Appetizers

The fifth course at the same Blue Plate dinner was called "Things Aren’t Always As They Seem." It was meant to surprise the guests, with cheese molded to resemble summer fruits, pumpernickel “dirt,” chocolate-covered “grasshoppers,” edible “pebbles,” and grilled bread.

For a winter wonderland-theme party, New York-based Peter Callahan used actual snowballs to serve cocktails. The tray was laid with shaved ice to hold the snowballs in place, and the team carefully measured the amount of the drink to commensurate with the time the guest could comfortably hold the snowball—no gloves required.

For the premiere of the latest season of American Horror Story, Los Angeles-based Love Catering worked with FX Networks and Industria Creative on a menu of black-color appetizers. Highlights included a smoked charcoal yucca with cauliflower-squid ink mousse (pictured), plus a reverse spherified charcoal vodka lemonade cocktail.

Los Angeles-based firm Patina Catering created a hollow sea urchin filled with yuzu granite. The urchin is brought out on a bed of rock salt that has clove, cinnamon, and juniper, and it is torched until fragrant.

F10-Catering in Palm Springs, California, created an Indio corn station featuring a variety of dishes all made with local corn. Items included Indio corn fritters, made with bacon, arugula, and sweet chili sauce; corn blini, made with creme fraiche and caviar; corn panna cotta; corn and roasted papilla chile tamales; and more.