Let's go on a vintage picnic

There are few things in the whole wide world that seem to partner better with a gorgeous late spring or early summer Sunday than leaving the confines of your home and venturing out into nature to enjoy a serene and entirely scrumptious picnic.




Whether you're picnicking merely for its own marvelous merits or in celebration of something wonderful - say, for example like Father's Day today - there's scarcely an occasion that isn't made more delightful by packing up a meal, jaunting off to the seaside, a lovely park, the verdant woods or wherever your heart desires and rejoicing in the mellow pace of a sunny Sunday picnic.

Scattered far and wide across the globe as we are, it's not possible for all of us vintage adoring folks to gather together in one large, delightful communal mean outdoors. Instead, on this beautiful morning, let's go on a virtual picnic together, chocked, naturally, full of vintage loveliness from start to finish.

First off, we'll need a picnic basket. How about this completely charming mid-century red, blue and yellow tartan metal number?





Or if classic wicker is more you're style, why not tuck your favourite picnic foods into this beautiful 1950s example.




And for sheer classic elegance and iconic picnic appeal, they really don't come any more lovely than this great woven version.




If highly perishable foods are on the agenda, we might need a cooler, too - one can never be too careful when it comes to preventing food poisoning! This charming Little Brown Ice Chest and matching Little Brown Jug thermos are sure to do the job.




Naturally, whether we're spread out in a grassy meadow, on a tawny hued beach, or a wooden campground table, we're going to need a white and red gingham picnic blanket. I'm especially fond of the version below created by etsy seller Sewn Natural. It's a three-layer, quilted outdoor blanket that's both eco-friendly and waterproof, too boot! (You've got to love that if you're picnicking with little kids who might accidentally tip over a bottle of grape juice at any moment.) 

We're venturing into the elements, so that means it's time to slap on the sunscreen, even if we decide to set up camp in the shade.





Ants are the only pesky critters who like to show up when picnics are around, so it's probably best if we bring some bug spray, too (or, if you prefer, tote along a nice, big citronella candle).




Perhaps though, we're jumping ahead of ourselves just a touch...we haven't even decided what we're going to wear on our lovely Sunday outing yet. Of course the choice of venue with factor in here considerably, but in general, there are certain options - sundresses and playsuits, for example - that will work well no matter where you're headed this time of year.

In a cute nod to the iconic picnic blanket, I'm rather fond of wearing gingham while I'm noshing in the great outdoors. This two-piece 1950s shorts and crop top set from etsy seller Fashion Rerun would be awesome for those especially toasty days when the last thing you want is to be covered up from head-to-toe.

If pink is your passion, you're sure to swoon (as I did!) over this cute-as-button pink and white sleeveless vintage gingham dress from etsy seller Custard Heart Vintage that practically has "June picnic" written all over it.




For those in the mood for a somewhat darker, but still completely summer appropriate gingham look, may I present a lovely black red fifties dress from etsy seller Vintage Critter, complete with cross stitch inspired detailing and a very flattering square neckline.




Should your picnic take you anywhere near the water - be it lake, ocean, river, stream, or pool - then you may want to slip into this wildly adorable red and white gingham fifties swimsuit from etsy seller Wear It Again.




A wide-brimmed straw hat is a marvelous accompaniment for nearly any vintage picnic ensemble. Equal parts practical and pretty, it shades your face and neck from the sun and gives you the loveliest I-just-stepped-out-of-a-vintage-summertime-fashion-spread look. It's all I could do to keep from swooning right off the couch when I spotted the beautifully elegant flower adorned 1930s straw hat pictured below from etsy Sonnet and Bough.




Now let's turn our focus to the menu. Much as with what we're going to wear, our choice of picnic fare may very a bit depending on where we're headed.

There are certainly beloved staples (beyond just sandwiches and fresh fruit) that are sure to please most picnic goers of all ages and which work well for a variety of venues and events, such as deviled eggs, potato salad, coleslaw, baked beans, hamburger pie, and chocolate fudge pie. The 1950s picnic spread pictured below would also be rather tasty!




Supplies, food and outfit determined and ready to go, it's now time we nailed down just whereabouts to hold our lovely Sunday picnic. We could head to the beach...




How about getting the whole family together for a feast at the park?




The woods are always a natural choice for an outdoor meal, and a very relaxing one, too, assuming you don't run into Yogi Bear! :)




Sometimes the best picnics spring up organically in the moment, turning wherever you are in a wonderfully festive spot. Case in point, this 1940s crowd having a wonderful impromptu feast on the hood of someone's car.




