How to create a delicious grazing table for your party

Welcome to our annual fall party, and our party grazing table! You might have read previous posts about the party-decor test run I did with a sneak peek tablescape, and seen the party mantel already. As you could tell from those posts, I’m having a little love affair with bay branches this year. You can get the whole bay story in the sneak peek post. But for now, suffice it to say that bay is my current love language!

So of course, I decorated the main attraction with bay too. And here it is – a grazing table fit for 50 of my closest friends!

Half of the dining room table was reserved for separate food platters, and half was the grazing board. But before I get into the actual food, I wanted to show you how I did the decorating. And how you can do it too.

The grazing table centerpiece

I wanted the centerpiece to be raised in the center of the food table, so I could still use the space under it. (I had gone a little overboard on the food shopping this year, but I just kept finding more great things at the store!) I needed as much table space as possible.

I started out with two cake stands, and a thin board. (And candles on top, naturally!)

Then, the magic of Museum Putty! I might have gone off about Museum Putty before – I love it so much! It’s totally the greatest! With just two putty pieces for each stand, I attached the board to the tops of the cake stands. After just a bit of pressure, they were seriously on there!

Another two pieces of putty to attach the candle holders to the board.

This putty is so strong that after all my sticking, I could lift the whole arrangement up by the candle holders!

Decorating the centerpiece

Once I had my centerpiece framework done, it was easy to decorate. Just like the mantel, I laid the bay branches outward from the middle, and included some gold eucalyptus branches from the garlands I got. The garlands were really easy to take apart, and will be easy to put back together if I want an actual long one next time.

I had gotten this lovely champagne satin ribbon, and wove that in. I like the colors together, and I thought it added a little elegance.

More candles

Finally, I snugged two taper candles into the greenery.

When I was putting this together, I was a little concerned about the candles. I had visions of my guests setting their hair on fire as they reached for their grazing table goodies. But of course, that didn’t even come close to happening. The middle of the table was plenty far away from people’s heads!

The drips you see on the candle holders were old ones. No wax dripped into the centerpiece from either the pillars or the tapers.

The candlelight was really beautiful at the party. That lovely flicker warmed up the table, and made it even more inviting.

(Ignore the empty platters there on the left. We don’t put out the hot food until people start arriving.)

The grazing table setup

Here’s this full table picture again, but this time I want to point out the table-sized board. My neighbor cut and finished these boards for me with food-grade oil, and I joined them together with kitchen string. They span the entire length of the table and make it so easy to arrange the food. Plus, they’re pretty too! (Not that you really see them when they’re covered with good things to eat, but I know they’re pretty underneath!)

After the boards are in place, I filled up the rest of the table space with other boards and platters. In the picture below, we were starting to set things out, and you can see how I put the mustard jars in their proper sections so that my helpers would know where they go.

The smaller boards were for the gratin potatoes my wonderful husband makes every year. They come to the table straight from the oven, so need something pretty solid and heat-resistant to sit on.

Dessert grazing table

We had sweets too, but there wasn’t room on the main table. So we put the desserts on the sideboard. I had kind of a mini chocolate grazing board, along with the famous chocolate chip cookies, and some other desserts.

The board that these chocolates are on is handmade by a friend of ours who is an amazing artisan. It’s so beautiful I almost hate to use it, but it’s perfect for chocolate!

Plus, there’s also room on the sideboard for any goodies that guests bring. I tell them not to, but sometimes they do anyway! Since we have some friends who are really great cooks, I’m totally not complaining!

The food

Now, let’s talk about the food at our grazing table. I’m so glad this concept is in style these days, because I’ve always loved it! I did this at our 2019 fall party, and it was a hit then, too. It’s just so much fun! This is what part of that year’s table looked like.

This year’s table was a bit less “organized” but I did try to be artistic. You can see a couple of the same items from year to year. The round golden thing with a knife in the top is a delicious gorgonzola and blackened walnut baked cheese! A friend of ours created the recipe years ago, and I make it every year. It’s a crowd favorite.

We use lots of cheeses and crackers, breads, vegetables, nuts, and of course, charcuterie on the grazing table. I get lots of different meats, and though most are sliced into rounds, some are thin enough that I can fold them into fans or flowers, or whatever.

The table also includes lots of fresh and dried fruits. The dried fruits go over particularly well, especially the fun and different ones. Trader Joes is totally a host’s best friend, as you know, and I got most of my dried fruit there. Most of the crackers, breads, and cheeses, too.

In this picture below, you can see the dried passionfruit in the foreground – the orange and black-spotted rounds. Those were gone in the first hour! Note to self to buy more of these next year!

The dried coconut sticks in the lower right of the picture below also were a big hit. I couldn’t find any dried pineapple rings this year, but in previous years, they’ve been really great.

The shopping list

Here’s a list of the things I put on this year’s grazing table. This is just a jumping off place, of course. You can put whatever you want on your own table.

If you want your own printable copy of the grazing table shopping list, sign up in the form below. You’ll also get notification whenever we publish another post, as well as all kinds of other goodies!

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Click on the pictures of the pieces I used in this post. If the exact item isn’t available any more, I chose a similar option.

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