Spring fever is here 🌡️☀️ Prep early for those not too hot and not too cold days by finding something you love ON SALE. SHOP THE SALE
Summer is here, which means it’s peak time for picnicking. Whether you prefer to plan weeks out, put a picnic together on a whim, or dabble in both approaches, having a few tips, tricks, and essential supplies on hand will go a long way to ensure a prosperous season. We asked a few food industry folks and picnic pros for their best tips to lay out that summer spread.
As a stylist, cook, and founder of the picnic-box company Saison, Sammy Rees knows a thing or two about picnicking. Her must-haves: a large blanket roomy enough for everyone to spread out on, a cutting board, corkscrew, water bottle full of ice, and a good playlist.
Ashley Singer, who works in partnerships at Fair Trade USA, is another picnic enthusiast who says that a pocket game—like a set of dominoes or deck of cards—makes all the difference. And for other essentials, Kayla Abe and David Murphy of San Francisco’s Ugly Pickle Co. swear by bringing real glassware to drink from, as “nothing tastes good in plastic cups.”
When it comes to food and beverages, there’s plenty of room for creativity, so long as you pack dishes that travel easily and don’t need to be kept cold or eaten warm. Elyssa Heller, founder of Jewish sandwich counter Edith’s in Brooklyn, recommends using empty jam and pickle jars to transport everything. “It’s a nice aesthetic, they have resealable lids so you can snack and stash if needed, and you don’t have to feel guilty about recycling them if you don’t want to bring home everything to wash later,” she says. Her other tips? Use frozen fruit in place of ice cubes to infuse seltzer or spritzes instead of watering them down, and fold in the bottoms of chip bags then cut off the tops to create portable bowls.
“It’s all about varying your textures and flavors, so as long as the key grazing buckets of salty, fatty, pickled, sweet, crunchy, and carbs are in the house, it’ll be a good day,” say Abe and Murphy. They list fried garlic peanuts from SF’s Little Quiapo, a chilly bottle of orange wine, and, of course, a jar of Ugly Pickle Co. pickles as go-to fixings.
Rees maintains that a simple spread of snacking foods—slices of melon, summer berries, olives, a few cheeses, and a baguette—is all you really need. But if you’re getting fancy or planning to snap some photos, Singer recommends bringing at least one dish that “pops,” like a sumptuous slice of cake or a beautiful block of cheese.
As for where to picnic? The beach, a park, in a field of wildflowers, a roadside stop—the natural world is more or less your oyster. Singer’s preference is a meadow, and she says that “finding one just means any patch of grass.”
The most important factors to get right are comfort, good company, delicious food, and refreshing drinks, because, as Rees says, “the most memorable picnics linger for hours, completely carefree.”