Having settled on a location, it's time to unpack the trunk and basket, kick up our heels and savour an ice cold beverage.




Be sure to grab some snapshots of your outing to look back on fondly when winter's icy wrath returns. There's nothing like daydreaming about July in January to help make the long wait until summer's return a touch more bearable.




And last but not least, remember to have fun, smile, delight in the magic of being outdoors. Fill your lungs with pristine fresh air, swap stories with friends, nosh until your heart's content, and make sure to repeat the whole picnic process as often as possible this summer!




Whether you drive for five minutes or two hours to reach your destination, pack a few light nibbles or a full on feast, enjoy tagging along with ten people or just one beloved soul, I hope that over the course of this warm and magnificent season, you all get to revel in at least one thoroughly terrific picnic. They're needn’t cost and arm and leg, can be tossed together on the fly, and often result in some of the loveliest memories of year.

{To learn more about any of the images used in this post, please click on an image to be taken to its respective source.}

Happy picnicking, my sweet dears! And to all those celebrating Father's Day, may you have an absolutely awesome time however you spend this special day!

Not your run-of-the-mill 1940s potato salad recipe

Today, the summer solstice and the very longest of the year, has always been one of my absolute favourites. I find there is a powerful energy and sense of excitement that flows through its every moment, and rarely is there a year that I don't stay up until at least midnight so as to experience every last moment of this fantastic day. 

From now until late September, we're under summer's sway again. It's hot, piercingly bright, sometimes languid, sometimes manic days of vibrancy, excitement, vitality, and - quite often - meals that are so simple, perfect, and unfussy as to scarcely warrant a recipe.

Cold cuts, platters of freshly picked and sliced (undesirably delicious) fruit still subtly warm from the tree, generously sized green salads bursting with a rainbow's worth of hues, leftovers of all kinds eaten straight from the fridge, Italian ice, garden gathered produce, and of course all of the sublimely enticing fare that comes part and parcel with barbeques, cookouts, and picnics.

In the case of the later, one of my favourite dishes to make and bring along is potato salad. Aside from my mom's fantastic recipe that I grew up with, I rarely make exactly the same potato salad twice. As with my pasta salads of the season, I like to use whatever is to hand and that I think will marry well together. Sometimes I opt for German style potato salads, others I smoother my spuds in a creamy dressing. At times fresh mint, a few peas, and olive oil are all it takes, or maybe the opposite is true and I pull out all the bells and whistles.

There's really no right or wrong when it comes to potato salad, so long as your 'tatoes are well cooked (but still a bit firm), and you ensure any dish with eggs and/or other highly perishable ingredients is properly refrigerated at all times (other than while eating, of course!). Over the years I've tried everything from an idea I came up with for pizza potato salad (fabulous!) to several vintage recipes culled from the web and my collection of mid-century cookbooks.

Most have been quite nice, though I do sometimes find myself further jazzing up those from the 30s, 40s, and 50s (and/or scaling back the copious amount of mayo in their recipes). Today's recipe from 1945 for Chef's Potato Salad is already guised up quite nicely though - so much so, that some folks may wish to remove various ingredients (forgoing the canned lunch meat will make it vegetarian, for example).

 

{Toss everything but the kitchen sink into this yummy 1940s potato salad recipe, it's a great way to use up leftovers and cut down on the amount of time spent over the kitchen stove. Vintage recipe scan via Eudaemonius on Flickr.}

Whether you try it out as is (I'd use low sodium lunch meat, if possible, as the salt and cheese should already be salty enough) or play around a bit, this is an excellent summertime dish that can just as easily be the star of the show (aka, a meal unto itself) as a highly enjoyable side dish at a party, backyard feast, or picnic.

I'd be tempted to skip the canned meat, increase the cheese a little, trade the celery for sliced gherkins (a perpetual fave of mine), and toss in a small handful of fresh chives or parsley. You could also introduce tomatoes, leftover meats, tuna (or another seafood), nuts (almonds perhaps), or some fresh-off-the-cob corn.

Dishes like wonderful 1940s potato salad are not meant to be overly serious or formal affairs, they're fun, filling, versatile summertime meals that work every bit as well today on the first day of the season as they will right up until autumn starts on September 22nd.

Have a blast this summer, sweet friends, no matter what you cook, where you go, or how you spend your gorgeous sunshine filled months!

Wonderful Wednesday Recipe: Grandma Jean’s Classic Hamburger Picnic Pie

Like many grandmothers the world over, my paternal grandma is a wonderful home chef. Growing up I ate many meals at her home, each a blend of old school style and modern sensibility. She was fond of serving melon with supper, loved to whip out potato chip coated backed chicken for a special treat, and made, what stands out in my mind, as quite possibly the best berry filled English trifle of all time. Yet she wasn’t opposed to trying pesto, sun dried tomatoes or fragrant far-eastern inspired chutneys either.

