Cheese Tray

So, a couple of weeks ago my friend said to me "Hey, want to come to this event with me. My husband doesn't want to go. Did I mention there will be free wine?" While she had me at free wine I did have to locate a babysitter since my husband had to present in a class. But seriously, free wine? Umm, yeah. So, I got a babysitter and was in for a nice evening of recognizing women of achievement with other adults in a nice location. Yay!!

Well, we get there and I help with a few things since my friend is on the board and I didn't really mind helping. As it turns out the expectation of the planners was the some of the students involved would bring food and well, only a couple did. So, while drinking my glass of free wine and tasting some of the yummies the couple of students brought Julie said, "I have to go get food, want to come?" Well, since I didn't know anyone and was Julie's +1 for the night I figured I should, plus it would be fun. Off to HyVee we go to get a premade cheese tray.

The already made cheese trays aren't in the deli section, did you know that? And apparently HyVee can't make any ahead of time because they will dry out and get yucky, so if we wanted a premade one, the Hormel ones were over at the other side of the store. Please note, the woman really made it sound like we were terrible people for buying a Hormel tray. Lady, we just left the event we were at on a food run, do you really think we care? Well, after searching we found one lone cheese tray, and it was a sad little cheese tray. I think everyone wanted cheese for the big game last night. Ok, what are we going to do? Maybe the deli can whip one up for us real quick.

Nope, they can't. The young man was very busy and couldn't do that. However, he could give us a tray when we bought our sliced cheese. Alright, we'll take it. As Julie waited on the cheese I went in search of a plastic knife. Luckily I didn't have to look far, there were plastic ware packages right there. So, we buy the cheese, some crackers, and a fruit tray and off to the car we go.

The grocery store was about 6-8 blocks from the event. While Julie drove, I cut the cheese slices in half and arranged them nicely on the tray. Now, while normally I'm all for finding a quick and easy parking space, I was glad Julie had to parallel park (which she does really well, btw) because if she hadn't the cheese tray wouldn't have been done.

When we got in we took the extra cheese to the kitchen and as I was about to take the tray out to the table I was asked by one of the very sweet organizers if I thought we should cut the slices so it went further. I said "There is more, so I think we'll be fine." What I thought was "Seriously lady? The slices are cut and I made this stupid tray in the car. While it was moving!"

Needless to say the cheese tray was a big hit and we had more than enough cheese slices. And a great event honoring some great women.

It was totally a case of go as a guest, leave as the caterer. But it was tons of fun! Plus, there was wine. And a trip to the new wine bar after.

So, here is the now famous Car Cheese Tray:

Oh, and as a bonus, Julie learned how to e-mail pictures from her phone.