Yasmin Fahr

Many thanks to NetGalley, Clarkson Potter and Yasmin Fahr for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. My thoughts and opinions are 100% my own and independent of receiving an advance copy.

Charcuterie boards are all the rage and you can find all kinds of variations online like candy boards or breakfast boards, so I thought I would check out Boards and Spreads. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I was a little disappointed. The pictures are not enticing or comprehensive, which I think is a key component to charcuterie boards. There are some recipes in here which are for the most part simple and easy. You don’t need any fancy kitchen skills for this which is great. I use the term recipes loosely as a lot of it is premade. For example Za’atar flatbread is store bought flatbread with za’atar and olive oil. I don’t need a recipe for that.

I think there are a lot of ideas in this book and from the table of contents looks very comprehensive but as I made my way through the book, I was uninspired. Fahr does leave things open to your interpretation, so that you can take her ideas and do your own variation. I also found the set up of the book not very user friendly. Everything seems squished and not easy to find. There is an index in the back to help you find things, but overall I thought the presentation should have been clearer. I’m not sure realistically, how much I’ll use this book but I’ll keep it for a bit and see if it is more useful than it seems.… (meer)