Easier than it looks. The trick is variety, not quantity.

1. Choose 3 to 5 cheeses. More than that and people stop tasting. Vary the milk (cow, goat, sheep) and the texture (something fresh or soft, something semi-firm, something hard, maybe a blue).
2. Take them out of the fridge early. Give them at least 30 minutes to come up to room temperature. Cold cheese tastes muted.
3. Give each cheese its own knife. Otherwise the blue ends up on everything. The right knife depends on the cheese.
4. Pre-cut the hard ones, leave the soft ones whole. Guests slice into a wheel of Brie themselves, but a wedge of Parmigiano goes faster in pieces.
5. Add something sweet, something salty and something crunchy. Grapes, figs or apple slices, nuts, honey or jam, and bread or crackers. Cured meats are optional.
6. Label them. A little card saves you from answering "what's this one?" forty times.

Not sure how much to buy? A rule of thumb is about 1 to 1.5 ounces (30 to 45 g) of cheese per person per cheese, and it goes up or down depending on what else you're serving.

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