Secrets to a Perfect Picnic

Summertime in San Diego is unbeatable. The weather is perfect and every San Diegoan is spending more time outdoors — whether at the park, beach, or backyard.

Picnics are one way to enjoy fresh air and sunshine, any time of day. If you’re looking for ways to simplify your picnic planning or make the picnic experience more enjoyable, here are a few tips:

Transporting Food
If you’ve got dishes that need to be kept warm, keep it in the cooking vessel. For pots and pans with lids and handles, tie a flour sack towel or clean dish around it to hold the lid in place.

If you’re bringing deviled eggs, place them in cupcake liners for easy transportation.

Bring a picnic basket to store tableware and nonperishable items, and use a cooler to store cold food and beverages.

Place nonperishable food at the bottom of the basket and serving items and tableware at the top to make it easy to unload once you arrive at the picnic site.

Bring a handful of plastic bags to store dirty dishes, silverware, and trash if the picnic site doesn’t have a garbage can.

Keeping Food Cool
If you’ll be packing a cooler, make sure it’s 25% ice and 75% food. Place the heaviest and most perishable foods near the bottom of the cooler and lighter items on top.

Food will stay cold longer if the cooler is full. If you don’t have enough food to fill a cooler, add more ice.

If your picnic will last more than a few hours, fill clean empty milk cartons with water and freeze. Large pieces of ice last longer than ice cubes.

Grilling
If you’ll be doing some grilling at your picnic, be sure to wrap meat, poultry, and fish separately from cooked foods.

Don’t partially cook meats at home as this will lead to fast bacteria growth.

Picnic Fun
Once the food has been taken care of, consider the following ways to have some fun at your picnic:

– Create a scavenger hunt for getting to the picnic site.
– Bring a board game, Frisbee, or bocce ball.

Picnic People is happy to take care of all the planning and preparation so that you can focus on enjoying your time outdoors. Give us a call to tell us about your upcoming picnic!