We’re having a big ol’ MMP picnic - it’s a surprise - at swampy’s place, since he has a pool and hot tub. 
OK, he probably won’t share his address or anything, so this will have to be a flight of fancy. What do *you *bring to a picnic to share? Do you have a personal or family favorite? Do you make it yourself or pick it up from your favorite deli/bakery/brewery?
Happy Moanday!
First! It’s good to be juvenile!
Guess I need to start off what I started…
If it’s a family gathering, I’m always asked to bring deviled eggs. Apparently they’re a rare and exotic treat that we never had as kids.
If it’s non-family, I’ll usually make my mom’s cucumber-onion salad.
And to answer Spidey’s comment last night about my washer - it’s a front-loader and **FCD **doesn’t think it’s the belt based on the sounds he heard from it. But neither of us
felt like messing with it, so I’ve got a service request in with a local company. With luck, we can get it fixed for under $200, which is better than paying close to $700 for a replacement.
Third! It’s drizzly in Edinburgh but that’s not stopping us. Ghost and graveyards tour tonight.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis <snerk> 69! <snerk> Amurrkin out and foggy with a predicted high of 88 and maybe rain/tstorms/apocalypse this afternoon. The big item on the agenda is to defilthyfy da cave. Actually it’s not too messy bein’ as I did some cleanin’ last Firday due to Sattidy’s soiree. A little dustin’ and vacuumin’ oughta do it upright. In a bit I shall plop a poke tenderloin in the crockpot for tonight’s sup. Side matter TBD.
Since I am hostin’ this shindig, I suppose I should provide some munchies. I propose cheese thangs, jalapeño poppers, and chips and dip. I will assume this is a BYOB thing so I will provide iced tea, some soft drinks, and strawberry-lemonade to sip upon. Howzzat? Reminder: If you pee in my pool, I will come to your house and pee in your kitchen sink. 
I have a sad this mornin’. A sweet lady from my church died in her sleep sometime Thursday night/Firday mornin’. A good way to go I suppose especially at the age of ninety-two, but still sad. She leaves behind her husband of 71 years who is not in the greatest of health. Fortunately they have a daughter locally who can look after him. Maxine we will miss you. I was her “other husband.” Once the three of us were standin’ together and talkin’ in the Parish hall and introduced ourselves to a visitor. Maxine introduced her husband Johnny to the visitor who then shook my hand and said “nice to meet you Johnny.” So I started callin’ her “wife” and she started callin’ me “other husband.” Her memorial service will be Wednesday at four p.m. I imagine there will be a huge crowd and have already offered to do ush duty along with my usual cohort. We have deemed ourselves the funeral ushers as most often it winds up bein’ the two of us. Actually we are both retired so we do this cause we can. There will be a reception in the Parish hall afterwards so people can offer their condolences to the family and remember Maxine.
OK, enough gloomy.
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then, onward into the day! Rah.
Happy Moanday Y’all!
Morning all. Only thing I trust myself to make is brownies, so I call dibs on them (one pan with walnuts and one pan plain).
A comfortable 72F out, but I expect it will get warmer with a fair chance of rain today and an 80% chance tomorrow (so sayeth the weather folks). Like swampy, house cleaning is in order. Unlike swampy, I may ignore it.
swampy, my condolences to you and your "wife’s’’ family. I hope to make it to 90, and it sounds like she had her facilites until the end.
So, wetone is having a wetone in Edinburg…
Good luck with the washer, FCM; hope they can fix it without too much trouble. Which reminds me, the laundry I was going to do Sunday didn’t get done (can’t imagine why), so need to load up the machine today.
Moooommm, that reminds me that I have to finish the laundry tonight. Ugh.
At family get togethers, I usually end up bringing some sort of baked good. I’m known for my baking, so it’s usually cupcakes or bars or something.
Which reminds me that I need to get cupcake wrappers. My son turns 2 on Friday, so I’m making a cupcake cake for his little party this weekend. It’s just going to be one set of grandparents, his aunt and uncle (who are his godparents) and their two kids, and the 4 of us in my family.
All in all, it’s going to be a busy week. Our nanny has college orientation on Tuesday and Wednesday, so I’ll be taking a couple days off and working 10 hour days the days I’m not taking off so I don’t have to use as much vacation time. We’re going to close on our refinance, do some car shopping, build a bed from IKEA (which should be fun… or not), have a birthday party for a little dude…
I went to a picnic recently and brought homemade doughnuts (my dad has a doughnut-making machine.)
{{swampy}}
Blurf I did not get to sleep until 3 AM again. This is becoming a horrible habit. I am a zombie today.
I will bring some seafood seeing as how I am on the ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. How about some stone crabs and spiny lobster and fresh fish of course? I will even make my famous honey mustard sauce and tartar sauce.
