Picnic Recipes that Adapt to Holiday Portability!
It's the holidays--so why think picnics? Because portability is important when you are on the go! Here's a story to remind you of summer. . .and, yet, prepare you for the holidays.
While our children were growing up, we set aside time every year to go apple picking. It started years ago, when another family invited us to join them and suggested we each bring a picnic.
That year I packed lunch meat, canned potato chips and homemade cookies. She packed homemade chicken salad, homemade cookies, and trendy chips, plus a tablecloth and enough paper plates for us all. By the next year, I had my full court press: a picnic basket; a cooler on wheels; chicken salad with almonds on croissants; homemade chocolate cookies; designer napkins and matching tablecloth.
To my friend’s credit, it did not become a game of one-up-man-ship. We continued our picnics every year while the kids were growing up, sharing food out of plastic bags and introducing each other to chips without trans fats and gourmet cookies that you didn’t have to bake. We solved the problems of the world while munching on freshly picked apples and drinking fresh-pressed apple cider, along with the contents of our aging picnic baskets.
From romantic trysts with cheese and French bread, to a church potluck, who among us hasn’t experienced a picnic of some sort? While picnics have always been popular summertime activities, it seems they have come into their own.
Enter a cookbook from ChronicleBooks.com. It’s not particularly new (2004), but it is well done. It’s one of those cookbooks that you pick up to read as fantasy, and get so drawn into the story that you begin to think the heroine is you. Sure, I’d pair ricotta cheese with blueberries and serve it with French bread. Of course I would think of a Spanish-Style tortilla with Potatoes and Spinach to pack in my picnic basket. A Nectarine Tart? Piece of cake.
The recipes by Sara Deseran and the photography by Jonelle Weaver make for a visually interesting cookbook that is straightforward and uncluttered. It’s a usable cookbook that is decorative with a purpose. It is laid out in divisions that make sense and includes a nice selection of sample menus, plus directions for the novice on packing for a picnic.
Priced at $14.95, it’s a nice addition to a collection of themed cookbooks, or a great book to slip into a wicker picnic basket and give as a shower or housewarming gift. With a little luck, you’ll help create some family traditions that will help you and your family and friends solve the problems of the world over a picnic table and good food.
Spanish-Style Tortilla with Potatoes and Spinach Recipe
Green Beans with Almond Butter-Ginger Dressing Recipe
Moist Chocolate Walnut Cake Recipe
Purchase Picnics from Chronicle Books
Picnics© 2004 by Chronicle Books LLC (text) and Jonelle Weaver (photographs). Used with permission of Chronicle Books LLC, San Francisco. Visit ChronicleBooks.com.
