Cheese boards are perfect for Summer entertaining. With endless options, preparing a board at home can seem overwhelming, but it shouldn’t be. All you need to prepare a beautiful board at home is a platter, a sharp knife, and your food items.

Work Sharp Culinary has created a new line of knife sharpeners, the E5, an electric sharpener, and the M3, a manual sharpener. In celebration of being picked up by Williams Sonoma, they generously sent me both these new sharpeners, along with their MicroForged Japanese Knife, and tons of other goodies to review for our Girls on Food readers!

To prepare the items on this cheese board, I used the Work Sharp Culinary M3 sharpener to sharpen my favorite paring knife. Since I use it so frequently, the blade on the knife was quite dull, using the M3 was easy, and restored my blade to it’s original sharpness (maybe even better than new!) I used the diamond rod to shape and restore the blade, and followed up with the ceramic rod to create a razor-sharp edge.

I selected 4 cheeses for my board, a sharp cheddar, gouda, brie, and a madrigal cheese – a French baby Swiss. The super sharp knife blade helped me create neat slices in the cheeses, without them becoming gummy or crumbling. I arranged those on my platter first.

Next I sliced up some beautiful plums, and added cherries, raspberries, and champagne grapes. I created small clusters of the fruits around the board, encouraging people to grab a few items at a time. Again, the sharp knife blade was essential to creating perfect slices of fruit.

To me a perfect cheese board is a balance of richness, sweetness, savory, and salty. The cheese and fruit needed some salty, savory elements to bring everything together.

Work Sharp Culinary sent me some Olympia Provisions Saucisson Sec – a French-style salami, flavored with garlic and black pepper. I used the Work Sharp MicroForged Japanese Knife to cut the salami into bite size slices. I added some gourmet pepperoni, and some prosciutto. I wrapped the prosciutto around some hard bread sticks, and folded it flowery shapes. You could also wrap it around pieces of melon or other fruits.

For the final step, I added some pitted olives, and some different types of crackers. Some other great additions for your platter might include dried fruits like figs or apricots, and nuts, like spiced almonds or walnuts.

Thank you Work Sharp Culinary for providing me with such outstanding sharpening tools! I was extremely impressed by the razor-sharp edge I was able to achieve on an older knife using the M3 manual sharpener. It was easy to use and took less than 2 minutes.

Williams Sonoma will also carry a proprietary model, the E5 Plus, which is graphite (black) instead of Rose Gold and includes the belt and guide upgrade pack (pictured above). It will be available through their site beginning 9/1/17 and is slated for their Winter catalog.

Work Sharp Culinary will be accepting pre-orders on their site beginning 8/11/17 with a special gift to the first 500 who order an electric sharpener and to customers who purchase the M3. The pre-order offer ends on 8/31. 

Whether it’s slicing through soft fruits, or crumbly hard cheeses, a sharp knife is key for achieving the optimal presentation.

Hopefully I’ve given you some great ideas on how to create a stunning cheese board of your own. Perfect for book club, ladies night-in, or a romantic dinner at home.

*Although this post is sponsored, all opinions are my own.