A Beach Picnic with No Cook Kabobs

We've been having a hard couple of weeks trying to get together, the Dude and I. It's been a whirlwind of Summer colds, the start of a teaching year with classes that start at 7AM, and the reality that we're both of an age where bedtime comes earlier than when we were in our 20s.

I'm not the type of girl that needs to see the Dude in her life every day, but the lack of face-to-face connection was starting to wear thin. So when the Dude suggested a beach day, I rejoiced.

I love the beach. I think blue sky, ocean and sand are one of the most beautiful views known to man. Also, I have a soft spot for the beach - the Dude and I spent our early dating months going to the beach, sitting in the sand, listening to the roar of the ocean while we revealed our hearts bit by bit, both a little awed at taking the risk, both a little relieved that we did.

I decided to pack us a picnic - nothing too fancy or complicated. The Martha Stewart in me wanted to make chicken salad, a fruit cobbler, and rolls. But the thing about the beach is that, lovely as it is, sand is one of the hardest things in the world to get off you. I still have sand in the trunk of my car from those early months of dating - and it's been a year.

So the good rule of thumb with beach picnics is this - less is more. Any kind of food that lends itself to less silverware, less plates, less napkins, less containers, less on-location prep, is the kind of food you want to pack. Imagine trying to scoop chicken salad onto a paper plate when a gust of wind picks up the sand and dumps it on the beach towel you're sitting on. Yep, exactly.

This is why food on a skewer is so great for a beach picnic, All the prep, mostly cutting and skewering, can be done in the comfort of your kitchen. Anything that can be cut up into bite sized pieces can be put on a skewer. Putting multiple, complimentary tastes on a stick gives everyone a little variety with every bite. And, most importantly, when you're at the beach and you have sandy hands, you can have grab a skewer and munch away without ever having to touch the food.

I ended up making a set of fruit kabobs with strawberries, grapes, mango and bananas, and a set of savory kabobs with cherry tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and chicken sausage. All of these could be served cold - which would be refreshing in 80 degree weather. I also packed the cooler some lemonade in a recycled 64 oz juice bottle and my stash of Girl Scout cookies that'd been sitting in my freezer.

We threw the cooler, two beach chairs, a gigantic polka-dotted beach umbrella, and assorted beach blankets in the back of his car, and headed for the ocean.

Days where we spend the entire day with one another are all about ebb and flow. Just like the ocean, there are moments in the day where the Dude and I swell with conversation - both meaningful and mundane. And then there are other moments in the day where we fall silent.

I have to admit - the silence between us is something I've struggled to get used to. It's not that I'm uncomfortable with silence per se. I've spent days by myself, talking to no one, and been absolutely happy and content. I think it's the silence of the other - whether be it the friend, the date, the Dude - that I often  find challenging. The silence leaves a gap of unspoken and unknown. This is a gap I'm quick to fill with my own insecurities: I must have offended him. He must be angry at me. He's about to leave me. 

When I relax into this silence, though, I'm often rewarded by surprise. I suspect the silence gives space and time for those quiet, back-of-our minds kind of thoughts to grow a little, push through the soil and become a seedling of new conversation.

So in between soaking in the sun, reading cooking magazines, and sipping on a dollar diet coke, the subject of our future was broached. I'm not fully sure what brought it on. Maybe the weeks we hadn't seen each other brought home the reality that life doesn't feel quite right without one another. Maybe it's because we've been together a year now and what's next in our future is an obvious topic. But perhaps it was the silence that gave each of our inklings of the future a little space and time to turn into a full-blown thought. A thought that would lead to a concrete conversation, then a direction, then somewhat of a plan.

And so, I celebrate silence. It's not such a bad idea to exercise some quiet - and what better place than in the kitchen with this no cook kabob recipe? There's minimal work involved here - only some chopping and certainly no turning on of the oven. Personally, I think there's something very soothing about making kabobs. It's all that repetition and pattern - grape, strawberry, mango, repeat - that helps me focus and quiet my mind.

Fruit Kabobs

Ingredients
Grapes
Strawberries
Mango
Bananas

1. Slice the mango into approximately 2 inch cubes, and the bananas into approximately 1 inch slices.
2. Remove the leafy stems from the strawberries. Depending on the size of the strawberries, you may want to slice them into halves as well.
3. Skewer the kabobs as desired. It's probably easiest to start with grapes, since they hold their shape well, and can be used to keep the mango cubes firmly on the skewer.

Sausage, Cheese and Cherry Tomato Kabobs

Ingredients
Fully cooked chicken sausage from Trader Joe's
Cherry tomatoes
Mozzarella balls - bite sized ones, may be labelled as Bocconcini

1. Nothing to slice here, simply skewer each item in the order desired.