Top ten tips for creating the perfect picnic
Summer has arrived! The weather is not perfect yet, so make the most of those rare sunny days with an outdoor feast. If you don't know where to begin, Josie Curran has some great tips.
1. The choice of picnic destination is of course a deeply personal thing, so make sure it is in line with everyone's tastes and not just yours.
Think about shade for children (if you have any with you), ease of access from the car, room to spread yourselves out and, most importantly in my mind, your afternoon view.
2. There are a few essential items that every picnic needs to ensure success: a penknife, baby wipes or kitchen roll, two bags (one for the rubbish and the other for dirty plates), a picnic blanket and a bottle opener. Get these packed and you're halfway there.
3. Next, think about your carrying vessel. As delightful as a rattan picnic hamper looks proudly bound by its sturdy leather straps and shiny brass buckles, they're a flipping fiddle faddle to use. On the two occasions that we've ventured out with ours, we've ended up arguing as one of us collapses with buckled knees at the stress and strain of carrying its ungainly load.
The same goes for plastic bags that leave deep lacerations in your hands or bulky chill boxes that whack your ankles as you walk. A light rucksack, a soft carrying basket or a bag with two padded handles is ideal.
4. And then there are the contents of those bags. It's all well and good to pack a banquet worthy of the tables at Cliveden, but if you're dragging a load uphill that rattles with champagne flutes and your grandmother's best crockery, you may well have your gathered guests in raptures but it's also likely to give you a hernia along the way.
Think practically and lighten the load with plastic containers, plastic bottles and greaseproof paper wrapped with string. If the food is hot, double wrap with tinfoil rather than using heavy tins. Freeze cartons or bottles of drink to keep everything cool whilst also providing a super-chilled drink with your lunch.
Alternatively, if you're by a river then tie your bottles on a string and drop them into the cooling waters.
[See also: Ten beautiful parks around the UK] - On Yahoo! Travel
5. Such prudence needn't mean your feast ends up limp, with cold sandwiches served up on the damp grass. With a few simple additions, you can add a touch of decadence and style to your spread. Carry as many cushions and blankets as there are arms to hold them.
Cushions are light and easy for kids to carry if any are joining you. Bunting, or flags on string if you prefer, are a brilliantly simple way to add style to your event. For a touch of romance, stab tall candle torches (you know those tall candles on sticks) into the ground to mark out your area. Or you could drop lit tea lights into jam jars with wire handles wrapped around the rim.
These look beautiful hung from branches out of children's reach. Give yourself some privacy and shade with a home-made picnic screen (otherwise known as a windbreak).
6. And then, of course, we come to the food. Although the slaved-over soufflé looked a triumph when you imagined it presented as the centrepiece to your outdoor spread, the reality is that some things are more suitable for picnics than others.
Think pies, hard cheeses, rich chicken liver or mackerel pâtés, cold cuts of meat and floury wholemeal baps; cured hams and salamis, boiled eggs wrapped with a creamy saffron and caper sauce; fresh oysters waiting to be doused with shallot vinegar or a pot of freshly cooked prawns to be peeled and dipped in garlic mayonnaise; or bring a bird — a whole roast chicken, guinea fowl or a crispy moist turkey leg.
All are perfect picnic partners and their sturdy forms prevent your feast looking like the contents of your compost bin by the time you arrive.
7. If, like me, you need something warm to make yourself feel like you've actually eaten, then don't restrict yourself to the contents of the fridge.
A home-made, egg-glazed sausage roll that's been cooked in the morning and double wrapped in tinfoil, or a warm potato and chorizo salad, its spicy bite mellowed with a rich and creamy dressing, can turn your lunch on the lawn into an outdoor banquet of the gods. I've featured a couple of my favourite warm picnic food recipes later in this chapter.
8. You can also take things a step further and turn your picnic into a barbecue. Small disposable barbecues, easily picked up from petrol stations or supermarkets along the way, are the perfect size and weight to add a smoky outdoor touch to your meal.
9. Next, make things fresh there and then.This one's so obvious when put into practice, but I know I regularly forget as I get carried away with my picnic preparation.
Dense slabs of last night's caramelised, clove-studded gammon served on thickly buttered, freshly sliced granary bread and stuck together on site with a healthy daubing of English mustard is a hands-down winner, over limp tuna mayonnaise sandwiches whose globular coating has congealed with a transparent and slightly hardened edge.
[Useful: Five fun outdoor games to play with the kids]
A chicken Caesar salad, its chunks of breast meat sliced on the picnic chopping board and mixed with crunchy lettuce leaves, and coated in a creamy dressing and carved parmesan shavings, is summer on a fork.
10. And, finally, the entertainment. If you want your picnic to extend to a lazy afternoon and on through the evening then liberate yourselves from the bondage of conversation and set your limbs and minds free. Make it a fancy dress picnic or a home-made hat party.
Giving the day a fancy dress edge makes it even more of an occasion and an event to be remembered. Bring some picnic game classics: croquet kit and bat and ball, or make your own picnic hoopla with sticks in the ground and used yoghurt pots.
Persuade someone (ideally with a musical talent) to bring an instrument. Pack the day's papers, favourite magazines you never have the chance to look at or that book that you've been trying to find the time to read. You could bring a board game: these are lighter than you'd imagine and an afternoon playing Scrabble in the sun is a simple summer delight.
Another favourite of mine is Yahtzee — five dice, a pen and paper are all you need to find your way to an addictive and competitive summer entertainment winner.
Extracted from The Book Of Summer by Josie Curran.
