French Inspired Picnic

As soon as the weather is perfect 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 French picnic doesn’t need to be a complicated production or do you need to purchase expensive items, most of the items I use besides food are what I already have on hand at home.

Here’s how you can also create your own French inspired picnic 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.

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.

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 use some vintage silverware.

Any type of blanket you have lying around your home. I just take this blanket from Target 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.

Outfit Details: Sèzane Denim Jacket (M) | Sèzane Blouse (8) | Similar Shorts

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.

Trader Joe’s is a great location to pick up other French inspired picnic food like olives, mixed nuts, cornichons.

If you want to add some sort of meat you could do a summer sausage or proscuitto.

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 on the lawn at our local museum, but we also love the park close to us as well. If you aren’t close to either of those places, then your backyard works perfectly fine as well.

Hopefully, this has inspired you for your next French picnic.

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