— Sheila Duncan

So, to me, uh, you sort of touched on one of the aspects of what I think a picnic is really good, uh, what a great picnic is, which is diverse. There's a couple of different flavors there, uh, that really get our palette excited. Let's take a step back and just talk about the purpose of a picnic. First and foremost, meals can be harried, right? Everybody's been through a Tuesday night, oh my God, I just gotta get it done on, you know, ballet practice, whatever, games, school, homework, et cetera. We've all been there, right? The purpose of a picnic is to be the exact opposite of that. It is to specifically get ourselves out of our environment and put ourselves in a new environment that requires us to, to slow down, to sort of think anew about what it is that we are doing, who we are doing it with, why we are doing it, et cetera. That part of a good picnic is right, having a blanket to sit on so your butt doesn't get wet in the grass, right? I mean, some of this is literally creating a new ecosystem for yourself, or finding your place in a new ecosystem. So, dive into that. Lean into that aspect of a picnic. Don't think of that as, as, as this sort of woeful barrier, right? Because ultimately, that is the purpose of a picnic. So lean into it, you know, find the right place to do it. Think about in that place, what, what are the smells gonna be like? Are is there wild herbs around that you can put into your salad? Uh, you know, sunny day, are you taking a tent? These things matter, because the other thing that about picnic is you, to me, you, you want to linger, right? And a picnic is, is we're, we're talking different than just leaving the office at lunch and grabbing a sandwich and eating it in the park while, you know, doom scrolling through your phone before you go back to work. That that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about a meal that is thoughtful, that is intentional, that gets us outside. So that first and foremost, is what I'm looking for from a picnic.