Get your beautiful, beautiful minds out of the gutter, gang. I’m talking about a quick blog post before Hot Latin Boy comes to pick me up for a picnic on the beach, which I’m sure will turn into another one of those five-hour lunches.
See, that’s the thing about living on the wrong coast (sorry, I’m an Atlantic girl and although I love my new country, I still generally object to the west coast, especially because so much of it is California) if I accidentally sleep ’til 11 because I am too fundamentally stupid to remember Time Bandits scares every last milky drop of bejeezus out of me and has since I was a kid, then by the time I wake up, it’s 2 p.m. in D.C.
The original plan for today’s picnic was some tuna salad sort of nicoise-style stuffed into these enormous tomatoes my neighbor grew, some cornbread from the only purveyor in town (it’s sweet, but sweet cornbread is better than no cornbread at all) a cold bean salad, one bottle of homemade jamaica each, some chocolate cake from the hardcore Mayan chocolatier down the street and a bottle of green Spanish wine, to split.
Sadly, the tomatoes and the bean salad are going to have to wait, because I only have time to run to our favorite taco place (I give them limes from my tree, they give us tacos from their parilla) to get a torta –a sort of enormous sandwich filled with carne asada and happiness– and the chocolate shop. I’ve got the wine at home and we’ll just have to have the bean salad at a time when I’m not too stupid to remember I’m afraid of Terry Gilliam and puppets.
Today’s question is simple:
You’re going on a picnic. You get to pick up to five living guests (dead people at a picnic are a drag, but I suppose they do help weigh down the blanket if there’s a breeze) and the menu. Who would you invite, what would you eat, where would you go and for extra imaginary bonus points: What would you do after?
(took this photo outside a shop in Aberystwyth, Wales. It’s so hard to pick just one)
I’d take my brother, my best friend Megh, my high school sweetheart (why not? He’s turned into a cool guy and I’d like to know him as an adult) Hot Latin Boy and my beloved pooch Dozer to have lunch on a beach somewhere desolate and beautiful on the coast of Pembrokeshire, Wales.
We’d have a combination of traditional Welsh food –laverbread, cockles, some nice meaty faggots, and bara brith– plus shrimp and grits and my grandmother’s brownie pecan pie, and after we’d all go for a long hike along the coast and then have a good tea and a nap. Then later, a game of football and the pub!
My husband, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Eddie Izzard and RuPaul. Picnic in San Francisco’s Alamo Square. Muffaletta sandwiches, caprese salad, brie and crackers, strawberries, chocolate cupcakes, Pellegrino, a good riesling, and coffee from Blue Bottle Coffee Co. Following that, ingest far too many rum cocktails at Smuggler’s Cove, and then wander over to the Castro and get ready to have an EXTREMELY fabulous time.
Comment by Monica — January 19, 2012 @ 4:48 pm
I would take my best friend, the boy-creature I am dating, Neil Gaiman, Joss Whedon, and Steven Moffat. We would have an entirely frou-frou lunch of a Smorgastarta with loads of lox and gravlax, petit-fours and macarons that actually tasted as good as they looked, and pink champagne. The picnic would be followed by a frolick in the sea.
Comment by Jenny — January 19, 2012 @ 6:32 pm
I would pick my husband R, and our two dogs. Uh, before that sounds cheesey (Chee-Zee) in the extreme… My husband and I live apart, not from any lack of affection, but because he’s been in one town getting a business off the ground, while I’m in another town bringing home the bacon (generally not literally, but there are moments). We went from living on a boat together, to this apart thing. The apart thing has been going on for 4 years (we’ve been married for 2.5 years now). When we are together, on weekends, we are staying at his parents’ house. The good news is, for the past several months he’s been terribly busy with work and often working 30 hour days. The bad news is, because of this, I don’t particularly hear from him. When I do it’s in the middle of the night, or in quick 2 minute snatches between meetings or when he stops to find sustenance. Often it’s to keep him awake while he drives home, which means I’m rapid-firing technical questions about his day and what was accomplished, what’s left to do, what needs to happen next, to make sure he doesn’t konk out while driving down Highway 101.
Our picnic would be food from my favorite restaurant in Houston… Lupe Tortillas. And it would be magically transported to Oregon, to our boat. And we would sail upriver (and it would be warm, sunny, breezy, and delightful, and devoid of this ridiculous, shameful, horrific, silly, useless, and inconvenient weather), while picnicking on our fajitas. And when we got to our island, the coordinates of which I will not share because I hope to never find another soul on it, and our little family would go ashore in the dinghy for a wade, a walk, a play in the sand, a nap in the sun.
