Hello, and welcome back to What’s Cooking?, the open thread where you get to share your brilliant thoughts, advice, recipes, and opinions on all things food-related. This week I want to talk about something that we all do a good bit when the weather warms up: eating outside.
Truth be told, eating outside causes me some anxiety. There are bugs, sometimes there is sand, and I hate trying to balance everything on my lap while trying to keep bugs and sand off my food. But there is something nice about enjoying a meal in the sunshine, and I have developed some strategies for dealing with bugs and sand, and I bet you have, too. As always, I have some questions below:
Do you prep as much as you can at home, or do you do most of your cutting, cooking, and assembling at your picnic site? I do everything I possibly can at home because I hate lugging a bunch of stuff to and from the picnic site. This mostly involves slicing everything into bite-size pieces.
What is, in your esteemed opinion, the very best picnic sandwich? Italian pressed sandwiches are good, but I like to pack very simple sandwiches without a lot of wet ingredients. Ham or prosciutto with butter and cornichons, and cucumber finger sandwiches—with cream cheese on both pieces of bread to keep it from getting soggy—are my favorites.
What are the best snacks to take to the beach? What are the worst? For (close to) sand-free snacking, I primarily take only foods that can be eaten with toothpicks or chopsticks, and I avoid anything that requires people to reach their hand into a container over and over. My favorite combos include sliced cucumber with chunks of feta and Kalamata olives, peach slices (already) wrapped in prosciutto, and good salami, cheese cubes, and fresh chunks of pineapple.
Do you have any clever food transport tricks? It’s not particularly earth-shattering, but I do like packing frozen water bottles, which keep everything cold until they melt, and then I have cold water, which is great because I’m probably dehydrated by then.
What fruit makes for the best al fresco snacking? I like fruits with high water content, like melon, and pineapple because pineapple is the most summery fruit.
How do you mitigate spills, sticky hands, and sand clinging to your hands? Baby wipes work, but I love these great-smelling, anti-bacterial wipes. I have also heard sprinkling baby powder on your hands helps slough sand off, but have yet to try it out.
How do you keep sand out of your food at the beach? I cut everything up before hand (in my sand-free kitchen) and eat it with toothpicks or chopsticks.
What about bugs? I moved from Florida to Oregon, where there aren’t many bugs.
How do you keep your picnic blanket from rolling up on itself or flying away? A cheap shower curtain works quite well as a liner on damp ground, and I usually just use the cooler and whatever other bags we brought to keep the blanket in place.
Do you pack your food in a picnic basket, a cooler, an IKEA bag, or something else? I use a cooler, plus whatever free tote bags I have lying around.
Are fancy picnic baskets overrated? I used to have a fancy picnic basket. I got it as a wedding present. We never used the fancy picnic basket and my ex kept it when we got divorced. It seemed like more trouble than it was worth, to be very honest.
What’s your (non-alcoholic) beverage situation like? Lots of frozen water bottles and a few cans of Diet Coke or La Croix.
How do you deal with booze-free parks and beaches? I usually put gin and a mixer or two in my Hydro Flask. I did this at the Pug Crawl just last Sunday. No one has ever asked me what was in my Hydro Flask.
Have you ever packed a layered salad (or anything) in a mason jar? The only thing I’ve ever packed in a mason jar were cheesecakes I had cooked in a mason jar. Honestly we might need to reel in mason jars a bit; a lot of public beaches and parks don’t even allow glass. (Like, what/why is this?)
Feel free to answer all of these questions, some of these questions, or none of these questions, or just leave your favorite tip for eating outside below. I am mostly interested in sand mitigation tips, but all picnic tips are welcome.