Ooh, thanks! I will definitely be referring to this later.

That's lovely. My suppers in summertime tend to be picnic-like fare most of the time, regardless of whether I'm actually out gadding about in the meadows and so forth, so it particularly suits.

When it's down to old reliables, I'm a fan of bread, cheese, olives, and sausage in the old picnic basket. And ideally...

Am weak with hunger. Also giggling at phallic beer poster.

yay, I love Bittman. The Edamame salad looks great too.

Yum!
*saves to del.icio.us*

Oh my god, I'm going to have a picnic this weekend just to try some of these out. Thanks!

I saw this in the paper this morning and set it aside. These look SO good. Most look pretty easy to make but here's the thing: It always takes me forever to make the simplest recipes. It will say, prep time 10 minutes, and half an hour later, I'm still assembling, chopping, mixing and using every cutting board and bowl in the kitchen. Is it me? Or does it take everyone who isn't a television chef with everything nicely set out in front of them a long time?

Anyway I am going to try the feta/grape thing and the cold peanut noodles tonight. All of this looks so yummy!

Yeah, it usually takes me a bit longer to prep recipes than they claim it should. I see the times as more of par numbers: if you're good, this is how long it will take.

But you'll definitely cut down on cooking times if you chop and prep everything, putting them in neat little bowls in front of you before you start cooking. Then you don't get halfway through a recipe and notice that you needed three sliced onions, and you haven't even pulled them out yet and everything else is going to burn.