Use a large rectangular wooden cutting board as your base and put the long side of the board at the bottom. You'll need a bag of blue potato chips to make the star section. Select the flattest chips to make a square in the upper left-hand corner of the board. This will be the base for the cheese-shaped stars.

For the cheese part of your board, you can pick up your favorite white or off-white cheeses such as Gouda, white Cheddar, and Monterey Jack. We used 2 different varieties for flavor and color contrast. You'll need a small star-shaped cookie cutter to punch out stars. When prepping the cheese, cut each slice into pieces that are 1/2 inch thick; this makes them easier to handle. We like to use mild white Cheddar for the stars because a firmer cheese tends to be easier to cut. Punch out enough stars from one type of cheese to cover the blue chips section. Rest the stars on top of the potato chips. Save the scraps for other dishes like sauces, soups or eggs.

Now you're ready to make the stripes. Line uniform squares or rectangles of cheese along the base of the board. You can make slices yourself or you can buy the pre-sliced variety for perfectly uniform slices. Now comes the meat--you can use small rounds of pepperoni or salami! On the next row, lay out your favorite pre-sliced pepperoni or salami, making sure that they overlap slightly. When we made the second row of cheese, we used the second variety of cheese. Continue this pattern all the way up to the top for red and white stripes.