A perfect cheese platter consists of 3-4 cheeses, crackers and optional salami.

To start, we’ll go over the cheeses. For a solid base, you should start with something salty like a traditional parmesan or a 5-year-aged gouda. Then include a soft cheese, particularly brie which can be picked up at any supermaket or cheese shop for better quality (or a farmers’ market if you have one near you). Then get something in between like manchego – not too hard, not too soft (although I’ll admit, its texture is a lot like rubber). Now for your 4th, just pick your personal favorite – Yancey’s Fancy XXX Cheddar would be one of my choices.

As for the crackers, I have no real tips except don’t use Saltines – they’re incredibly tacky. Everybody uses them with oysters but I think they’re tacky with a cheese platter.

For salami, get only hard. Get it in the plastic air-sealed tube package – you don’t want the big fat soft stuff.

To finish it off, you can position it all around a small bowl of honey which will be good for your parmesan or gouda. Maybe put some olives on the side too, preferably green. I could keep going on and on like this for 7 hours.

You can get a kit for cheese naming  or you can just put a toothpick in the cheese with a sign on it. It’ll help for people who think they know a lot about cheese but are really newbies.