I think it might be better at the beach. A light breeze keeps away the flying pests except if you are in gull territory. Nothing keeps away the gulls. Zuma beach is the worst. Fort Chronkite and Limantour beach were the best BITD. Miss my coastal days.
When I was 12 my mother and I took a train from Boston to Miami, then Pan American to El Salvador for a few years. At the time my Mississippi grandparents were living in DC area. When the train stopped briefly in DC, my grandmother was there to hug us goodbye and hand us a shoe box packed neatly with still warm fried chicken. Beautiful memory!
On an Ina Garten show, she made delicious shrimp salad (love the recipe) and packed it in a Chinese take out container. Great idea, just keep everything cold with blue ice packs!
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That’s a case of not knowing your audience well enough; you were so thoughtful, I’d have loved it!!
As Dale Carnegie said, his very favorite food was strawberries but when he went fishing he wouldn’t use strawberries for bait!
You got that right! Up until that picnic, I had no idea she didn’t think much of fried chicken at all, much less cold fried chicken while fighting seagulls and ants! These days, pretty much the only way she likes fried chicken is kara age. It only took me 30 years to figure that out!
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I know a little 6 year old girl who doesn’t like/eat any potatoes, no matter how they’re prepared. She mostly eats chicken nuggets, broccoli, cucumbers, Mac n cheese.
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I’d rather eat fried things hot and crisp than cold and no longer crisp. But over time, I have come to appreciate that both are good in their place.
I have similar confusion about things that are fried crisp and then soaked in sauce that makes them soggy – katsu curry, chicken parm, cheese fries, I mean the list is endless 
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I think tailgating counts as a picnic. Love hanging with my folks in parking lot, beach, field, park, woods, backyard. Here’s the kind of picnic I miss:
As someone who’s railed against outdoor dining, the picnic is probably the last thing I would ever willingly sign up for. 
It just takes the concerns I have with outdoor dining, and magnifies it by 5 fold.
I was born in the 70s, and I’ve never had a true picnic where we head to a park and sit on the lawn somewhere to eat. The closest thing I remember is being a child and with my dad, we took take out from a fast food restaurant, and we would occasionally eat it while we walked and played in the public park across the way.
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The composer, in case any of the young ‘uns didn’t know. Bonus: I was waiting in O’Hare for my mother’s plane, when who should walk by me, but 2/5ths of the Fifth Dimension. 
Since it was a man and a woman, I assume it was Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis.
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Understandable. My childhood was sort of polar opposite. Mom would give me a pak of hot dogs for me and my friends. We’d go fishing, make a fire, long sticks through hot dogs. Good lunch. Then, when we got older and wiser, we’d bring a skillet and fillet and cook fish in lard over said fire.
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Dang, nice experience. I loved the 5thD. 2/5ths. That’s great.
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It is. I didn’t know that was how sweet and sour chicken, General Tso’s chicken, etc. were made.
I can see how this would be fun if you had ready access to nice outdoor areas away from the city. In all fairness, I grew up in the heart of a big city, so outdoor for us would be miles away that we had to access via car (and unlikely in my case) or it would be a green space in an urban area. I wouldn’t ever touch my food with any sticks I find in the city parks. 
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You raise an interesting point. Nearly every time Mrs. ricepad and I go to a restaurant that has patio/outdoor seating, she always wants to sit outside, whereas I would almost always prefer to sit inside. I always seem to be in the spot that is either in the full sun on a hot day, or in the shade when it’s cool and breezy. Or with a chair that perches on a wobbly brick, or on the downhill side of the table when something spills or directly under the drip of the air conditioner.
And yet I love picnics. The thought of spreading out a blanket on the soft green grass and putting out a spread to enjoy in the dappled sunlight and lying back with a hat over my eyes, a frosty beverage in my hand and my shoes (or more usually my flaps) kicked off to one side…maybe not my quintessential happy place, but at least a place of extreme contentment. I’m quite the conundrum. I’m a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma under a layer of bacon and slathered with gravy with biscuits on the side.
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Pretty heavy breakfast. Perhaps even “proper.”
I love eating outside.