From one dis-located Texan to another, I wish you joy in your Hot Latin Boy. Yes, the West Coast is a little odd, but home is where the heart is. And while you can take the girl out of Texas, you can never take the Texas out of the girl. Needless to say, romance is where you find it. (Sometimes it’s just sharing the stars, sitting on the deck hatch of a stinky crab boat on a freezing night eating Dairy Queen.) Cherish the heck out of your picnic.
Comment by The boatbuilder's wife — January 19, 2012 @ 7:02 pm
Our picnic would be in New Orleans, at Audubon Park, on a warm spring day, one where the turtles are sunning. I’d get to wear a cute sundress and sandals, and not have to carry any of the bags.
It would be me, the pro-wrestler Wade Barrett (what? He’s got a degree in Marine Biology, is 6′ 7”, and has the sexiest English accent ever), my mentor from college, my grandma J and my beloved cat, Newt. (More ‘Carrie Henne from Aliens’, less ‘politician’ for the last one, by the way.)
We’d eat Gulf food–raw oysters, good French bread, fish, and specialities my Chinese former roommate introduced me to– eggplant stuffed with fried shrimp, tripe cooked translucent in onions and spices, sticky rice with red bean paste, buns with hot barbequed pork inside,fish balls and sugar cane to chew.
For desert, we’d get Snowballs, a sort of Sno-cone, but actually good. I’d like orchid and vanilla, or maybe tangerine, and talk about books and politics and history the whole time.
After, WB would invite Newt and I to show him the rest of the city, and we’d gladly oblige. Everything would end sitting on a levee under a full moon, and maybe some sweet, gentle kisses in the darkness*.
*So we’re clear on this, it would be WB and I. Newt is great, but her kissing leaves something to be desired.
Comment by Madea — January 19, 2012 @ 8:41 pm
David Mack (the artist), Terry Pratchett, Tori Amos, Mercedes Lackey, and Eddie Izzard. I imagine a goodly amount of Prosecco, cold lemon chicken, a fine selection of cheeses and fruit, pasta salad, and a cherry or peach cobbler for dessert. We’d sit around, talking about music, inspiration, and the strange ways of growing up. We would be sitting on a verdant field, replete with wildflowers, watching the sun dipping over the Rocky Mountains. Which I guess ruins the lunch idea.
After the last four have left, I quietly enjoy the rest of the sunset with Mr. Mack and the last of the Prosecco.
Comment by Jelly — January 20, 2012 @ 12:36 am
Good question and great answers!! I’d take my husband, Benedict Cumberbatch (for me to eye up), Miss Piggy (for the husband to eye up), Steven Moffat and Patrick Rothfuss to Oban in Scotland for langoustines and smoked salmon on the harbour, a walk around the blowy beach front, and then hot chocolate at the fab little chocolate shop.
Plus, I just remembered I’ve got some faggots in the freezer!
Comment by Josie — January 20, 2012 @ 4:54 am
I cannot imagine laverbread being on anyone’s dream meal. I’m not Welsh, but the wife is, and both of us are horrified by that slimy, smelly, ‘orrible black muck.
Comment by doloreshaze — January 21, 2012 @ 7:35 am
First of all, Salade Nicoise in Tomato Cups? GENIUS!!!
Secondly: Who would you invite,
Gilles de Rais, Steve Jobs, Julian Assange, Marie Curie, My Friend the ex-Madam (who’d be so grateful), Alan Rickman just so I could listen to him say “Asparagus” in THAT VOICE. Um, I think that’s all I can list, because I’ve fainted.
what would you eat,
Salmon sushi cones, pepper pate sandwiches, stuffed peppers, veggie and cream cheese sandwiches, Romanian Rice Salad (friend’s recipe), potato salad because it is the world’s most perfect food, mushroom salad, and Margarita sorbet and angelfood cake. Serving only Triumph sparkling wine from Sumac Ridge, but a LOT of it.
where would you go
A small beach in North Vancouver that hardly anyone knows, OR the nude beach in Vancouver that everybody knows. In for a penny, in for a pound.
and for extra imaginary bonus points: What would you do after?
Use your imagination.
Comment by raincoaster — January 22, 2012 @ 7:22 am
Time Bandits? Terrifying? Which part? The end with the swinging cages always kind of freaked me out but then God shows up and all is well (or is it?). But it’s also so funny. (The problem, Pansy, the problem! So which is it then, two, or three?)
Brazil, now, I only saw that once 20 years ago and I’m still disturbed by it.
Comment by marvel — January 22, 2012 @ 2:43 pm
I want the brownie pecan pie recipe. Sounds yummy.
Comment by Lisa — January 23, 2012 @ 3:33 am