Picnic Day Tomorrow!

We at the Occasional Ostrich try to meet a high bar for journalistic excellence, aware as we are that we carry the standard for our sisters in the media. And yet, occasionally, we let our readers down. When we do, we feel an ache in our hearts until we set things right. This is why, for a year minus three days, I've been a haunted man, wearing my error like a scarlet letter. (Really more like an infra-red letter, since it can't be seen the with naked eye.) But finally, today, I get to scrub my forehead clean.

On July 28, 2024 we ran an article about Picnic Day, the Summer Thanksgiving we've all been missing, a holiday Ben Franklin would have invented, if he hadn't been drunk in France. But as you'll remember with a pang of grief and disappointment, last year's Picnic Day was on the 27th. By the time you knew about it, it was over and done.

But not this year. Picnic Day 2025, as always the last Saturday in July, is still in the future! (Unless you're slow to read your email, in which case it's either in the present or the past, but that's on your shoulders.) We're printing our July article two days early, so you can join the picnic throngs on Saturday the 26th!

How do you celebrate Picnic Day? Easy! Go to nature and eat food there.

What sort of food? Whatever you like!

Don't know what you like? Here are some of the ideas from last year's too-late-to-be-useful article:

• Finger sandwiches on homemade rolls, with fresh tomato and basil, black pepper, balsamic reduction, and seasoned butter.
• Onigiri with smoked salmon—little triangles of sweet, sticky rice with black sesame seeds and flaked salmon, belted with a ribbon of nori for modesty. A Japanese picnic tradition.
• Blackberry/blueberry hand pies.
• Thai salad rolls—lettuce strips, bean sprouts, julienned carrots, radish slices, mint leaves, and baked tofu, all in a salad roll wrapper. Wrap that in a lettuce leaf for transport. Peanut sauce on the side for spooning.
• Crumbly, aged gouda on those long, fancy, gourmet crackers.
• Homemade ginger beer.
• Quick-pickled cucumber or cauliflower.
• Regular, non-pickled cucumber slices with salt and pepper.
• Cornbread with honey butter.

Tempting, right? Some foods were made for a picnic and some days were made for a picnic and Picnic Day is both!

But wait, I hear you asking, doesn't the Fourth of July already fill the need for a summer food holiday?

No. The Fourth of July isn't about food. It's about something else, thought I can't remember what. Picnic Day, like Thanksgiving, is all about the food, and being glad you have it. If Thanksgiving is about eating food where the oven is, Picnic Day is about eating food where the oven isn't. The Fourth makes an effort in this direction, but it only goes as far as the backyard, whereas Picnic Day goes to wilder places: riverbanks, meadows, forest glens and seasides.

So. You have a day to prepare. Pack your snackins, and I'll see you outside tomorrow!