We just had our good friends over at our place for dinner on the deck. For snacks, I threw together a plate that had cut up radishes, some grape tomatoes, sliced cucumbers, cubes of various cheeses (Madrigal, smoked Gouda, and Beecher’s) and some crackers. It doesn’t have to be super fancy! 
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With close friends, it can be really unfancy. Last week the weather forced a change of plans with another couple, and they joined us for “leftover buffet”.
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Recipe for charcuterie.
Buy or grab multiple food items from your refrigerator or pantry. Chose an appropriate sized board or tray for arranging.
Start with the larger items - a wheel of Brie, a bunch of grapes, meats.
Think size, color, categories.
Fill in with smaller items. Crackers, nuts, dried fruit.
Squeeze in small “bowls” for condiments like mustard, honey, jam, etc. Or juicy items like pickles or olives.
If you like use small containers to give height to your board.
Think hard/soft items, sweet/salty. Crunchy, smooth.
Done.
Or you can do themed small boards. All sweets. All cheeses. All breads and dippers.
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And you can have fun with your veggies, too. Radish “mice” are easy to make and perk up a cheese platter:
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Of you could order a nice charcuterie board and call it done. 
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Love the mice!
And here is this:
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Seriously cute! Wouldn’t it be fun to do themed ones? We tried to do mostly French and vegetarian, I’ve seen a lot of Italian ones with caprese salad.
It makes a lot more sense. Thanks for the explanation.
I made those penguins ages ago for a large Christmas party we had every year. Always a HUGE hit!
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We love every type of socializing. Restaurants, large parties, small parties, activities, etc. But my favorite is hosting or going to another’s home. I feel closer to to people who have been in my home or I’ve been in theirs.
We are probably with people 3 nights a week—mix of restaurants and homes.
One type of party we did for about 7 years until our friends moved, which hasn’t been mentioned….we had 3 couples who were very close friends. We 3 took turns hosting a supper club once a month. So you hosted every three months, but each of the 3 couples brought a guest couple. So each dinner was 6 couples, and we tried to bring fun people the others didn’t know that well. Maybe it was we each brought 2 couples, so it was 9, i forget. The host was responsible for all the food. It was SO FUN, I might have to get that going again.
But we like all types of gatherings and hosting any of them. We have frequent game nights, we do a neighborhood progressive dinner a few times a year, fancy dinner parties with china and tenderloin or whatever a couple of times a year, but more often dinner for around 10 friends with perhaps people bringing appetizers or dessert. I host a larger party (60+ people) about once a year. I used to love large parties but they’re not my favorite anymore.
As far as cost, I think hosting usually costs a lot more than going out to dinner would, but then of course people reciprocate, and if you bring a couple of bottles of wine or other hostess gift, and maybe a dessert, that’s a lot cheaper than going out to dinner, so it probably evens out to cheaper than restaurants. But nicer, warmer, and more intimate in my view. But I also like checking out all the new restaurants!
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We serve dessert and maybe some cheese and fruit at my monthly book group meeting (alternate at member’s homes). Sometimes I bake, but other times pick up something at a store. Not too difficult.
For friends though I find that so many really don’t eat much dessert so not something we (or our friends have done).
We just joined a supper club. Only met once last fall when we could be outside and have a new date planned for July. The host provides the main, but others bring appetizers and desserts. The others have been doing this for a few years, but we were just invited to join.
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I love reading about all of the different ways y’all entertain. Once we’ve moved and settled in, I hope we can resume at least some casual entertaining even if it’s just cook-outs in the fall.
Years ago, H had a new boss (C-suite exec) who’d moved from Rochester. His new wife was not accustomed to the type of entertaining expected among the senior execs’ wives there at that time. We were invited for coffee and dessert one evening and I was surprised when she pulled out a Pepperidge farm cake to slice and serve. I’d already decided I wanted to know this plain spoken woman better and we became good friends despite our 20 year age difference. She never let anyone make her feel inferior, was as kind and generous as anyone I ever knew, and she loved to host people in her home as long as they were happy with hotdogs on the grill or Publix fried chicken. It was very different from the type of entertaining at home that I grew up with, but it was enjoyable and part of the reason it was fun was that she was never stressed about it.
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We do game nights, though we’ve kept them much smaller since Covid. Usually we’ll have 1-2 people over for that. (we had a friend over last night for a game night). We also occasionally go to game nights at other friends houses as well.
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Pre-Covid, we did lots of socializing. We like to have couples over for dinner. We have bigger dinner parties (2 to 4 couples). We have drinks outside on the river. We go out to dinner. I prefer to do this only with a second couple. We don’t have big parties – we then spend too much time working to talk with people – and I prefer to avoid big parties. We also go hiking and cycling with friends. Sometimes the cycling takes us to someplace for lunch or brunch mid-way.
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Thanks again for all the charcuterie tips! Got back from a trip with a big group and did two charcuterie boards while there! Yay, think the tips here gave me (infrequent chef!) the confidence! Seems like a quite modest goal but it helped! And yep, they were pretty easy! 
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Just had another charcuterie on our deck with a neighbor. Went very well. I think we’ve got this.
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I like to add salami roses to my charcuterie boards. While they are very festive, they do fall apart as soon as someone pulls a piece out. Also, I have see people avoid eating them because they aren’t quite sure how to tackle them.
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i’d say either baking or watching a movie, but hey who says we can’t do both…