One of my favorite birthday celebrations involved driving up Angeles Crest, pulling off at one of the trailheads, and then having a cookout near the stream. I am sure we had hot dogs which I don’t really like. Hopefully, we had S’mores which I really like. I can’t remember. What sticks in my memory is how fun it was to eat outside. 

Recently we were guests at an event where we ate outside next to the kitchen garden. There were ants on the tables. Coyotes howled in the background after the sun went down. During the speaker’s remarks hummingbirds chased and chided each other in the garden.

Eating outside has to be one of my favorite things to do. I am not sure why. I am not particularly rugged or outdoorsy. I love eating outside. Depending on the time of day, I am enthralled by the sun or fading lights. Seasons in Southern California are mostly about the lighting. At night, the sounds of insects, a random bird, and coyotes mix with the clanging of bottles being deposited into a dumpster.

Patio seating at a restaurant is not really the ‘eating outside’ I am referring to; I am talking about in the backyard, on the beach, in a park. My grandparents in NC had a screened porch where we ate most every meal during the summer. The only time we would eat at the little Saarinen table is when it was really rainy and windy or if it was late because we had been in town or at the aquarium for a program. At the indoor table the meal almost always consisted of tomato soup and popcorn. Our screen porch meals included Sunday pancakes on the electric griddle, plugged into the outdoor outlet seemingly just for this purpose. The elaborate lunch time ritual of sandwiches with toasted bread; the toaster plugged in now where the electric griddle had been. Once in a while it was the site of a peel and eat shrimp extravaganza; we would cover the entire table with newspapers taped to the underneath. A large tub of shrimp was then dumped on top, and voila, dinner was served.

Are the memories of outdoor meals more vivid because it is something outside of the day to day or because all of my senses were activated? Or something else? Feels like it is time for a picnic.