picnic

I kind of feel like I want to combine several of the one-word project prompts into one, but it seems that would not be in the spirit of the exercise, so I'm going to try to go with just one at a time. And on a sunny day like today, a day when I'm still finishing up with post-mission trip stuff, a day when I'm looking forward to new things, a day when it's absolutely gorgeous outside and I am stuck in my office trying to get stuff done, a picnic is just the thing.

In southern Louisiana last week we had a picnic, sort of, almost every day. Three days we ate at our worksite, balancing on random pieces of furniture or paint buckets, holding peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on our dust or paint covered hands. The other two days we went to a local park and had picnics at picnic shelters, sitting at picnic tables, surrounded by grass and plants and wildlife and water...and across the street from a sno-ball (snowcone) stand. yes, life is good.

At these picnics, the youth in my group discovered something that I can't believe they didn't know about me before: when I get tired of peanut butter and jelly (which happens about halfway through the first sandwich), I like to make sandwiches out of cheese and chips. wheat bread, whatever condiments are handy (mustard and mayo are best), some cheese (american cheese will do--which is good, since that's what we had--though I did have swiss and american one day), and whatever kind of chips I have. Some days I put Sun Chips, some days baked Ruffles cheddar and sour cream, some days baked lays (plain)...but always cheese and chips. It's so delicious! Crunchy yet sandwichy, a fun mixture of flavors, easily held together with no need to reach into the chip bag while your sandwich falls apart in the other hand...and PERFECT for the vegetarian in your life who wants to have a sandwich but only has meat and cheese and chips on hand.

I learned to do this at a church picnic many years ago--the first church picnic that Fourth Presbyterian held at the "new" (especially then!) Chicago Avenue site--back when it was just a parking lot awaiting a building, not a thriving community garden. We had this picnic there, and there was Not.A.Single.Vegetarian.Thing at the whole picnic. So I had a hotdog made of chips instead of hotdogs--bun, ketchup, potato chips...mmmmm.....and ever since, chip sandwiches have been my picnic food of choice.

Well, I still eat peanut butter and jelly sometimes (I even packed my own no-high-fructose-corn-syrup-no-sugar-no-chemical jam to take with me to Louisiana...and two of us ate the whole jar!). But it's not quite a picnic without a chip sandwich.