A strik­ing cor­nu­copia of colours, tex­tures and flavours so metic­u­lous­ly and el­e­gant­ly arranged char­cu­terie boards by The Char­cuT­Terie Chick Bar­bara Ar­joon might as well be pieces of art.

Some of Ar­joon’s clients are so mes­merised by her work on the ap­petser cen­tre­pieces she of­fers for par­ties and oth­er oc­ca­sions, that they are of­ten re­luc­tant to dig in and dis­man­tle the mouth­wa­ter­ing spreads and spend a long time tak­ing pho­tos to pre­serve the mem­o­ry.

Char­cu­terie (shar-koo-tuh-ree) is a French word which dates back to 15th cen­tu­ry France and de­scribes the process of cur­ing meats by fan­cy pork butch­ers who then dis­played them in shop win­dows. It can al­so re­fer to the shop or del­i­catessen where the meats are sold. A char­cu­terie board has evolved over cen­turies to re­fer to a wood­en plat­ter of snacks with a se­lec­tion of cured meats, cheese, crack­ers, fruits and veg­eta­bles, condi­ments and may in­clude nuts and olives. Pop­u­lar at restau­rants, par­ties and gath­er­ings abroad—Ar­joon, 24, was sur­prised at the over­whelm­ing re­sponse when she tried out mak­ing char­cu­terie boards as a busi­ness from her par­ents’ home in Cas­cade over a year ago.

Charcuterie cups.

Back in 2020, the cre­ative en­tre­pre­neur was about to wrap up her stud­ies in health sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wa­ter­loo, Cana­da, while work­ing part time, when the pan­dem­ic struck. Her friends were re­turn­ing to their home coun­tries, so she did the same.

“I de­cid­ed to come back home think­ing this would blow over in a cou­ple of months and I’d be back at school for my last se­mes­ter, but that did not hap­pen. Every­thing got switched to on­line, all my cours­es were on­line,” Ar­joon re­called to Sun­day Guardian re­cent­ly.

She said she usu­al­ly keeps busy and finds her­self with a lot of free time while back in T&T, so she made a char­cu­terie board for her birth­day. It was some­thing her moth­er would make for limes and par­ties, so she thought noth­ing of it, ini­tial­ly. It turned out so well, the idea came to her to try it out for fun as she did not know of any­one in T&T of­fer­ing the ser­vice. By Oc­to­ber that year, she was in busi­ness.

“I made an­oth­er board; for my cousin, pret­ti­er, a more aes­thet­ic kind of de­sign to see if I could do it and it came out amaz­ing. From there I start­ed the busi­ness on In­sta­gram and I was just think­ing I’d do a cou­ple of boards be­cause I was al­so do­ing school on­line and it just blew up. It took off; a lot of peo­ple were in­ter­est­ed. I was get­ting a lot of mes­sages, re­quests...and there I was bal­anc­ing school and the busi­ness for a while, not think­ing the pan­dem­ic would con­tin­ue and then I grad­u­at­ed and here I am still do­ing the busi­ness,” she said.

“I thought I would have been back in Cana­da, work­ing there. I had no clue I would start my own busi­ness; that it would take off as it did, but it worked out. It act­ed as a source of in­come for me, but it al­so sta­bilised me and helped keep me fo­cussed and sane while the pan­dem­ic was go­ing on. It was a bless­ing.”

Ar­joon felt lucky to have the space in her moth­er’s large kitchen to pre­pare her en­tic­ing con­ver­sa­tion starters and room in her par­ents’ of­fice area which she con­vert­ed to a stor­age area. She of­fered de­liv­ery with the help of a friend.

The young en­tre­pre­neur chose sci­ences and lan­guages at her al­ma mater Holy Name Con­vent, but had a cre­ative side and al­ways loved art, of­ten find­ing her­self draw­ing and doo­dling. She al­so had a knack for or­gan­is­ing limes with themes, en­joyed bak­ing and dec­o­rat­ing cakes when she was younger and at one point dreamt of be­com­ing a wed­ding plan­ner.

Cre­ativ­i­ty runs in her fam­i­ly, Ar­joon be­lieves, as her moth­er works in in­te­ri­or de­sign while her fa­ther is an ar­chi­tect.

Charcuterie board by the CharcuTTerie Chick.

“My mum as well is re­al­ly good with her hands, cook­ing, so I just grew up around that.”

Apart from the eye-catch­ing pre­sen­ta­tion to which Ar­joon de­votes ex­tra care, the ap­peal of the char­cu­terie boards are the flavour pair­ings and com­bi­na­tions that promise unique sur­pris­es and some­thing for every palette. Most clients leave the choice of meats and cheeses to Ar­joon. She of­fers a se­lec­tion of cured meats, in­clud­ing sala­mi, pro­sciut­to (a kind of ham), pep­per­oni, smoked salmon, and turkey breast and us­es a com­bi­na­tion of soft to hard cheeses on her plat­ters.

