Whoops! Looks like I was still a little loopy yesterday and forgot to pick a second winner for our fruit gift baskets. Some of you must be picking up a lot of lucky pennies to get all these chances to win. Congratulations to Swisspotluck (posted at July 19, 2011 at 11:57 pm)! Please send your real name and address to amariscal@1800flowers.com and I can send you a fruit gift basket. Now on with the show!
Picnics! Everyone loves picnics; Adults, kids, bears, everyone! July and August fall into the wonderful time known as picnic season, when it’s guaranteed to be nice, sunny, and cheerful out (unless of course you live in the Midwest where it’s apparently ‘anything goes’). Picnics are a great way to find another use for your gift baskets, and spend some quality time in the great outdoors.
"We love picnics!"- Those guys.
I think the best part about a picnic is that it doesn’t even matter what kind of food you bring, as long as it’s in a basket, you’re golden. This gives you the chance to prepare whatever dish you desire and show it off to tons of surely jealous passers-by. In an “outside-of-the-box” state of mind, the Estate Afternoon Tea Hamper would be a great morning/early afternoon picnic selection for a relaxing day at the park.
Estate Afternoon Tea Hamper Product $69.99, Code:94344
The basket alone is simply gorgeous and very reusable. The woven rattan hamper with lid holds Stonewall Kitchen® Traditional Scone Mix, Biscottea® Earl Gray Shortbread, fragrant Golden Assam and Lover’s Leap® estate teas, fruity Lost Acres® Plum Butter, naturally delicious Lost Acres® White Clover Honey, a tin of assorted LaVie™ French pastillines, and more. By now, you all know my love for good sweets, so listen up. We have a literal basket full of French pastillines in the kitchen right now, and it has taken every speck of will power I’ve ever had to not bring the entire supply to my desk (there are still so many hours in the day though). The scone mix is very easy to prepare and even easier to eat when paired with the plum butter. You can either make some tea and bring it in a travel mug, or bring along your favorite bottle of wine. Either way, I think this is a surprisingly perfect gift basket to bring out to the park.
I was going to go on a picnic yesterday and take pictures, however (another Midwest woe) if you live in the Chicago area, you know that being outside before 8 pm yesterday and having any body movement for more than five minutes resulted in immediate humidity asphyxiation. Therefore, going to a well air-conditioned tapas restaurant and a night of Netflix won my attention. And now today it is a continuation of last night’s monsoon (seriously, Chicago). However, I figured I could still dig up a picture from when I made my friends have an indoor picnic with me during winter, that really just turned into eat anything that has cheese in it night! Instant living room picnic!
Not pictured: The cheese pizza in the oven, my self control.
As soon as the weather stops turning me into a blob of a human being, I’ll make a real picnic to post here. Until then I can just day dream about a warmly toasted demi-French baguette, a wheel of brie, avocado slices, mixed salad with strawberries and chicken…Alright, I’m back.
These are what my dream picnics are made of.
Do you have any of your favorite picnic memories you would like to share? Or tell us what you would put in your perfect picnic basket in 1-2 paragraphs. We love hearing back from you! Random winner(s) will be selected next week 🙂
