Caprese Skewers

Cheffing a 20 person cocktail party for my mom

8 ingredients•Prep: 20 mins•Cook: 5 mins

Ryan Nordheimer•

July 7, 2026

As I alluded to in my last newsletter, I’ve been gearing up to cater a 20-person cocktail party for my mom. When I private-cheffed my friend’s mom’s birthday brunch a couple of months back, and all of her friends were gathered around the dining table eating amazing food and chatting, I realized that my mom could have the same experience with all of her friends. All she needed was for me to make a trip down to Maryland to cook all the food.

I had originally envisioned this cocktail party as actually being for both of my parents and all of their friends. But when push came to shove, my mom and I realized that it would just be easier if my dad was simply cut out of the picture LOL (he has a tendency to overcomplicate food, drinks, vibes, etc.). So with him out of the house, I took full rein.

My mom, ironically, hates hosting. But with me essentially serving as the caterer, and my cousin Lily serving as the caterer’s assistant, there wasn’t much for her to worry about. A good symbiotic relationship: I use the lovely kitchen, she uses me to make the food.

My mom barely gave me any direction with the food menu. Every morning when we talked on the phone for the past like 3 or 4 weeks I would bring up the menu and try to hone in on it somewhat, which was always met with an immediate deflection toward another topic, leaving me quite in the dark as to what I was expected to make. The menu thus became whatever fun hors d’oeuvres ideas popped into my head in the span of us sending out the Partiful and me going to the Whole Foods in Maryland.

Hope you enjoyed the party mom since I know you’re reading <3

Ryan

P.S. If you're in the DC area, my parents’ kitchen designer is Sharon Dougherty Trifilo, and you can find her website here. She’s amazing!

Ingredients (8)

Instructions

Skewer a tomato (24 oz), mozzarella ball (16 oz), and another tomato onto a large toothpick. Repeat until all tomatoes and mozzarella are exhausted. Arrange on a platter, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ready to serve, up to 1 day in advance.
Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Set a bowl of ice water off to the side. Blanch the basil (3 oz) in the hot water for just 10 seconds, then immediately plunge into the ice water. Squeeze excess water out and then add basil to the bowl of a food processor.
Add the pine nuts (¼ cup), garlic (1 clove), and Parmesan (½ cup) to the food processor. Pulse until everything is evenly combined. Then process and stream in the olive oil (⅔ cup). Season with salt to taste. The pesto can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 5 days.
Stir the remaining olive oil (⅕ cup) very briefly into the pesto, just enough to “break” the pesto and loosen it somewhat. Brush the pesto all over the skewers. Season the skewers with additional flaky sea salt and parmesan cheese and serve.