Great Western picnics - includes recipes

Sunset, July, 1995 by Elaine Johnson

COOKS SHARE THEIR FAVORITE PICNIC FOODS AND SPOTS FROM SAN DIEGO TO PORTLAND

The West is blessed with all the elements of a great summer picnic. We have close to 600 million acres of public lands to roam, some of the best scenery in the country, and weather that's noticeably drier than the rest of the nation's at this time of year. And the pre-eminence of our agriculture and the culinary influences of our multiethnic population mean we have especially fresh and varied choices to fill our picnic baskets.

How do experts on the West's regional foods celebrate this abundance? We spoke with three to learn about the ingredients, recipes, and places that make their picnics memorable. Their recipes for items marked with an * on the menus begin on page 83.

If you added a few goats and camels, laughs Kitty Morse, the hills of north San Diego County would be indistinguishable from those of her homeland in Morocco. Palm trees with shaggy turbans, citrus groves, an agricultural region near the coast with desert beyond, plus glorious beaches - these similarities to Casablanca lured Morse to the North County 20 years ago.

One of Morse's favorite North County haunts is the Vista farmers' market, where her preparations for our picnic begin. With a basket on her arm, she greets the rare-fruit growers whose farms dot the nearby hills and chooses among their offerings: creamy sapotes and cherimoyas, blood oranges, passion fruit, bananas, and guavas. She also picks up dates grown in the Coachella Valley, 2 hours away.

Morse is the author of a cookbook featuring recipes from California farms, and of The Vegetarian Table: North Africa, due out next year from Chronicle Books. Back at her Moroccan-style home, she puts together her picnic, explaining how Morocco and California cuisines are as similar as their topography. They share seasonings - cilantro, oregano, cumin, lemons, and olive oil - plus plenty of fresh produce and grilled foods.

Morse loves salads made with seasonal ingredients: her rice-lemon salad in tomato shells is not only delicious, but also easy to transport. Her skewered lamb and vegetables, in an intriguing paprika-cumin marinade, can be cooked ahead at home or grilled at the picnic.

After so many years in California. Morse happily adds nontraditional - and deli-prepared - foods to her menu: pocket bread, feta cheese, and hummus (North Africa's bessara is thinner, with no sesame butter). But the fragrant orange blossom water that flavors the watermelon drink and the date-almond truffles are pure Morocco.

We're tempted to spread the feast beside the fountain in the cool tiled courtyard of Morse's home, but the roar of the ocean calls.

Fourth-generation Californian John Phillip Carroll enjoys picnics in the golden grasses of the East Bay hills and simple city park repasts near his home in San Francisco. But his most vivid picnicking memories are from Oregon in the early '80s, when he worked with food maven James Beard.

Beard loved to picnic, though when he became elderly, a meal in the car was more feasible than an outdoor ramble. Carroll and Beard would often drive to Tillamook Head, a special place from Beard's childhood, and park at a spot overlooking the water. What was on the menu? Frequently Kentucky Fried Chicken, one of Beard's favorites, Carroll wryly admits.

Carroll's own cooking is more likely to draw inspiration from Beard's classes - a celebration of food and wine - than from his fast-food cravings. In his years with Beard, and later while researching recipes for California the Beautiful Cook Book (Collins Publishers, 1991), Carroll developed an appreciation for the heritage and agricultural abundance that have shaped California cuisine.

Carroll's chili chicken is an adaptation of an old San Joaquin Valley recipe, from the days when meals at ranchos were cooked with Mexican flavors and foods at hand. Chicken simmers in a thick sauce of chili powder, white wine, and cornmeal with olives and almonds. It's delicious cold, and just messy enough to be perfect outdoor food.

Three vegetable dishes underscore California's role as produce bowl for the nation. A feathery herb salad is a good complement to the spicy chili chicken. So is the classic orange-red onion salad, which harks back to the citrus and olive trees planted by mission fathers. Cold artichokes filled with guacamole decadently combine two more recent California crops.

Since childhood, Janie Hibler has loved to picnic. Growing up, she'd spend mornings with friends making graham cracker sandwiches, then tote the snacks to a local meadow or creek. For Hibler's 19th birthday, her dad gave her an English picnic basket, complete with place settings and matching tin boxes, that she still uses.

Hibler's picnics now take her to Portland's rose garden, or to trails near the family's cabin near Mount St. Helens. From her kitchen the day of our picnic, we see that the only patch of sun is down the Willamette River on Sauvie Island.

We spend the morning visiting while Hibler prepares a repast of the Northwest foods she loves and has described in cookbooks such as Dungeness Crabs and Blackberry Cobblers (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991). Sweet Oregon spot prawns, which make a brief appearance in summer, are a special treat, and Hibler makes a quick mayonnaise to go with them, incorporating tart sorrel leaves from her backyard.