Buffalo Rising Online

Jul 10th 2007, 7:00am By Christa Glennie Seychew

This past Friday, Buffalo Rising partnered with Shakespeare in Delaware Park to determine what sort of goodies folks bring along to enjoy throughout the evening's show. We were pleased with the discoveries we made courtesy of our patient participants. We loved the voyeuristic opportunity to snoop through baskets and coolers, an experience nicely augmented by the chance to get out and meet BR readers and those not yet familiar with our site.

The Basics

We were surprised to find that close to 55% of the audience was from outside of the city. About 25% of the folks that we spoke with knew that BR was coming, an inspiring detail we were happy to hear. Those expecting us went out of their way to show us some pretty serious spreads featuring items that were homemade as well as purchased from local shops and restaurants. Participants estimated that they spent an average of $35 and approximately an hour and fifteen minutes preparing their meal.

What's for Dinner?

Our favorite baskets were extensive and offered a broad sampling of items.

Homemade stromboli, fresh veggies with dip, banana bread, luscious peaches and something called a “Better Than Sex Cake” made up the spread developed by Karen Miranda and companions.

A rotisserie chicken, pasta salad, cheese and crackers, fresh cherries and strawberries and a nice bottle of wine comprised the menu of choice for Kristen Swistowski and her friends.

Celeste Zuppa of Lockport went all out with BBQ chicken sandwiches, fresh fruit, snap peas (love that!), veggies, cheese and crackers, nice olives, brownies, and as she put it, “Lots of wine.”

Ruth Huppuch, Donna Kempa, Tony Kempa, Parson Kempa (their beloved yellow lab) and Margaret Shafer filled an entire blanket with snack-size treats like mini ham sandwiches, veggies, pistachios, olives, pickles, melon and oatmeal cookies.

Kate Baer-Gagola took a sophisticated approach with shrimp, crab cakes, sushi, a green salad and little English muffin pizzas.

Dense, interesting and delicious (yes, we got to sample one!) homemade rhubarb squares (need the recipe for those!- and yes, I know that's two parenthetical statements and two exclamation points in one sentence...) were brought by Bill Donnelly, Diane McGuire and Bill and Dolly Nordstrom. Tortellini and crab salads, deviled eggs, a bottle of wine and impressive homemade ice cream sandwiches were also uncovered here by two of our dedicated Yumsters.

Samplings from other baskets included interesting atypical picnic items like gourmet pizza from Romeo & Juliet's, caramel apples, malted milk balls, and guacamole.

Epilogue

The raffle we held awarded picnicker Beth Pedersen with a fun basket assembled by BR. It featured chocolate from ChocoLogo, a generous donation of wine and cidre produced and sold by Chateau Buffalo, and t shirts from both Shakespeare in Delaware Park and Buffalo Rising. Congrats, Beth.

Many thanks to our friendly and willing participants. We had a great time and hopefully, in the near future we'll be able to offer BR readers a few of the recipes we came upon.

Oh, and a quick reminder for those of you now considering assembling a little al fresco meal of your own, of all of the “picnic tips” we heard, bringing bug spray topped the list.

Again, thanks to All's Well That Ends Well's picnickers extraordinaire: Melanie Koch, Donna Smith, Chris Smith, Laura Smith, Linda Stevens, Bryan Jajkowski, Heidi Miller, Mary Dailey, Brad Dailey, Kimberly Powell, Chantel Cooper, Sheldon Cooper, Kristen Swistowski, Denise Miller, Pam Mossop, Heather Mossop, Michaela Mossop, Susan Harris-Gamard, Stephan Gamard, Tristan Gamard, Gus Goldberg, Lawrence Moses, Richard Pedersen, Darrell Skelton.