we got at Culinary Dropout at our local Whole Foods and they were every bit as delicious as I remember.  She paired the cheeses with some prosciutto, salami, and olives stuffed with garlic cloves.  We also enjoyed a toasted baguette with some olive oil mixed with balsamic vinegar.  Such an quick and simple dinner, but felt like we were eating quality food that we felt much better about eating than Thai takeout or pizza for the 1,000th time.  I have a feeling we will be doing this again real soon.