picnics

For me there’s nothing to beat eating outside, surrounded by the magic of nature. Suddenly the sun comes out and everything intensifies: the beauty of the flowers, their scent, a bird alighting nearby and singing its heart out before it flies off, the leaves dancing in the breeze – as Jean-Jacques Rousseau says, these things ‘liberate the soul’.

Just eating out in your own garden is a delight. At the moment we have a noble artichoke plant with its elegant grey-green forked leaves (and three artichokes in the making) and graceful white foxgloves intermingled with the old-fashioned roses, just coming into bloom. Also producing flowers are the courgettes, which will mean fiori di zucchini (using the slender male flowers) fried in chickpea-flour batter (see page 52 of my book) – a great favourite of mine. And there are the white arum lilies that thrive in our gentle Welsh rain. All of which bring me such joy. So, from now until late September, we’ll be eating outside whenever it’s warm and dry enough.

At our house in France, meals al fresco are further enhanced by our four à bois (wood-fired oven – the building of which is described in my previous post about chickpea flour). Cooking in it does involve quite a bit of jumping up and down for me, but everyone loves the smoky food: farinata cooked in four minutes at 500°C, sliced and then dipped into spicy red pepper purée (see page 37), followed by marinated halloumi kebabs (page 83) and rounded off with baked white peach halves (with the cavity where the stone once nestled filled with chestnut honey and a dab of butter) served with local crème fraiche from Cordes market.

My first real picnics were as a child, when we stayed with my grandparents at Stepleton, just north of Blandford in Dorset. I particularly remember my mother seeking out bluebell woods at the foot of Hod Hill. First, we’d go gathering generous bunches of bluebells (illegal now!) to decorate the house and after we would munch our sandwiches with much loved cousins, basking in the bluebell perfume. But although my childhood picnics always were so idyllic, they somehow made me feel sad. I didn’t understand why at the time: I now know it was because I was an undiagnosed coeliac. Since I learned to avoid wheat and all grains, I can now enjoy picnics to the full!

I tend to keep picnics simple, especially if we are out on a walk and carrying the meal in backpacks. I love hummus, falafel (see page 46 of my book – and a new ‘raw’ recipe coming in a few weeks), olives (especially the Spanish Gordal variety), cauliflower ‘couscous’, cherry tomatoes, a beautiful fresh crisp salad (using our own lettuces, salad greens and herbs when in season) dressed just before eating with quality Catalan vinegar and olive oil – all with some fine local cheeses. We have an amazing local artisan maker, Andy, here in Cardiff who creates the most stunning gooey sheep’s brie as well as Don Quixote’s favourite cheese, Manchego.

Picnic favourites, falafel and hummus.

Last year my mother was 100. We all – not least her grandchildren and great grandchildren – wanted to have a big family party to celebrate. Mum, however, was opposed to the plan: she seemed to be uncomfortable with the thought of being 100. (She’s fine now that she’s 101!) So we rebranded the whole event as a ‘Summer Solstice Party’ with a picnic on Brook Green, at the end of the road where she lives. The whole family came (save five members in Australia, who phoned Mum during the festivities).

It turned out to be a picnic on a grand scale: over 30 people aged between 3 and 100 came. Food was centre stage and we had what our French neighbours call a repas espagnole, where everyone brings a dish to share – an excellent system. We laid out several enormous groundsheets in front of a park bench. Mum sat on the bench in state with a few members of the family. A huge variety of food was arranged on the groundsheet in front of her and the rest of us sat around it in a riotous semicircle. Mum was an excellent cook and many of her descendants have inherited her talent. So we had a wonderfully delicious, festive, summer solstice (happy birthday) picnic party in beautiful sunny weather. Mum loved it, and the rest of the family dutifully kept quiet about the fact that, for them, it really was Mum’s 100th birthday party! What’s in a name?

Picnics have come a long way since those bluebell times. The Summer Solstice picnic was such a success that we decided to make it an annual event – so it’s coming up again this month! Hurrah!