From the Los Angeles Times
In the beautiful economy of the forest – or the urban backyard garden
– leaves are nature's brilliant cookware. Banana leaves can be cut
down to make plates or unfurled into wrappers perfect for steaming fish
on a low-slung grill. Fig trees and grapevines yield leaves the exact
size for enclosing, then grilling, a cube of feta, a recumbent sardine
or a mint-studded lamb meatball.
Before the invention of tinfoil or grilling baskets, pragmatic cooks
picked their kitchen supplies from branches and found what they needed
in the trees.
Going green was logical – OK, obvious – long before it became chic.
A friend of mine from NYC called the other day to ask which pie bakery I preferred. He had guests from Norway stopping by that afternoon for coffee and wanted to offer them a slice of “American pie”.
There is something both innocent and exciting about a picnic, even if you are only packing a few things at the last minute and heading down the street to the park. It may be nothing fancier than bologna or tuna salad on white bread, but you’re still likely to have a good time, which is probably why many of us remain devoted to the same picnic foods we’ve eaten all our lives.