On Picnics, In Earnest

In general, Miss Edith thinks picnics are kind of cruddy. The notion of eating outdoors sounds fun but the reality is, you wind up fighting off bugs, which are attacking either you or your food or both, and you're generally also rather uncomfortably seated on the ground, which is not a good place for resting beverages. (When grassy hills come equipped with cup holders, I guess, then we can talk.)
So don't invite me to a picnic.
But here's the thing: picnic food is often really, really good. I mean, who doesn't like potato salad? Only an asshole doesn't like potato salad.

I vividly recall a day when Notarius and I were courting. In those days he still lived in Boston, as I recall, and the time we spent together was minimal. On a hot summer weekday he managed to get away from Boston and come visit me, and on a whim we drove to Hammonasset Beach, which is in Madison, Connecticut, a town I otherwise have little to do with. As I remember it, I'd made pizzas for dinner the night before, and there was a whole onion pizza left over. We sliced it up, wrapped it in tinfoil, and packed ourselves into the car along with a blanket and something to drink; tragically, I cannot remember if we drank wine, beer, or seltzer -- hell, we might have just had a thermos of ice water. But I remember that the pizza tasted incredibly good sitting on the beach, there; we'd parked the car and then walked a long way down the nearly-empty beach until we found just the right spot. Notarius skipped some stones -- he's good at that sort of thing -- and I egged him on by collecting rocks for him to throw -- and by the time we ate I thought I'd never had a more perfect day.
Miss Edith can be sentimental sometimes.

My point is that picnics do not have to revolve around grilled things or cole slaws from the supermarket (though I do like those) or foods that you're always worrying will be spoiled by the time you unpack them.

Some day I will go on a picnic where I serve bellinis in glass glasses, and where there are little dishes of cornichons and bowls of hulled strawberries with cream, but until then, I'll remember that picnic of leftover pizza with the utmost fondness.

Don't worry. Tomato Pie is up next. Though I don't recommend it for casual beach picnics -- just for the record....

Miss Edith Ponders Picnics

Today's New York Times has a nice thing by Mark Bittman about cooking for picnics. It's one of those pieces that's really just an irresistibly long list. I highly recommend perusing said list when thinking about cooking for picnics, or, for that matter, when trying to figure out what to make for dinner any night of the week during the summer.

I found, as I read the list, that a surprising number of the items Bittman mentions are things we eat here at home pretty frequently in the summertime. Cold peanut noodles, for example -- cold Asian noodle dishes are consumed here at least once a week all summer long. Innumerable versions of rice salads are also consumed. Couscous salads are good, too; I favor Israeli couscous in summer salads, though, over the usual little tiny couscous buds, just because I find the more substantial shape carries its own against coarsely chopped vegetables better. (Bittman doesn't seem to care one way or another, if I remember correctly.)

Anyhow, if you're looking for inspiration, this really does seem like a good place to start.

Bittman does not mention tomato pie, which is a summer staple to me, but then again, it takes longer than twenty minutes to assemble. Maybe I'll talk about tomato pie another time...