— Monica Alexandra Torres Del Rio

Favorite items for a picnic? To me, uh, mostly vegetables. I am a seafood person. I am an omnivore. I eat all things if they're coming from the right sources to me. So I understand we have a lot, uh, big vegan, uh, constituency that's joining us here, and I will speak to that. Uh, but I like fresh foods. You know, in the summertime, we're, that's what we want, right? And we're, that's is what we're talking about picnics. Uh, I'm just gonna sort of stick in the summer mode here. So we want foods that are gonna make us feel good. We want light, airy, you know, delicious foods. We also want foods I think, that are gonna last I for a couple of hours. I don't wanna sit on a picnic and be like, okay, what are we doing now? We are eating. Thank you. I have eaten. No, let's commence with the rest of, you know, like, no, no, no, you're lounging around. Open a bottle of rose. You know, just chill, right? It's the whole point. So, to me, a great picnic has a diversity of things. So a baba ganouche. And the way I think about this is, what is my organizing principle? To me, it's gonna be for today, it's, it's cini. I really, I I love cini. I think they're just perfect food all the way around. I just love them. They work with baba, they work with a goat cheese mixed with mayonnaise on top of which I'm gonna put some smoked salmon and mint. Uh, I've got some roasted peppers that we're gonna peel today and chop up with some capers and collabion chili, and I'll olive oil and more mint. I've got a salad over there and things that you crumble a couple of crostini on top of, and all of a sudden, so all of the other foods have to work around that, right? So think about just a delivery vehicle to me. Well, if that organizing principle is a bowl, great, then all of the dishes get served into a bowl eaten with ostensibly a fork or a spoon, right? And can be served one after another in that same bowl, right? Because you don't wanna bring a whole lot of things. So, okay, there you go. Is your, or, you know, and, and with a bowl, okay, you've got a nice gazpacho soup, and then you've got a salad, and the salad sort of helps to mop up the, the rest of the gazpacho there, right? And then you have a barley and Pharaoh and smoked paprika, vinaigrette, uh, salad with pistachios and strawberries in it or something, right? That goes into the bowl. You see what I'm getting at is, is the idea of sort of this organizing principle. Being a vessel is one way that I think about it, because that's sort of the heavy stuff that you gotta bring in and then you gotta bring out, right? So to me, a really great vessel and organizing principle is the tini. I love it. So what do I have with the tini? I've got baba ganouche. We've got some smoked salmon with a goat cheese, uh, and mayonnaise mixture that goes on top. And then on top of that, some fresh mint that just brings the whole thing to life. And I've got some roasted red peppers that we've got some capers I'm gonna chop into. I'm gonna use some smoked anchovies, but keep it vegan and just do some, uh, collaborating chili paste with a little bit more mint, some lemon juice, and some olive oil. There you go. So to me, that, uh, that question of sort of, what are my, what's my ideal picnic? Uh, that's it in terms of organize it around something like this and build it in a way that you can kind of course it out. Not to make it a formal meal, but just to linger, right? And the idea that you've got this tub of baba, you've got the mayonnaise, you've got the roasted red peppers, and it's just kind of this dip and eat thing, a tub of hummus. Great. You know, there's nothing fancy about that, but it's absolutely delicious when you take it into this new environment. You take some cherry tomatoes, cut 'em in half, put 'em in a quart container or whatever, throw in some olive oil, some salt and microplane, one thing, one clove of garlic into that, put the top on, shake it up. There you go. You've got this beautiful, fresh, delicious, delightful salsa that's full of acidity, but also richness. That garlic just punctuating with that sort of deeper note, uh, that we love. That keeps us coming back for more, maybe a couple cracks of fresh cracked pepper to add. Just a little spice in there. Again. There you go. You really haven't done a whole lot of prep work other than kind throwing something in, in, in an oven, you know, using a knife a little bit, pack it all up, and getting to the idea of wasteful or not, or excessive. Yep. If you plan it out for several hours, most of that food's gonna get eaten. Also, there's not a whole lot in this food that's necessarily going to go bad to the point where, like, in my family, I can't, I can't tell you what to do or give you advice on this, but if I packed up some baba ganus that I took out of the fridge and some roasted red peppers with calabrian chili and capers, and took it out into the world and had a picnic and kept it in a cooler for, uh, you know, two, three hours, and then I brought it home and I put it in the fridge, would I eat it again tomorrow? Yes. Yes, I would, I would feed it to my family. And with that leftover baba ganus, great. Maybe mix it with any of the leftover tomatoes that I was just telling you about, those cherry tomatoes, the garlic and olive oil and pepper, right? Well, that makes a really nice sauce for a piece of roasted salmon, or, uh, toss that in, you know, add some spike with, uh, some vinegar and make it into a nice chunky vinegarette for a bread and barley or bread and beans salad with posted pistachios in there, right? There's ways to use up these things, again, even in smaller quantities.