How Do You Eat on the Street?
Hello and welcome back toWhat’s Cooking? , an open thread where you can share your brilliant thoughts, tips, recipes and opinions on all food related matters. This week I want to talk about what we all do well in warm weather: eating outside.
In truth, the food on the street gives me some anxiety. There are insects, sometimes there is sand, and I hate trying to balance everything on my knees, trying to keep myself from insects and sand. But there is something nice about enjoying your meal in the sunshine, and I have developed several insect and sand control strategies, and I bet you have one too. As always, I have a few questions:
- Do you cook as much as you can at home, or do you do most of the cutting, cooking and assembling work at your picnic area? I do my best at home because I hate lugging tons of things to and from the picnic area. This basically involves cutting everything into small pieces.
- What’s the best picnic sandwich in your opinion? Italian pressed sandwiches are good, but I like to pack very simple sandwiches without a lot of wet ingredients. My favorites are ham or prosciutto with butter and gherkins, and cucumber sandwiches – with cream cheese on both slices of bread to keep it from getting wet.
- What are the best snacks to take to the beach? Which are the worst? For (loved ones) sand-free snacks, I primarily take only food that can be eaten with toothpicks or chopsticks, and I avoid anything that requires people to stick their hand in the container over and over again. My favorite combinations include sliced cucumber with slices of feta and Kalamata olives, peach slices (already) wrapped in prosciutto, as well as good salami, cheese cubes and fresh pineapple slices.
- Do you have any clever food transport tricks? It’s not particularly awesome, but I like to pack frozen water bottles in which everything stays cold until they melt and then I have cold water, which is great because I’m probably dehydrated by then.
- What fruit are best for an outdoor snack? I like fruits that are high in water, like melon and pineapple, because pineapple is the summer’s most fruit.
- How to prevent stains, sticky hands and sand from getting on your hands? Baby wipes work, but I love these wonderful scent antibacterial wipes . I’ve also heard that sprinkling baby powder on my hands helps exfoliate sand, but haven’t tried it yet.
- How to prevent sand from getting into your beach food? I cut everything beforehand (in my kitchen without sand) and eat with toothpicks or chopsticks.
- What about errors? I moved from Florida to Oregon where there are not many mistakes.
- How do I keep my picnic blanket from rolling on itself or flying off? A cheap shower curtain works well as a lining on wet ground, and I usually just use the refrigerator and any other bags we bring to hold the blanket in place.
- Do you put food in your picnic basket, refrigerator, IKEA bag or something else? I use a cooler as well as those free bags I have.
- Are fancy picnic baskets overpriced? I used to have an unusual picnic basket. Received as a gift for a wedding. We never used the fancy picnic basket and my ex left it when we got divorced. To be honest, it seemed like more of a problem than it was worth.
- What’s your situation with (non-alcoholic) drinks? Lots of frozen water bottles and a few cans of Diet Coke or La Croix.
- How do you feel about parks and beaches without alcohol? I usually put a gin and a couple of mixers in my Hydro Flask . I only did this at Pug Crawl last Sunday. Nobody ever asked me what was in my Hydro Flask.
- Have you ever packed a puff salad (or something like that) in a glass jar? The only ones I ever packaged in a stone jar were cheesecakes that I made in a stone jar . To be honest, we might have to reel up some stone jars; many public beaches and parks do not 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 outdoor eating advice below. I am most interested in sand mitigation tips, but all picnic tips are appreciated.