For Beach Picnics, Bring Toothpick Food
A beach picnic always sounds delicious, but if you don’t want raw sandwiches and a sip of sand, some planning is needed. Having lived only in coastal states, I have developed a successful strategy to prevent sand from entering food and mouth.
Since sandy hands are the enemy, this strategy is twofold:
- Wash your damn hands before touching food.
- Unpack and portion food before taking it to the beach.
The first part is the easiest one. Take napkins and rub them on your hands before opening the fridge or picnic basket. Baby wipes work, but I am madly obsessed with these fantastic scented wipes .
Having wipes will definitely reduce sand pollution, but even if you provide them, there is no guarantee that your family and friends will use them because, as I have found, people do not like being told what they are doing when they are trying to cool. afternoon on the beach.
This is where the second part comes in, and why it is so important to take food out of the original packaging. If you leave everything in plastic wrappers, bags, or boxes, sandy hands should reach out on the packaging to remove the food. If the food is small, it needs to be either divided into portions on the beach (horror), or held in your hand and nibbled, which is fine if you are alone, but not conducive to sharing. By taking food out of its original packaging, cutting it into bite-sized pieces (think about what fits on toothpicks), and then storing them in high- sided, easy-to-open containers, you can easily eat your lunch on the beach, leaving it sandy. – without (or, if possible, without sand). Make sure you have toothpicks so people don’t touch them with their fingers.
Some of my favorite snacks to use with toothpicks:
- Good salami chunks, cheese cubes and fresh pineapple chunks
- Peach slices wrapped in prosciutto
- Small balls of mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and pepperoni
- Brownie bites with strawberries
- Sliced cucumber with feta pieces and Kalamata olives
- Fried and chilled vegetables with chopped chicken
- Grapes with Dublin Cheese (Trust me, it’s a good combination.)
If you really want to maximize the distance between your hand and food, you can skip toothpicks and use skewers. Forks can be used too (I think), but there is something very funny about making small kebabs while sitting on the beach blanket. Chopsticks can be fun too.