Lunch: small lettuce salad with home-grown cherry tomatoes, Oregon cooked salad shrimp, baked beets, and kalamata olives

Pork chops, roasted carrots with fennel, and caramelized radishes

Radishes are a bit of a pain, because they are very tasty individually, but you never really want more than one. B sliced a bunch of radishes thin and sauteed them with onions, red wine, and brown sugar to caramelize them.

The roasted carrot recipe came from Cook's Illustrated (November & December 2010). A close paraphrase: "Adjust oven ract to middle position and heat oven to 425 degrees. In large bowl, combine 1 pound carrots (peeled, halved crosswise, and cut lengthwise if necessary to create even pieces), 1 small fennel bulb (cored and sliced ½ inch thick), 2 tablspoons unsalted butter (melted), ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper; toss to coat. Transfer carrots to foil- or parchment-lined rimmed baking sheet and spread in a single layer. Cover baking sheet tightly with foil and cook for 15 minutes. Remove foil and continue to cook, stirring twice, until carrots are well browned and tender, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer to a serving platted, and toss vegetables with ¼ cup toasted sliced almonds, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, and, optionally, 2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley."

While the carrots were in the oven, B roasted the pork chops under the broiler. Before serving, he coated them with more chopped almonds.

Breakfast: French toast with homemade jams

Homemade farfalle with tomatoes, basil, and ricotta salata

Breakfast: salad with poached egg, toast with jam, and cappuccino with a heart on top

Seared ahi tuna, steamed broccoli, and mashed potatoes with celery root

Picnic before Much Ado About Nothing

Dinner picnics are a wonderful treat, and live theater is another. The California Shakespeare Theater encourages you to do both, by surrounding the outdoor stage with beautiful hills and a lovely picnic ground. We have seen two shows with CalShakes, and were unimpressed with their Twelfth Night last year, but this summer's Much Ado About Nothing was wonderful.

For dinner, B made a seeded baguette, which we had with Fromager d'Affinois and radishes. I made a light entre salad: blanched green beans, carrots, Oregonzola, fantastic heirloom tomatoes, and a shallot dressing.

Almost always, you should serve red wine at a picnic, even if you are serving food you might pair with white at home — the temperature starts to drop as you are finishing your meal. The CalShakes theater is happy to let you bring drinks in (they sell wine, coffee, and hot chocolate), so bring a half-bottle of something sweet for the show.

Quinoa and hippie saute

On an unplanned night, B threw together a wonderful "what's in the fridge?" dinner. Over a bed of black quinoa, he served a saute of onions, beet greens, tomatoes, ground lamb, spices, and the odds and ends of the vegetable drawer. The dinner was odd but delicious.

Moussaka

We love moussaka, that wonderful Greek casserole of eggplant, tomatoes, and ground lamb. But I do not recommend the recipe from Joy of Cooking. It does not taste particularly Greek — it just tastes like Joy. Gruyere as the only cheese? Currants?

Stuffed delicata

Wash, remove the tips from, halve, and scoop out the seeds from two delicata squash. Rub some salt inside the squash, place the squash halves face-down in an oiled glass pan, and bake ten to minutes. Meanwhile, in a food processor combine onion, apples, walnuts, mushrooms, and a little salt and oil, until coarsely chopped. (If the onion is particularly piquant or the mushrooms a little touch, saute them first.) Remove the squash from the oven, turn upright, and stuff with the onion-and-walnut mixture. Sprinkle grated cheese on top, and return to the oven for half an hour.