Summer made an unexpected visit to the Lower Mainland at the end of April. The 25+ degree weather demanded a picnic. While the eldest was at school the three-year old and I had fun making a fancy picnic.
Many moons ago, I picked up an order-ahead picnic-meal from Meinhardts Fine Foods. To this day I still dream about their chilled salmon fillets. Thanks to Meinhardts I now must have chilled fish on every picnic. For our April picnic dinner I made: poached trout, potato salad (you can’t have a picnic without this staple), grilled asparagus & pepper salad, and black bottom cupcakes for dessert. Delicious!
Now let’s be honest, the food is for the grown ups. The kids just want to play in the water; eating is generally viewed as an inconvenience. Our kids happily threw rocks into the water…over and over and over! I did forget wipes but fortunately a water-saturated napkin cleaned them up to a level I felt they could eat without catching some alarming disease. The waiting cupcake, combined with the desire to resume launching rocks into the water, helped them hurry up the eating.
A number of other families clearly had the same sun-worshiping idea as we did. The waterside was hopping with activity. The best time was had every time the boats went by; the large waves were extra fun to throw rocks in.
Our evening was simple and memorable. We glimpsed a bit of what summer will be like; many meals will be spent at the water-side.
