Perfect Picnic in the Park

I am not following in my parents' footsteps. Really. I'm not.

Even if they want to think differently. There's a difference between catering and "catering." And when I was asked on Friday if I would cater a picnic, it was not really "catering." If it was, I'm a pitiful caterer. And I didn't add a fee either.

Grocery shopping for ten people is difficult to do alone, especially when I had no clue what I was doing. How much turkey do I need to buy? Fruit gets heavy really quickly. And there are too many kinds of turkey to choose from. They sell sliced cheese in two places OTHER than the deli case. And Jarlsberg was difficult to find. But I found it. Next to more turkey. I circled the grocery store enough that I'm finally learning my way around it, and also probably looked crazy. But that's okay, because nothing bad happened.

So Sunday morning, I woke up five hours after I went to bed, hopped up, ate breakfast, gathered up my stuff for banana toffee snack cake (though I didn't realize that was what it was at the time), headed to the kitchen, and started on my baking.

Two hours later, I was making sandwiches, with help from a floormate. I'm scared of tomatoes, so I was glad she came and helped. She also came armed with a plastic knife. Those things work way better than metal butter knives on both ciabatta and tomatoes. I don't understand why they swapped those in for metal knives after 9/11 on airplanes; they might be more dangerous.



But the picnic. I've yet to mention the picnic. The one that I was utterly unprepared for, and was tasty, but could have been better. I forgot the napkins. But I remembered hand sanitizer, not that I took it out of my bag. No blanket or anything, but then I saw some picnic tables near where they'd set up the high line. And there was probably just barely enough sandwich. It was a good thing that someone also grabbed chips. And the snack cake went over well.

But I was amazed. I didn't know I could get so much praise for a turkey sandwich. It wasn't even my idea! I just listen to people's suggestions, sort of.


Turkey Sandwich on Ciabatta

1 loaf ciabatta (about 12 ounces)
1/2 lb sliced cajun spiced turkey
8 slices colby jack cheese
1 avocado, thinly sliced
4 leaves green leaf lettuce

Slice ciabatta lengthwise, so that there's a top and a bottom. Layer cheese along bottom. Top with turkey, then lettuce, and then avocado. Place other half of bread on top. Slice into desired number of sandwiches. Six is a good size.

Variation: Jarlsberg + tomato, with normal smoked deli turkey.