 Hello, this is Barbara from Barbezzellian Touch and today we're going to talk about setting up a buffet table. It's an elegant way to set your food and color and height are always a important part of the buffet presentation. You can even set your planters up the night before and then place your food out just before guests arrive. Levels are very interesting part of the buffet so I would suggest that you make if you do levels that everything is secure and it doesn't tip the day of your event and you have an accident. You can use a one-sided buffet or you can use two-sided service for over 20 guests. This would allow for better flow. It's best to remove any food that's been sitting out for four hours or longer to prevent any foodborne illnesses. Okay, so the first thing I did was I put my tablecloth on the table. The next thing you want to do to create interest is to put an overlay on and you can use this fabric from a fabric store. What I'm using here is just a curtain like a sheer curtain and then what I do is I kind of scrunch it like this to create more interest in the cloth and I think that it looks really pretty this way. So again you can use a themed fabric if you're having a theme party or anything you can think of to put on your table but I'm using a sheer curtain. I think I paid five dollars for it at a resale place and I'm going to create a beautiful buffet out of it. The next thing that we're going to talk about today is the most important thing is our shaffer because this is what's going to keep our food warm during the evening so that our guests can enjoy it. But before we start with this I wanted to show you the different types of sternum that you can use underneath your shaffer here. The first one is a wick sternum and the wood comes off and you just light it right there. This one will last about six hours and then there's another type called a gel. The gel one will only last you about two hours. So depending on how long you're planning on having your food out you have to decide which one would work better for you. So the next thing I'm going to do is get my shaffer ready for heating. So what I'm going to do is pour about an inch of water into my shaffer and if you do more than an inch what's going to happen is once it starts heating up and you have your food in there it's going to bubble over and it's going to hit your tablecloth. So be careful not to use more than a one inch of water in here. So then I'm going to put my cover back on and I'm going to light my sternum. So I'm going to leave this on with the cover on for about 30 minutes and let the water get heated up. Then I can put my food in here and we'll be all set to go. Another way to keep your buffet organized is to take a paper napkin, put yourself a word in the center, fold it in half and bring up your two sides, start rolling like so. Take your ribbon or anything else that you think you want to put on there you can use your imagination. I'm going to tighten a ball here and there you have your little silver package easy for your guests to pick up along the buffet line. The next thing that you can do to enhance your buffet is to make different levels. So I'm going to use a book today but you can use a box, you could use a tupperware container whatever you have in your house you can use to make different levels. So I'm going to start and I'm going to put one underneath here and this will be a lower level that I'm creating on the buffet. And the next one I'm going to create, I'm putting two books here to create more of a higher level so we're going to be creating kind of an up and down effect and I'll show you then you would put your planters on top of there. And it kind of gives you an idea of the difference in height and this is a great idea to do with this way with the boxes or books because when you're running kind of close and there isn't enough room on the buffet if you use varying heights you can put more on the table that way. Okay so here we go the buffet is all set up so I'll start to go through a few things. This is where we put a couple sticks of books here and it kind of raises up the shrimp platter here to give it more you know elegant effect and what I did too was to add cilantro or you can add parsley to your shrimp platter some lemons to give it a little bit more interest. The next thing that I did was to companion the napkins in the same colors as my plates so I had red and yellow in the plates so I created red and yellow in the napkins. And at my trip to the grocery store I happened to find a whole bunch of little peppers so again companion colors red with yellow to match the plates. I have my salad here and then my sparrigas and I put a little lemon zest on the top of there to kind of create some more color and interest there too. Okay so then I have my beef tenderloin here and I add a little bit of mushroom gravy today and I again I use some lettuce leaves to create interest on the plate instead of just having like a plain platter and I took one of the peppers and I kind of cut it out and I put my coarse red sauce in there so that's looking real good then I created more of a yellow color here with the eggs and bright always goes at the end of your buffet with your butter and then I have mashed potatoes which I sprinkled a little pepper on the top of that. So here's your buffet completed I think it turned out real well the colors look good. So I hope these tips help you create your next elegant buffet until next time. Barbara from Barbara's Allian Touch.