What to serve at my book club gathering.

[WednesdayGirl]

I'm hosting the next gathering of my book club, and part of my job is to provide snacky-type finger foods for the attendees (not a dinner). There will only be six of us, so I don't have to prepare a ton of food. However, I will probably only have a couple of hours max between getting home from work and the start of the meeting.

Any suggestions? Stuff that can be bought and served right away, or things that can be frozen/refrigerated and then heated if necessary are best. I'm not looking for anything too fancy -- the last hostess served a cheese/veggie tray, hummus, and lemon squares, all of which were very popular.

TIA,

Amy

[rich]

Risotto-stuffed Mushrooms - easy to eat, can be prepared in advance and very, very tasty.

[SobaAddict70]

Taking a page from the NYC e-gullet potluck, try foie gras and strawberry jam sandwiches. These you can prep on bread of your choice and make highly addictive offerings. And ppl will wonder if you're a culinary genius or something.

You could also do a cheese and sausage/salami plate. Simply knock out four or five cheeses, and slice up some hard salami or a variety of sausage, maybe some chunks of baguettes or Italian bread, champagne grapes or apple slices, and that's it.

Or tomato confit -- bake some sliced tomatoes, covered in EVOO in an oven, serve the tomatoes and the oil with baguettes or good bread, add a nice red wine and you're good to go.

SA

[Rachel Perlow]

See this thread for interesting dip ideas.

[Stone]

Poisson en papillote -- but use pages from the week's reading.

[Suzanne F]

I'll go out on a limb and suggest you follow the "ideas" from this past Sunday's NY Times magazine -- an assortment of the best possible canned goods you can find, in interesting combinations. If you have a decent "gourmet store" in your vicinity, all you have to do is go shopping, then pick up some good bread the day of, cut and toast it for bruschetta, and lay everything out for people to take as they choose.

[CathyL]

I'm a big fan of doing mostly stuff you needn't prepare (Soba's cheese/charcuterie suggestion, and/or Suzanne's canned goods) with one home-made something served hot. How about a pissaladiere? There's a very nice and infinitely variable recipe in 'Julia Child & More Company,' one of my favorite sources for party food. It's made with pie crust dough. You can assemble it in advance, freeze and then bake when the group arrives.

[WednesdayGirl]

Thanks so much for the suggestions! I think I like the cheese/salami plate suggestion of Soba's the best so far, simply because I'll be so pressed for time that evening. I'll be venturing out to the market either today or tomorrow, so maybe I'll be inspired there!

Amy

[suzilightning]

since tomatoes are in season a homemade bruchetta or a chilled gazpacho

an olive tapenade would also complement the tomatoes

salmon(i work just around the corner from perona farms that makes a dynamite smoked) with cre

fresh or cream cheese

cream cheese mixed with chutney and smeared on endive then sprinkled with grated nuts

stuffed eggs

most everything can be done ahead of time or in just a flash

[Fat Guy]

If you want to give them something to talk about, have the cover of your book-club selection for the week digitized onto a photo cake. It's pretty cool; basically a scanner coupled with the frosting-emitting equivalent of an ink-jet printer. It literally prints a photo made of frosting onto the surface of a sheet cake. They do this in the bakery sections of many large upscale supermarkets. Near me you can get it done at Stew Leonard's. You can even e-mail them the image (which you can grab from Amazon by enlarging the thumbnail with a click) the day before so you only have to make one trip to pick up the cake. You get a mediocre cake but the conversation-piece value is quite high.

Here's Stew's page on the subject:

http://www.stewleonards.com/html/photocakes.cfm

Here are some examples from another place that does it:

http://www.masonsbakery.com/photo_cakes.htm