Picnic Feast For Two

Marc and I work in the same place but it seems they are not able to have us work together. He works in the morning and I work late nights. Up until this week we have had at least one day off together, but because of other peoples demands we did not have days off together this week.

The other day on my first day off, I discovered that Marc took my key by accident leaving me no way of leaving and coming back into the building. I was stuck indoors the whole time so I had no choice but to plan an outdoor event for when he returned.

I made some picnic feast items which would be a couple of picnic salads. We went across the street to a little community public park the size of a big back yard which makes you feel like you have an extended living space.

I ended up making too much food but it didn't matter . We love left overs especially if Marc comes home and I am at work. He can just grab some leftovers and play video games which he likes to entertain himself.

When I come home and he is in bed I can grab something quick if I am still hungry. We can eat at work or bring something home but sometimes we forget or are too busy to do it.

Pasta chickpea salad

The dressing was balsamic, dijon and maple syrup with garlic, salt and pepper.

Rice salad for a gluten free option which is what I ate mostly.

I dressed cold rice, radishes, and red onion with cashew cream, tahini, lime juice, sesame oil, ginger, garlic, salt and pepper

Later it was topped with shredded multicolored carrots, green pepper, daikon radish and a drizzle of mango sauce.

The mango sauce was also intended for one of the dipping sauces for the tofu sticks which was sauteed with tamari, ginger, garlic chili pepper and salted dried radish.

A peanut sauce was the other dipping sauce made of tamari, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, lime juice, maple syrup, and peanut butter.

Marc couldn't decide what to eat because I had certainly over done it. It was as if a bunch of people would join us.

I have to say though, it's nice to eat slowly and have a conversation for hours in the beautiful summer. That is what is great about food that is intended to be eaten cold. You don't have to worry about it getting cold so you can take your time. I think in many people's rushed lives, we sometimes just cram things into our mouths for the sake of getting food inside as fast as we can so we can get to the next thing that we have to do.

We try to take these opportunities to do the cliche French thing and that is to eat and converse over a long period of time.