Summer Opera Picnic: Part I 


Jim describes an ongoing opera party with friends, Joyce and Carlos, and talks about cooking and opera in the process. 

Stephen and I, Joyce and Carlos, have been picnicking at Opera Theatre St. Louis in June for many years. It's one of those gifts in life that we didn't plan on, but that just evolved into something really special. A few years back, we discovered that we both were season ticket holders on the same evening. After a few trial runs at sharing a picnic, the pattern became established: Stephen and I would be responsible for two meals, and they would be responsible for the other two.

Opera Theatre St. Louis has done a spectacular job of encouraging and facilitating this practice. To quote their website, "Opera Theatre's Pavilion is among the great St. Louis summer pleasures.  Lawns, trees, and abundant flowers make a cool and colorful setting for picnics before performances." Located on the Campus of Webster University, and sharing facilities with the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, whose season runs from September to May, OTSL truly is a St. Louis Treasure, and one of the many reasons it would be hard to get Stephen and me to move anywhere else.

Our friends started us off with a picnic of gespacho, salmon and Thai pasta salad, brownies with raspberries, and of course a good white wine. Last week Stephen provided strawberry soup, turkey patties stuffed with brie, salad and rice, and apple cake and whipped cream. More wine too. So now it is my turn. I decided to try to faithfully make the Summer Canoe Picnic described in Dee Dee Stoval's Picnic, a book so full of fun picnic ideas that you won't live long enough to try all of 'em. The menu looked great: let's drink our salad with Iced Cucumber Soup, then have a hardy American style picnic entree of Lemony Chicken and Red Potato Salad with Fresh Peas, and top the dinner off with something called "Tannies," a cookie bar made of graham crackers, chocolate chips, nuts and sweetened condensed milk.

Amid the confusion of buying a newer car and all the other social and church obligations we have, I decided that this was PLAN AHEAD time, and I would make the picnic over a three day period, thus not exhausting myself on the last day. This morning I made the Tannies and the Potato Salad, on the reasonable assumption that two days in the refrigerator will just make the salad taste better. Tomorrow I will make the cold soup and the chicken, and put the finishing touches on as I pack the picnic basket the third day.

As I was buzzing about my kitchen this morning, I was particularly reflecting on how good it is to know what you are doing behind the counter, the stove and the sink, so to speak. Good kitchen technique just helps the quality of the food in so many ways. I think I'll rant briefly on knives vs. food processors.

You know, food processors are fine in a pinch, but I really chop with a big chef's knife when I have the time. I bought a set of Henckles Knives from a little store on the Hill in the 1970's for about $300, learned to use them, and I have never been sorry. There were onions in the potato salad. If you food process the onions, it tears them rather than slices them, and gives a stronger raw taste. There were walnuts in the Tannies. If you food process the walnuts, it will grind about 1/3 of them up finer than is good for cookie bars. Also, when to stop is a question. If you use the big chef's knife, it takes about the same time, is easier to clean, and tones muscles. But the main thing is, you are totally in control of your food, in this case, making perfect sized walnut bits for the cookie bars. Now, it takes quite a while to learn good technique with a chef's knife. They do have to be sharpened, and YOU CANNOT BE STRESSED OR DAYDREAMING, or you will cut your fingers off. For chopping, like I was doing today, you use a rocking motion with your dominant hand, and your other hand to hold and feed the ingredients on the chopping board. But darn, it works well when you know what you are doing.

Permit me one other tiny rant. I used the old fashioned rolling pin to crush the graham crackers. I built quite a bit of muscle with that one, but then, it's a lot cheaper than Bally's. Sure, I could have been done in a zip with the Cuisinart Food Processor that I own—and there are DEFINITELY times when that is the best tool for the job. But this, my friends, is not one of them. You want these cookie bars to have the right texture, and there is too much danger of grinding them too fine in a food processor. I'm not just making this up. To get all the big pieces ground up, you have to leave the food processor on until they are all broken up, and then the other half of the graham crackers are pulverized into space dust. Using the rolling pin creates a disgusting mess that you have to clean up, and crushed graham crackers that will hold and absorb the other cookie bar ingredients in just the right way.

So, thank you for enjoying with me my prideful culinary tale. The potato salad looks GOOD in the square clear glass bowl with cover (I will later cover it with mint and fresh peas). And Stephen and I had green tea and a tiny sample of the Tannies about 4 p.m. this afteroon. They were very delicious. What do you mean, we should have waited? I wouldn't dream of serving my friends something I made without tasting it. It's fun, delicious, and just being courteous.

I'm so looking forward to the opera in a couple of days. We're seeing Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck, and a folksy style picnic seems just right. According to the New York Times, this opera is no more a children's opera than Alice in Wonderland is a children's book. Oh. Maybe I should have put another ingredient into those cookie bars. Nah! I'm serving a good wine. 

Posted: Fri - June 16, 2006 at 01:18 PM          

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