Tepidity

an escabeche of sea trout

Although the weather keeps threatening to break – there is a vast leaden cloud over Margate as I write this, a great clap of thunder – it is still hot enough for tepid food as I wrote last week and it is supposed to get hotter again soon anyway, hot enough to want to lounge around, have things in the fridge or on the side which are ready to pull out and eat whenever you want to. Although I said (and do think) that in general the UK is suspicious of tepid food I had somehow forgotten the great institution of The Picnic in which the food is all tepid, or will become so, however good your coolboxes are; better to have dishes designed to be so in the first place. Fergus Henderson or possibly Trevor Gulliver's observation on picnic wine – that since whatever you are drinking will not stay cool for long it is better to drink red than white – applies here. I can't say I plan picnics as often as I might like and when I do I always think that the formula from Wind in the Willows can't really be improved upon, at least if you are cosplaying an Edwardian picnic –