How to set a table for Thanksgiving that's edible and elegant
Interior designer and television personality Sabrina Soto acknowledges that Thanksgiving mostly revolves around the food. “But for me,” she says, “it’s all about your table settings.” To keep everyone happy this year, Soto combines both of those by incorporating edible table setting DIYs — and shares her tips for how to make your table setting unforgettable.
First she creates a centerpiece that doubles as a Crudité platter. First she traces the opening of the basket with craft paper and uses it as a guide to cut chicken wire and aviary chicken wire to fit the opening. Then she simply pushes the two layers of wire in the basket that hold their place without adhesive. Next she takes an array of blanched vegetables and secures the longer skinnier vegetables like cucumbuters and zucchini in the chicken wire, the smaller vegetables like tomatoes and broccoli are arranges gorgeously out on the cutting board.
To complete her edible DIY décor, she also puts out place card holders made from caramel apples. When making the apples, she places them on the plates, letting the caramel pool a bit to hold them in place. Next, she adds a clean stick on the top of an apple at all the place settings, affixing to each one a craft paper leaf with that guest’s name on it.
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
SABRINA SOTO: Hey, everybody. I'm Sabrina Soto. Obviously, Thanksgiving is all about the food. But for me, it's all about your table settings. I have a few DIY tips how to make your tablescape completely unforgettable.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Because I live in California, I thought this year I was going to do Thanksgiving outside-- social distancing, it's just a little bit more comfortable. So to bring the inside out, I put down an area rug. This is an actual outdoor-indoor rug, but it just makes this space feel a little bit more cozy.
And then it's all about dressing the table top. So I thought, why not make your centerpiece completely edible? The materials you're going to need to make this edible centerpiece is a basket big enough to really house all of your vegetables, wire cutters, standard chicken wire, and aviary chicken wire-- which is a little bit smaller-- some craft paper, and a cutting board.
So first you're going to take a piece of craft paper and just cut it the circumference of the opening of your basket. And then we're just going to use that as a guide to cut the chicken wire. Now I'm going to cut the larger chicken wire piece.
So the first layer is the aviary chicken wire, the smaller gauge. The wire sort of sets it in by itself. You don't have to put in any adhesive. And the larger, standard chicken wire goes on top. Now I have all the vegetables that are going to be part of my edible centerpiece-- cauliflower, broccoli, carrots-- you can use whatever you want. You just to make sure that they are blanched.
So all of the long, skinny vegetables are going to be secured with the chicken wire. The things that can't be secure with the chicken wire, like tomatoes and things like that, we'll just spill on into the cutting board-- broccoli, celery, tomatoes, you name it.
Everything is placed. It looks absolutely gorgeous. Now everybody has something to snack on. And don't forget to add a little bit of dip at the edge of your cutting board-- such a great centerpiece.
And now onto another edible fun DIY, the placecards. A really fun idea is using caramel apples as the placecards. Kids love it. Adults love them. They're delicious. Get a twig from outside. Make sure to clean it, and you're going to stick it into the apple.
I found some craft paper that actually looked like a leaf. On your craft paper, you just put the name of your guest. And then using a little piece of glue dot, you can adhere it to the stem. So that's it-- two totally easy, edible DIY projects for your Thanksgiving table.
Stay safe and have a great time with your family and friends.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
