A Perfect Picnic!

A few weeks ago, I asked my buddy Helen if she would like to go see Shakespeare's A Comedy Of Errors, and attempt to do a nice festive picnic before the outdoor performance. Early morning the following day, after asking Helen about the picnic, I spotted an e-mail from her, asking me if Hubby and I liked turkey roll-ups. My response, "Love them!" An hour later, the same day, she sends me another e-mail, "How about black bean salad?" My response, "Sounds great!" Before I sent my response back to her, I had remembered when she offered to bring a spinach artichoke dip to my New Years Day party and I turned her down. Big mistake, because when a trained, experienced, foodie culinary-type person offers to bring food, you accept, especially if your just into pretty presentation!

Crate & Barrel

Later on, as I was getting ready to shut down my computer, I spotted another e-mail, "How about homemade chocolate chip cookies?" My response, " Are you kidding, of course!" The day before the picnic, I started to think what Hubby and I could contribute since Helen already had a perfect menu lined up. As I'm thinking to myself, why can't I ever come up with different things to take on a picnic other then fried chicken and slaw. So I signed up for the wine, cheese, fruit, plates, napkins, utensils, candles, salt & pepper--I know, easy stuff!The plates and napkins were really easy because I had my eye on some Caspari ones that I had been dying to go get at the Fresh Market!

Napkins from Caspari

Saturday morning rolled around (the day of the play & picnic), and Hubby and I are out on the deck drinking coffee and reading the paper without a care in the world. I decided to call Helen to make arrangements with her for Hubby to pick up the chocolate mousse (our Mother's day dessert) that Helen was making (more on that later). As she was rolling up the turkey wraps, she told me that she had been up since seven that morning, the cookies were baking, and she just had a few more finishing touches to do. I felt slightly guilty as I sipped on my third cup of coffee of the morning!

A few years ago, a friend gave me a set of these, I love them because they're small and easy to throw in your picnic basket. From Crate & Barrel

This summer, I plan on doing lots of picnics, so I asked Helen for her black bean salad recipe click here for Black Bean Salad. Helen also noted that she omits the green peppers and pimentoes and instead does two jalapeno peppers and two avocados. So if your looking for something different other then pasta, potato, and slaw for your picnic, trust me you won't go wrong here! Here's to a great summer full of perfect picnics...Ha!!!