These are picnic-worthy not just because of their sugar-encrusted goodness, but because you can make them days ahead of time and serve them as soon as you arrive at the picnic site, before the rest of the food is unpacked. Hey, and if you serve them in the car on the way to the picnic, that's okay, too, though technically that's not a picnic. Admittedly, it's a smallish recipe, but there's a reason for that: the almonds are so good that people would fill up on them if given the chance. Feel free to double the amount.
The mild cream-Dijon dressing keeps this salad wine friendly.
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The credit for this delightfully refreshing and extravagantly simple little amuse-bouche, or palate teaser, goes to chef Patrice Barbot at restaurant l'Astrance, in Paris.
Sometimes the eating-close-to-the-ground concept needs a night off. You want a piece of meat, a potato and maybe a salad ¡ª the stuff of old-time grillers' dreams. With a grill and a pair of tongs, you can have it all.
While the blueberries are baking, prepare the ingredients for the topping, but do not stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just before the berries come out of the oven. A standard or deep-dish 9-inch pie pan works well; an 8-inch square baking dish can also be used. Vanilla ice cream or lightly sweetened whipped cream is the perfect accompaniment. To reheat leftovers, put the cobbler in a 350-degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until heated through.
This probably doesn't even qualify as a recipe, I'll admit, but it's so smackingly refreshing and summerlicious it deserves a whole page of its own. The story goes like this: in 1922, an innkeeper in Bavaria didn't have enough beer to accommodate the bicyclists and other guests, so he cut the beer with lemon-lime soda and it was a hit. He named it "radler," which means "cyclist." So, is this the German equivalent of Gatorade? Kinda. The beer tempers the sweetness of the soda, and the soda mellows the bitterness of the beer, and the result is fruity and light tasting and has half the alcohol of beer. In my experience, though, it's so good I drink twice what I should, so be warned. I like it with pale American beer (full honesty moment: Busch Light), but by all means, experiment with different brews.
While writing this book, I read as many picnic and summery cookbooks as I could find, just to see what other people had done. By far the best book I came across was Claudia Roden's 1981 Picnics. It was packed with great recipes, ideas, and an astonishing amount of research. She graciously allowed me to reprint this recipe, which I adore for its simplicity and the clarity of its flavors.
Fennel blooms in mid-summer with airy umbels of tiny yellow flowers that have a sweet anise flavor. Soon after, the umbels are covered with soft, intensely flavored green seeds. A spice called fennel pollen is made from the sieved dried fennel flowers. Use whichever form you can come by; flowers, green seeds, or dried pollen. All will impart a similar wild, grassy fennel flavor to this soup, which is delicious served chilled if the weather suggests it.
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