How To Create Your Own French Inspired Picnic
How To Create Your Own French Inspired Picnic
As soon as the weather is perfect in either spring or fall, we love heading outdoors and creating our own French inspired picnic. This is one of my favorite things to also do in Paris at one of the many parks, Eiffel Tower, or along the Seine.
A Parisian picnic doesn’t need to be complicated or require expensive purchases. Most of the items I use, besides food, are what I already have on hand at home.
This is one of the things I admire about the Parisians. Anytime the weather is ideal in Paris, you will see Parisians having a picnic all over.
It could be the weekend or even after a day of work. They don’t make it complicated or put too much thought into the picnic. After all, the whole point of a picnic is to enjoy time outdoors with good food and good company.
Here’s how you can also create your own French-inspired picnic and make it perfectly French, with friends and family next time the weather is nice.
Again, besides the food, all the items I use for our French-inspired picnic are things we already have on hand at home.
Picnic Supplies
A picnic basket of some sort, I picked up mine from a vintage store for less than $10. You can also purchase a basket with utensils already included, or even a great French market tote works. You can easily find some quality market totes from ETSY.
Dinnerware of some kind: I just use our everyday dinnerware to take with us. My one suggestion would be to take some pretty dinnerware. You want your picnic to be pretty and a little fancy. I spoke with the manager at our local French Market who agreed with me on this. He also said not to use plastic silverware but instead to use some vintage silverware.
You can also do dinnerwear specifically made for outdoor use, like this set from Pottery Barn.
Any type of blanket you have lying around your home. I just take this blanket from Amazon that we have to use to sit on. We also have these chairs from Serena & Lily to use as well.
Some cheese knives of course depending on which ones you will need. Along with the cheese knives, a cheese board or even wooden cutting board will do.
Cloth napkins, not paper, again to create the beautiful French inspired picnic scene. Some great places to pick up cloth napkins are Home Goods, Pottery Barn, or even Amazon.
If you have a Bose portable speaker or something like it, definitely bring that to play some French music. I even have a LVOG picnic playlist I’ve created.
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Picnic Food
Cheese is always the obvious starter, I usually like to take 3 different kinds of cheese, a soft, semi hard, and hard cheese. I buy my cheese from the local French market or Trader Joe’s has a great selection of French cheeses as well.
A fresh baguette or crackers to use with the cheese. Feel free to rip the baguette in pieces, no need to properly cut the baguette, this is definitely not the French way. They just rip pieces off a baguette.
You want to make sure to bring along a great tasting jam as well to go with the baguette and crackers. Bonne Maman is the choice around here and I always bring some sort of jam home from Paris.
Of course fresh fruit or whatever is in season. Cherries are my favorite picnic fruit, especially in Paris but also strawberries, grapes, and apricots.
Salads are also a perfect picnic option as well. If you want to be traditional French you could do a Salade Niçoise or a Classic Parisian Salad (one of my favorites).
Trader Joe’s is a great location to pick up other French-inspired picnic food like olives, mixed nuts, and cornichons.
If you want to add some meat, you could use summer sausage or prosciutto. You can also buy sandwiches from a local bakery or make your own.
I always like to add a sweet or dessert as well for the picnic. Bring some chocolate or if you have a local bakery nearby stop in a pick something up. Kids always love a fresh fruit tart or croissants at a picnic.
Picnic Drinks
A refreshing bottle of Rosé or even some champagne or brut to toast the afternoon. Whole Foods has a great brut under $20 that I always recommend.
You could also make a French 75 which is always delicious in the Summer on warm days.
I also make sure to pack some sparkling water and drinks for the kids.
Our everyday glassware is Duralex, so I take the small ones to drink our wine or champagne.
Location
Our favorite place to picnic is the lawn at our local museum, but we also love the park nearby. If you aren’t close to either of those places, then your backyard works perfectly fine.
Hopefully, this has inspired you to create your own French-inspired picnic wherever you live.
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