From brie which is soft and but­tery with a mild fruity or earthy taste, smoked gou­da which has a sweet and salty ba­cony taste, and goat cheese, to se­mi-soft moz­zarel­la, spicy Pep­per Jack and light­ly nut­ty edam, Ar­joon keeps things sim­ple with a lit­tle kick. Though goat cheese has a tart or bit­ter taste at the end, she be­lieves the flavoured goat cheeses she us­es like cran­ber­ry cin­na­mon and blue­ber­ry vanil­la, some­times with a touch of hon­ey, have won over many clients.

Ar­joon feels she has per­fect­ed dips such as roast­ed gar­lic hum­mus (Mid­dle East­ern spread or dip made with chan­na, lemon juice and spices), roast­ed pep­per hum­mus and a spe­cial crowd-pleas­ing tu­na as she has done them so many times now. De­pend­ing on the type of meats and cheeses, she throws in some lo­cal­ly made pep­per jel­ly which comes in flavours like man­go and sor­rel and does her own sal­sas based on re­quests.

She al­so pre­pares veg­e­tar­i­an boards and caters to peo­ple who do not eat beef or pork and peo­ple with di­etary is­sues like nut al­ler­gies. Fruits like grapes, ki­wis, straw­ber­ries, crack­ers or crois­sants, cook­ies, choco­lates or choco­late dips al­so adorn the Char­cuT­Terie Chick’s boards.

Typ­i­cal­ly served on boards or plat­ters, the char­cu­terie fare can be pre­sent­ed in a va­ri­ety of ways.

Ar­joon start­ed with small, medi­um and large plat­ters with food art­ful­ly arranged in swirls, rosettes and “rivers”. She ex­pand­ed to in­clude mi­ni boards and lat­er in­tro­duced char­cu­terie cups. Clear, square-shaped and el­e­gant­ly stacked with food items, the cups al­so al­low for sin­gle serv­ings and easy cleanup, and make for an at­trac­tive pre­sen­ta­tion.

Per­haps the most im­pres­sive dis­play, how­ev­er, is the graz­ing ta­ble with its lav­ish ar­ray of swirls, rivers and loops of sweet, savoury and sour ap­pe­tis­ers and or­gan­ic dec­o­ra­tions. Here, guests eas­i­ly ac­cess snacks while tak­ing in the vi­su­al­ly ap­peal­ing lay­out. Ar­joon al­ways wel­comed the idea of cre­at­ing a graz­ing ta­ble and had her mo­ment for an event mark­ing In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day in March when re­stric­tions on gath­er­ings eased.

She looks for­ward to her sec­ond ta­ble for a wed­ding next month and an­tic­i­pates more op­por­tu­ni­ties this sum­mer as ac­tiv­i­ties re­sume af­ter two years of pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions.

Charcuterie board

Peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly women, or­der the char­cu­terie boards for var­i­ous oc­ca­sions like Moth­er’s Day, ba­by show­ers and birth­days, while men en­joy sur­pris­ing their sig­nif­i­cant oth­ers at times like date nights and an­niver­saries. De­scrib­ing her­self as a peo­ple per­son, Ar­joon said she cher­ish­es the re­la­tion­ships she has de­vel­oped with her clients. She has seen one client through a birth­day in the client’s ear­ly preg­nan­cy, the client’s ba­by show­er, and a sur­prise for the nurs­es that de­liv­ered the client’s ba­by.

“It’s like I’ve been a part of the ba­by’s life,” she laughed.

She has al­so had lit­tle ad­ven­tures like once when the re­cip­i­ent of one of her prod­ucts meant as a sur­prise would not an­swer a strange num­ber while she was in front of his door. She takes it all in good stride, she said.

The oc­ca­sion in­flu­ences her de­signs. She has cre­at­ed heart-themed and heart-shaped dis­plays and sweets for Valen­tine’s. Last Christ­mas, she made a char­cu­terie wreath and tree.

“Christ­mas has been in­sane. It’s ac­tu­al­ly my peak time. It’s crazy how many or­ders come in at Christ­mas time, but it’s so re­ward­ing in the end. I look back and can’t be­lieve I’ve done all of that,” she said.

Sourc­ing some in­gre­di­ents can pose a chal­lenge, but Ar­joon is grate­ful that she has been able to net­work with nu­mer­ous sup­pli­ers and pick up tricks of the trade.

“It’s been nice get­ting to ex­pose peo­ple to try­ing new things. Even though the va­ri­ety is a bit lim­it­ed be­cause I lit­er­al­ly have to source my in­gre­di­ents from all over, I’m glad I’ve been able to net­work and do that. It’s been re­al­ly good,” she said.

The in­ter­net has helped her hone her skills, es­pe­cial­ly in get­ting the cheeses cut the right way, which is a skill in it­self, Ar­joon re­vealed.

She does her own de­liv­er­ies now with her moth­er’s help–up to Trinci­ty in the East, and as far as Price Plaza in Cen­tral—as her friend had to re­turn to col­lege.

Ar­joon said start­ing her own busi­ness has helped her grow and de­vel­op dis­ci­pline, ded­i­ca­tion and sac­ri­fice, and ex­posed her to meet­ing new peo­ple. She does want to use her de­gree in health sci­ence even­tu­al­ly.

For now, she is hap­py to be the Char­cuT­Terie Chick.