Hello, I’m Melissa Hemsley, and welcome to my kitchen.
This is The Art of the Picnic with me and Vogue, in partnership with Alvalle Gazpacho.
It’s not fantastic weather, as you can see, but that’s OK because we’ve
got beautiful food and The Art of the Picnic means having a good time whatever the weather.
I was thinking about what makes a picnic, and I was looking up the definition of a
picnic. It says something along the lines of a meal eaten outdoors, preferably with,
you know, like a scenic view and that’s great, if you’ve got time to
get out and about, but I’m in east London and I just wanna have
a beautiful picnic all the time. I’m not saving it for best or when the sun is thriving.
Here is a beautiful platter I wanna show you. I love a platter because
you can be completely flexible to have a contrast in flavours and textures,
so we’ve got creamy sunshine spiced dips, we’ve got a watercress
tzatziki. You could put any greens in that. We’ve got crunchy crackers galore.
We’ve talked about our platter, beautiful, beautiful platter, lots of elements that you
can prepare ahead and then a really great pairing to go with it – take a load off, don’t try to do
everything yourself – is a gorgeous, lovely gazpacho. I really like the Alvalle Gazpacho.
To make a great picnic, it’s all about keeping things fun and simple, not
over-exerting yourself and definitely not giving yourself too much to clean up. So where you can,
get something from the shops that’s ready to go, take advantage of that, there’s no need to be
a picnic hero. So, all you need to do is pack yourself some bowls, and your chilled Alvalle
Gazpacho, and then to make it look even better on your picnic, you chop some cucumbers, you chop
some cherry tomatoes, or any ripe tomatoes, and then you just do this lovely bit of flourishing,
as everyone arrives to sit down to the picnic – and it didn’t take much time at all, did it?
I’m just remembering all the things that my mum taught me about cooking when I was growing up.
My mum’s from the Philippines and so flavours of the Philippines that took over our lives, were
things like ginger and lots of citrus fruit, lots of citrus fruits that haven’t seen here in London,
but I always think of citrus when I think of my mum, and I love lemonade, so I feel like
lemonade is a really key, typical British, picnic staple. If you’re at home, you can do this too.
Jug, brew up some ginger tea, cool it and then you can squeeze
loads and loads and loads of citrus in. So, lemon. You can also zest your fruit,
to add more flavour, and you could perk it up with some fresh mint, with some basil, I love
grapefruit and basil together, and what’s really nice, if you make a concentrate of this drink,
you can then add vodka, a little bit of gin, or you can just serve it as it comes.
It’s finishing touches time of our Art of the Picnic table. We’ve got the platter,
we’ve got this Greek-inspired watermelon, feta, minty tomato number here.
I remember going to picnics when I was younger with some boiled eggs
and lots of sandwiches. What else was there? Maybe like some kind of room temperature soft drinks.
Desperate for some ice back then. And I just think now we enjoy picnics a lot more. They’re
a longer affair and they can also be – this is obviously absolutely fantastic and lovely – but
they can be super simple, too, and the important thing is just like lots of lovely things to eat,
lots of relaxation. Amazing combination, and for me tomatoes are absolutely
essential for a summer picnic, so you’ll see I’ve got them in lots of different things here.
We have got a gorgeous, fruity platter with blood oranges,
apples, strawberries. We’ve got this beautiful burrata courgette ribbon salad,
all beautiful complementing our gorgeous chilled Alvalle Gazpacho.
The sun’s out, we’re ready to go. The picnic basket is packed. Here is what
I keep in my picnic basket. So, what have we got here? We’ve got reusable containers.
Love the ones with the little handle, too. Lots of hydration. Got my speakers. Got lots of plates.
All about the mish mash, mix it up, nothing needs to be matching, never. Love this container.
Blanket, of course, get loads of blankets so you can be really nice and cosy.
Thank you so much for joining me for The Art of the Picnicing, and have
an amazing summer, full of picnics. See you soon!