Food Station Suggestions

Food stations are a fun way to get your guests to mingle. Generally food stations offer a single type of food like seafood or a particular cultural theme like Asian. Choose several to give your guests a variety of tastes and perhaps the chance to try something new!

Fire and Ice Seafood

Iced shrimp with cocktail sauce
Iced Chesapeake oysters and little neck clams
Steamed mussels with lemongrass, coconut milk & chilies
Sautéed garlic shrimp tossed with angel hair pasta
Pan-seared cocktail crab cakes with jalapeno with crushed corn and thyme cream

Asian Noodle Bar

A selection of three hot noodles served from woks in brightly colored Chinese take-out cartons with chopsticks
Teriyaki beef noodles with scallions
Thai chicken satay noodles with peanuts and coriander
Chinese vegetable noodles with eggplant, pepper and onion

Yo! Philadelphia

Miniature Philadelphia cheesesteaks with sautéed onions, mustard and ketchup
Miniature Italian hoagies
Pepperoni calzone
Caesar salad with creamy parmesan dressing
Soft pretzels with yellow mustard

Our Food

Entertaining Tip

BY STEVE POSES

Paying for the Differential of Quality

Here’s one way to think about paying for quality. If you planned on spending $10 for a serviceable olive oil and instead spent $18 for a really good bottle, the cost of the really good bottle was only the differential, or $8. A standard hothouse tomato may be $1, compared to a $2.50 heirloom tomato for a salad. That’s a difference of 250 percent, but it’s just a $1.50 differential, and the difference in quality is great, at least 250 percent. If you’re worried about cost, you can decide to use less of a really good ingredient. Have a small tomato salad. Use a few drops of olive oil. Eat a 6-ounce portion of a really fine steak rather than 8 ounces of a just-okay steak. If you calculate the lifetime cost of selectively, paying for quality isn’t substantial — but your enjoyment is.