News and Views:

Quick Picnics

Patriotic Parfaits for the Fourth

Hot-Weather Food Safety;
Or, How Not to Poison Your Family, Friends, and Neighbors

Quick Picnics

Do you know that July is officially (or not) National Picnic Month, National Hot Dog Month, and National Ice Cream Month? In honor of that irresistible urge to drop everything for an impromptu picnic at the lake or the park, here are a few tips.

• Keep a canvas bag packed with paper plates, napkins, cups, and basic cutlery (including a sharp knife and a can opener) to grab as you go out the door. Be sure you are stocked up on portable nonperishables like juice boxes, pop-top canned tuna, peanut butter, crackers, boxes of raisins, and the like as the basis for a quick lunch. In the refrigerator, put a collection of your family’s favorite condiments in a container so you can pop it into the cooler.

• If your destination has a grill, think beyond hot dogs and hamburgers (good as they are) to portabella mushrooms, thick ham slices, frozen pizzas (cook them on a baking stone preheated on the grill rack), and other choices. Everything tastes better outdoors, so you don’t have to be fancy.

• Freeze bottles of water and keep them to use a freezer packs. Once thawed, you can drink the water.

• On a family cross-country trip two summers ago, we learned to make a fast sweep through grocery stores for picnic fixings: a loaf of good-looking bread, a few cold cuts, a wedge of cheese, yogurt, fresh fruit, and with luck some local specialty for dessert or side dish. It was cheaper and more fun than eating in a restaurant, and we picnicked beside some spectacular views in South Dakota, Montana, and points beyond.

Patriotic Parfaits

Crush the strawberries with the sugar and lemon juice in a glass bowl. Soften the gelatin in the cranberry juice over hot water. When the gelatin is dissolved, stir the mixture into the crushed berries. Whip 1 cup of the cream and fold it into the strawberry mixture. Chill, covered, until ready to assemble.

To make the parfaits, whip the remaining 1 cup of cream, and wash and pick over the blueberries. Spoon some of the strawberry mixture into parfait glasses; add a layer of blueberries and a dollop of whipped cream to each; repeat. Garnish with a few perfect blueberries. Makes 4 to 6 servings, depending on size of serving glass.

Hot-Weather Food Safety

Or,

How

Not

to

Poison

Your

Family,

Friends,

and

Neighbors

For consumer advice on the subject, go to www.foodsafety.gov. Another helpful Web site is http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/fdkitchn.html. The advice boils down to recognizing four major errors:

• Poor personal hygiene, which can be reduced by careful hand-washing.

• Inadequate cooling of cooked food, which is solved by quick refrigeration to slow bacterial growth. Don’t let hot food "cool off" on the counter to spare the refrigerator.

• Inadequate cooking or reheating, which means that food must be brought to at least 140°F in order to kill bacteria. Soups and stews should be brought to a boil; other food should be steaming hot.

• Poor sanitation, including such no-nos as cleaning the counter with the same sponge that wiped up juice from raw meat, using a cutting board that was not adequately sanitized, stirring the potato salad with a spoon that was in the meat marinade, and so on.

In other words, food should be kept either hot or cold; your hands and your kitchen must be clean. This is for your own good, as Mom used to say!

The Thumb Rule of Thumb

Remember, meat becomes firmer the longer it cooks. Poke the meat with your finger. Then pinch your palm halfway between your thumb and the base of your index finger. That’s the feel of rare. Medium-rare is the firmness of your flesh at the base of your thumb. Well-done is as firm as the ball of your thumb. If the meat is as stiff as a board (or perhaps your thumbnail), feed it to the dog and start over.