Ben's Skewered Snacks

My husband Lex came up with the idea to have a party of sorts, just the four of us, where we would each come up with a dish to make and bring to the party, which was held downstairs in the family room (an auspicious occasion, as I normally exercise my right, as the sole vacuum operator/floor cleaner of the household, to ban food from carpeted areas of the house).

Lex made wings, I made guacamole, and 10 year old Hayden called dibs on dessert: she made ice cream sundaes (not a healthy choice, as was originally planned, but it was a party after all, and Lex and I are suckers for ice cream). Ben was devastated that his sister had monopolized the dessert fare, and was rendered inconsolable about not getting to make a sweet treat ("but you said we could make whatever we wanted! You said!!"). Then I remembered my secret weapon: the little plastic swords used to skewer olives and other garnishments for drinks. I bought a pack of them a couple of summers ago after Ben had found one on the ground and fallen in love with it. It broke, of course, after a few blissful hours, and heartbreak ensued. We were boat camping at the time, and we went to a marina that afternoon where my husband the hero came back from a short visit with the bartender carrying several "drink swords". When we got back, I bought a pack for emergency use only and have kept them stashed way up in the cupboards. I produce one every once in a while when nothing but a tiny plastic sword will make things right.

Anyway, Ben was thrilled to incorporate weaponry into his dish to pass. 

A note on lunch meat:  Buying preservative free, additive free deli meat is something I consider an unbendable rule. The preservatives and additives in deli meats are some of the worst out there. Sodium benzoate, sodium nitrate, nitrites, they are poison, plain and simple. And caramel coloring, which, due to its innocuous sounding name I considered passable for years, until I recently read its chilling bio. Deli meat that does not contain these hazardous chemicals is crazy expensive compared with its toxic counterparts. It is so tempting to buy the pound of salami for $4 rather than the 5 ounces for $6, especially when my husband will put 5 ounces of salami on a sandwich and not bat an eye, but instead I just buy salami and other deli meats far less frequently than I used to.

The "recipe" is pretty self-explanatory (see picture). I made an assembly line of cubed cheese, salami, smoked ham, olives, grapes, strawberries, and cubed sourdough bread (at least, I tried to cube it. Ben was making skewer after skewer of all grapes or grapes and cheese, I had to get the other choices on the table before he had used all of his allotted swords). His dish was a real hit at the party! Not quite as big as the sundaes, but a lovely runner-up.