How To Throw A Great Tailgate Party Part One: Presentation

Football season is right around the corner!  It isn’t just football, but tailgating parties and barbeques.  Games are a great way to spend time with friends and family, as well as to share great food.  Tailgating and pre-game parties are not only for sharing food, but to catch up with and make new friends!  Creatively made or displayed food could be this year's fun new twist to make preparing the food more enjoyable.  Making the food look more fun is only one way to liven up the preparation.  Sometimes what the food is served on can make the presentation more fun.

All growing up my family had a tradition of watching football games at grandma’s house.  Since the cousins and aunts and uncles were there, each family brought something for a potluck meal.  I vividly remember seeing a family name and motto hand engraved on the bottom of a cutting board.  It seemed like such an amazing idea!  The engraving turned a beautiful board into not just a serving board for the meat and cheese, but also showed to whom the board belonged.  I have since seen that board used in their house as a central part of their decor, when not being used as a cutting board.

If you search on Pinterest for tailgating ideas you will see hundreds of recipes, decoration ideas, and food display ideas.  One how-to shows how to make a football stadium out of the veggie tray.  Another shows how to make football shaped and iced treats.  Yet another gives inspiration on how to lay out the meat and cheese on a serving board.  One thing that they all have in common is they focus equally on the display as well as the food. Adding a touch of personalization can tie everything together to turn gameday into your day.

This is part one of a multi-part series to help you with your tailgating needs!  What are your favorite tailgating food stories?  Do you have any favorite foods that you love sharing on game day?  Let us know in the comments!