Thursday 9 August 2012

Picnics

"There's cold chicken inside it," replied the Rat briefly; "coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeef
pickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwichespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonade
sodawater - "  
"O stop, stop," cried the Mole in ecstasies: "This is too much!"
"Do you really think so?" inquired the Rat seriously. "It's only what I always take on these little excursions; and the other animals are always telling me that I'm a mean beast and cut it very fine!"

      The Wind in the Willows



 The sun came out the other day so the kids and I had a picnic lunch in the garden. At the start of summer a lot of magazines seem to run articles about perfect picnics with recipes for perfect picnic food. It's all very pretty and some of the food looks wonderful* but I'm of the opinion that picnics should be (and in this part of the world often have to be) spur of the moment things. So the actual food tends to be along the lines of sandwiches, packets of crisps, bits of fruit and veg. Everything tastes better eaten outdoors on a tartan picnic blanket after all, and I'm inclined to think that the Perfect Picnic Food in magazines is probably not nearly as nice for the person who spent all morning in the kitchen making it..



This on the other hand took minutes and the kids were delighted. It's wonderful how just eating lunch in the garden can make them so happy. My friends possibly do think I'm a mean beast and cut it very fine, though actually I doubt that!

Wouldn't it be lovely to have a 'fat wicker luncheon-basket' like Rat though?

* They always, mysteriously, seem to include quiche as picnic food. The less said about that the better.




4 comments:

andamento said...

That looks like our kind of picnic too. The ideas in magazines do look nice but very little is said about he amount of work involved in making the food, and then it would probably rain anyway. Our kids don't count eating at the garden table as a picnic, has to be on a blanket on the grass.

Mrs. Micawber said...

All that magazine "picnic" food would really require a table and cutlery and comfortable chairs. (Or a posse of servants.) Which is not a picnic at all! My best picnic memories from childhood consist of normal everyday sandwiches, with the exciting additions of chips (crisps) and soda pop - which otherwise we seldom got - all eaten at the beach. Never mind that the sand got into everything - it was bliss.

(I love that quote from WITW. That's another book I'd like to step right into if I could.)

Julian Booth said...

amazing this is..would love to visit that place. can you please tell me exact location of this place?
waiting for your reply.Read More

thanks a lot for sharing with us.
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scarletti said...

Count me in on the 'this looks like our picnincs too' vote. I did strike it lucky too the other evening when the Smalls wanted 'picnic tea' and I was doing pancakes... they each had their fair share and were too busy outside to notice there was one extra in the pan...yum yum : )