Blurf
My family never did clarsy picnics; ours were always along the lines of soggy sandwiches (usually with bananana in, blech) a boiled aig each- handed out unpeeled- a tomato, and some limp plain iceberg lettuce. Then, if we were lucky, some kind of cake out a pack, if we were unlucky, an apple. Normally accompanied by something vile and acidic named ‘orange squash’; the only connection to an actual orange was the colour (my parents didn’t drink this… stuff… but Mum always bought it for us kids because it was cheap).
We did have a fancy picnic basket, but the contents were anything but.
I never quite got the whole nostalgia thing about the food I et as a kid; my mother’s an awful cook and Dad’s only slightly better in that he’s more adventurous, but the misses still outnumbered the hits.
I’ll probably bring some veggie dish, some kind of pasta salad maybe?
Washer repair guy (generic guy - for all I know, it’s a woman) is coming on Weds morning. Fortunately, we all did our laundry this weekend, so we’re good at least that long.
Lunch break. I’m surprised that no picnic leftovers showed up in our break room - goodness knows there was a lot of food there when the skies opened. I’ll be curious to see if my cheapie plastic tray comes back to me. I wrote my name on the bottom, but it only cost $2 so it’s not a big deal. I see it as a social experiment.
My parents aren’t great cooks, but as a kid, I thought they were. My mom worked full-time plus, so my dad made dinner most nights. He subscribed to the boiled frozen veggies and hamburger helper school of meal prep. We frequently had Banquet Chicken Parmigiana and Salisbury Steaks or casseroles with 90% of the ingredients coming from a can. My mom was a decent cook, but she never had time for it, except on holidays or some weekends.
For years, I thought that since I used fresh produce or meat to improve their canned recipes that I was a much better cook. I’m married to a chef now and I realize that’s just not the case. Yeah, in general, I’m a better cook than my parents (or my brother who still cooks and eats like them), but I’m not as good as I thought I was.
So sometimes I have a hankering for some of the greatest hits from my childhood, but in a just-better-than-junk-food kind of way. It’s comforting once in a while, but I know it’s not great eats.
Butters, if we’re basing this on where we’re from, I should probably bring truckloads of cheese and some ranch dressing. Mine doesn’t sound nearly as appealing as your mouthwatering crabs…
My mom is hosting a bash on July 4 and I asked about getting steamed crabs. Holy crap, that ain’t gonna happen! Large are going for $60/dozen!! I could eat a dozen myself with very little effort. I was reading some local reports - because of the cooler rainy spring, there are fewer crabs being caught right now. Maybe later in the summer??
Last time I bought crabs (maybe 5 or 6 years ago) they were $25/dozen and I thought that was obscene. I know that we’ll never see $5/doz that my grandfather used to pay, but, dang, $5/crab is just too much.
Oh good Lord ---- we got enough nut-jobs in the MMP to track him down and make it IRL if you want to!
I’ll bring something that sorta tastes like rye and kicks around 140-160 proof. If I don’t make it myself I’ll shout out for one of the cousins.
You didn’t need to go that far for that. I have a ghost in the house and a tombstone in the backyard. And alcohol; I always have some alcohol around.
Being as how donuts are Canada’s national food I’m not surprised about your Dad having his own machine. 
Unpacking and drying out from yesterday. Saturday was perfect but it started raining steady around 10pm and never stopped. With all the wool the house basically smells like a field of wet sheep; good where peedin is ----- not so good here.
Brownies showed up! YUMMMMMMM!
Umm, FCM is that the chocolate kind or young girls selling cookies…;)
I really, really need to get laundry started, but for some reason I’m just slow about getting it done. Dishes need washing too, guess once I get one started the other will get done.
Chose a contractor for my Kitchen/Bathroom remodel project; still not feeling sure, I had four folks over, they all had different ideas, one gave me a price on the spot, one priced it after a week, and two refused to quote a number at this time, so it was confusing to say the least. I think I made the best choice, I’ll have to live with it for another 20 years so we’ll see.
Growing up we were one of those families that spent most of the summer in the station wagon touring the US. My parents were both teachers, so we didn’t have a lot of money. We camped every night, almost always in a different place. To this day, setting up a tent is a) something that I can do quickly in all weather and campsite conditions b) hate with the white hot passion of a 1000 fiery suns. I digress. We ate a lot of picnics. Lunches were normally PBJs. Dinners were spam, hamburgers, or hamburger helper.
I did my laundry yesterday (go me!). I will pack, make myself presentable, and head to the airport shortly.
Happy Moanday everyone.
**MetalMouse **- the dessert kind, not the cookie-selling kind. It would be too weird for me to get excited about little girls in uniform invading my workplace!
That would be a much creepier post coming from me.
I could bring whatever is asked of me. I make a delicious potato salad, as well as several good pasta salads. I can also make a damn fine cheesecake.