My grandma’s cooking style with homey and comforting, yet never boring. I associate her dishes most with the sun-kissed summer months and holidays the whole year round. There are scores of wonderful recipes that my grandma cooked for her family when I was growing up, but (aside from the aforementioned trifle) none of them stand out in my mind with the same adoration, nor provoke such strong cravings, as her summertime hamburger picnic pie.


{Always a classic, a can of tomato soup gives this delightful dish a lovely vintage hit – as well as a mildly tangy dose of vegetable flavour. Vintage Campbell’s Tomato soup ad via Shelf Life Taste Test’s Flickr stream.}


Don’t let the pie crust in this recipe put you off, the entire dish is wonderfully simple to put together, and once in the oven it takes care of itself. As it bakes your kitchen fills with the savoury, enticing scent of tomatoes, beef, and flaky pastry. Even on the hottest dog days of July and August, when venturing into the kitchen for even so much as a popsicle seems makes you feel as though you could melt, I will – and often do – gleefully turn on the oven and whip up this stupendous dish.

Brought to the table it looks like – and is – a work of culinary art. Even when eaten warm, somehow (at least I’ve always found) you don’t feel stifled in the least by the fact that you’re consuming a hot dish on an even hotter day. However, by all means, this succulent meat pie can be nibbled at room temperature or cold from the fridge. There is no possible wrong way to eat this beloved summertime treasure.



Grandma Jean’s Classic Hamburger Picnic Pie

Ingredients

•1 tsp butter (or olive oil)

•2lbs (900g) lean ground beef (or extra lean ground chicken or turkey, which is what I generally use; you could certainly also try this recipe with TVP or another vegetarian/vegan ground meat substitute)

•1/2 cup finally chopped white or yellow onion (about one large, or two small, onions)

•1 (10.75 ounce/315ml – appox.) can condensed tomato soup

•2 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped

•2 tbsp dried basil

•2 tsp Worcestershire sauce (Annie’s Natural’s makes a fantastic organic Worcestershire sauce that I just love!)

•1 tsp sea or kosher salt

•1 tbsp garlic powder (grandma’s original called for 1/4 tsp garlic salt, but I find that between the sea salt and condensed soup, this dish is salt enough and so prefer to use garlic powder)

•1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper



Directions

Preheat you oven to 425°F (220°C/gas mark 7).

Heat a large skillet or frying pan over medium-high heat and melt the butter (or pour in the olive oil and allow it to get a little bit warm), add in the ground beef (or chicken/turkey or ground vegan crumbles) and chopped onion, cook for six minutes or until the meat is fully cooked through and the onions are nicely golden brown.

Remove from the heat and transfer the meat and onions to a large mixing bowl. Stir in the all of the other ingredients (except for the pie crusts, naturally) and blend well (if you want to taste the mixture to adjust the seasoning levels at this point you certainly can, as there are no unsafe rare ingredients in it).

Line two 8 or 9 inch pie plates (I prefer to use glass or ceramic ones for this recipe) with the bottom layers of pastry. Divide the meat mixture evenly between the two pies and place the pie crust lids on top of them, scoring both tops a few times with a sharp knife to create steam vents. Crimp the pies all the way around with your fingers, a fork or a pie crimper, and then slide them side-by-side (but not touching) in the middle of your 425° oven (if you oven isn’t wide enough to cook two pies at once, cook them one after the other).

Bake your hamburger pies for 30 minutes or until the pie crust has reached your desired level of golden beauty. Once baked, remove from the oven, place on cooling racks or folding dish towels and allow the pies to sit for a few minutes (I usually give them ten minutes to cool off ever-so-slightly).

If you’re going to serve the pies warm, bring them to the table at once. If you’re taking them on a picnic let them cool for a few more minutes than cover the pies with aluminum foil, wax paper or plastic wrap (or slip them into appropriately sized reusable plastic containers) and take them with you on your journey. Should you wish to eat the pies cold, let them cool for about thirty minutes (or until the bottom of the pie pans are luke warm or cooler) and then cover them and slide them into the fridge, where they’ll keep for three days.

My very favourite way to eat this hearty, flavourful pie is al fresco in the setting sun of a sizzling hot dusk, with a glass of mind-numbingly cold ice water and a slice of cantaloupe melon on the side – just as grandma used to serve.


Each pie makes 6-8 slices/servings

Bon appétit!