• pressed pumpernickel bread
• butter
• tomato slices
• sprigs of fresh parsley
• smoked cheese slices
• salt to taste
1. Cut square slices of pressed pumpernickel into quarters and butter them generously. Cut some medium-sized tomato slices in half. Put ½ a tomato slice on each sandwich so that the cut edge goes diagonally from corner to corner. Tuck a few small sprigs of fresh parsley in under the cut edge of the tomato slice so that they peek out in a pretty ruffle.
2. Cut a few thin slices of a good smoked cheese and, using little aspic cutters,* make cutouts in nice shapes no bigger than 1 inch across. Salt the sandwiches lightly before placing one of the cheese cutouts on top of each tomato slice.
3. If you don’t have aspic cutters, you can use very tiny cookie cutters; failing that, simple shapes of the appropriate size could be cut out free-form with a sharp-pointed knife.
