DeeDee Stovel - Picnic: 125 Recipes with 29 Seasonal Menus

125 Recipes with 29 Seasonal MenusDeeDee StovelThe mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by publishing practical information that encourages personal independence in harmony with the environment. Edited by Sally Patterson, Marie Salter, and Dianne M. Cutillo Copyedited by Arlene Bouras Cover design by Meredith Maker Cover photographs by Polly Wreford/Homes & Gardens/IPC Syndication;
Stock Food America; Index Stock Text design by Lisa Hollander Text production by Erin Lincourt Line drawings on pages iv, 13, 41, 88, 115, and 155 by Carleen Powell Indexed by Nan Badgett/Wordability 2001 by Storey Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages or reproduce illustrations in a review with appropriate credits; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other without written permission from the publisher. The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge.

All recommendations are made without guarantee on the part of the author or Storey Publishing. The author and publisher disclaim any liability in connection with the use of this information. For additional information please contact Storey Publishing, 210 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA 01247. Storey books are available for special premium and promotional uses and for customized editions. For further information, please call 1-800-793-9396. Printed in Canada by Transcontinental 10 9 8 7 6 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stovel, DeeDee.

Picnic : 125 recipes with 29 seasonal menus / DeeDee Stovel. p. cm. ISBN-13: 978-1-58017-377-3 (alk. paper) 1. 2. 2.

Picnicking. I. Title. TX823 .S833 2001 641.578dc21 00-067127

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Recipe credits Recipe on page 176 from 101 Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies by Gwen Steege, Storey Books, 2000. Recipe on page 62 from Garden Ways Joy of Gardening Cookbook by Janet Ballantyne, Garden Way, Inc., 1984. Recipe on page 170 based on a recipe from The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, Ten Speed Press, 1977.

Recipe on page 103 reprinted by permission of the Junior League of Palo Alto, California, from A Private Collection. Recipes on page 150, page 151, and page 175 printed by permission of the Oakville Grocery Co., Oakville, California. Recipes on pages 152 and 153 printed by permission of the ABC Bakery in Napa, California. All recipes in the Baby, Its Cold Outside Picnic reprinted by permission of Irene Maston, innkeeper/chef at Andrie Rose Inn, Ludlow, Vermont. Recipes on pages 65 and 6768 are printed by permission of Bobbi Crosby.

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DEDICATION To My Daughters,
Kate and Meg The more cookbooks, novels, and magazines I read, the more I realize that people all over the world love to picnic, maintaining unique traditions for making and packing food to share with family and friends in the great outdoors.

The picnics I grew up with were of the commonplace variety, mostly in our backyard or the neighbors yards. But what I recall most fondly are the faces of dear people, the warmth of friendship, and the flavors of favorite recipes. This book is sprinkled with family and friends who joined me in countless outdoor meals and adventures and who inspired or shared many of the recipes and menus in this book. It is my hope that this book will help you make many special picnic memories of your own. I hope the menus and recipes included here (those marked with an asterisk in the menus) will serve as a guide as you create your own picnic traditions.

While writing this book, I asked many people to tell me about their favorite picnic.

Invariably heads tilted back, eyes shut, and smiles crept across faces. Picnics nourish the body, mind, and soul. One friend recalls a starlight picnic on a hill within walking distance of home after a long, hard week of work. The toils of the week melted under the soothing starlight. Another evening picnic with a romantic twist took place on a beach in the moonlight at Half Moon Bay in California. I remember family picnics on a small bay in Rhode Island, where our friends ordered a huge clambake layered with clams at the bottom and lobsters at the top.

We usually skipped the middle layers of fish and vegetables. My most unusual picnic was eaten on a bus crossing the desert. After a delightful week in Ogden, Utah, our hostess packed us a picnic lunch of antelope sandwiches on which we gratefully munched as we crossed the Great Salt Lake Desert and Nevada on the way to San Francisco. The possibilities are endless!

These are my favorite recipes, which contain my favorite foods. Some go back to my grandmothers youth, many have been collected along the way from friends and family, and others are the result of my own experimentation. If you enjoy fresh foods, a well-balanced diet, have a sweet tooth, and make an effort to cut down on the sugar, salt, and fat in your diet, you share my tastes.

These recipes do not avoid the villains of the American diet, but the amounts are kept low in most recipes. I rarely sift flour. If the recipe calls for sifted flour, be sure to sift before measuring, as the volume changes with sifting. Generally, the recipes are for eight people. Cut the recipes in half if your outing will consist of a quartet, or plan to have leftovers. Romantic picnics for two are designed for smaller quantities.

The recipes also are a reflection of my having grown up on the East Coast and living in New England for many years. There is also a strong California connection based on one year of residence, many visits, and a growing fascination with the climate, land, and abundance of intriguing foods and recipes thus, the bicoastal flavor of this book. May good food, good friends, and happy moments make all of your picnics memorable!

Gathering people around good food in a lovely setting was what family meant to my mother, Beatrice McCoy. She was locally known as a good cook. Seemingly without effort, she produced wonderful meals for family and friends. Her admonition to never economize on food remains with me, even though I know it is possible to do so and still enjoy great food.

We must all eat to live, but in my family the emphasis was on living to eat. My mother was an artist who loved to cook. Her artistry was expressed in the care with which she prepared food and the beauty of its presentation. I am grateful to her. My husband, Jack, willingly was the chief sampler of picnic fare. My daughters, Kate and Meg, participated in many picnics, and also helped test and review recipes.