"picnics" news and stories

Photo: Amazon.com

'Summer Cooking'
Elizabeth David
Foreword by Molly O'Neill
New York Review of Books -- 1995, reprinted in 2002
Buy it on Amazon

Sometimes you want a cookbook author to give it to you straight.

None of this "You can whip this up in 10 minutes!" when you are certain, as you possess merely mortal chopping skills, it will take you 20 with that pile of onions.

The well-traveled cookbook author Elizabeth David, who many think brought "real food" to the English in the 1950s, is of this no-nonsense school. She saw it among her duties to bring picnic food and something called "seasonal shopping" to her countrymen and women, as they were stuck in an out-of-season loop. On one page she gripes about the mortification of seeing ratatouille on a February menu comprised of tomatoes and (ugh) cabbage.

On another she writes of the English approach to the "dread" salad season that is summertime: "What makes a cook think that the beetroot spreading its hideous purple dye over a sardine and a spoonful of tinned baked beans constitutes an hors d'oeuvre?"

Tell us how you really feel, Elizabeth.

What we tested and whether the book's worth buying, after the jump.

Picnic baskets are nice and all, but a cheaper, homemade bag will work even better.

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

With strawberry season upon us, try throwing some in your salsa, salad, cocktails, pies and tarts.

Take your taste buds to the beach with a recipe for Creamy Cape Cod Clam Chowder.

Pack raw burgers for a picnic in an easy tower of foil, meat and parchment paper.

Happy Hour is even happier with Kalimotxo, a surprisingly tasty mixture of Coca-Cola and red wine.

Crostini are endlessly versatile, as this tasty recipe for a "sublimely simple" Parmesan-Blue Cheese Crostini with Green Onions demonstrates.

Do you use cooking oils other than olive oil?

The 4th of July weekend is a time designed perfectly for picnics and cookouts. There's really no better way to celebrate the nation's independence than by firing up the grill and cooking up some burgers, dogs, chicken drumsticks or ribs. I personally don't have big plans to do much in the way of grilling (not having any outdoor space will do that to a person), I have been invited to a couple of picnics and will be throwing together a red potato salad with an olive oil and vinegar dressing, and a creamy coleslaw with purple and green cabbage.

I want to know what the rest of you are cooking this weekend. What's going on your grill, in your picnic baskets or out on the buffet? How do you handle vegetarian and gluten-intolerant guests? And most importantly, how are you ending the meal?

Source

People who attended the annual Brantville Picnic in New Brunswick might want to read this.

Several people who attended the community picnic have become sick, with upset stomachs, nausea, and vomiting. But another thing that is worrying officials is that some of the possibly contaminated food wasn't eaten at the event, it was packaged so people who attended the picnic and people who didn't attend the picnic could take it home with them and eat it later. So you might have some of the food at home right now and not know it (though I would hope you would have eaten it by now since the event was last weekend).

Obviously, if you have any of that food you should get rid of it immediately. Full details here.