London – Picnic in a park.
It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? It conjures up images of romance and fine food, of conversation and toes wiggling in the grass. The sight of one strolling merrily to a green park with a red wine bottle sticking out of a picnic basket is the definition of serendipity.
I’ve had so many wonderful experiences with picnics in so many places. Paris in Jardin des Tuileries, Rome in Doria Pamphili, on the shores of Lake Zurich and, of course, in my beloved Washington Park. But occasionally my travel sense drops to the naive level of an American Express bus tourist and I try something really stupid.
Like a picnic in London.
London has two seasons: rainy season and July 15. Picnics in London make about as much sense as swimming off Baffin Island. Nightclubbing in Tehran is easier. I know about rain. I grew up in Oregon. Did I ever picnic in Oregon? Yes. On July 15.
Add in marginal English cuisine and London’s larcenous prices, and you have the recipe for something as disastrous as roast bone marrow, which I had here – for the last time – two months ago.
Still, London’s high-end department stores are encouraging picnicking with ready-made picnic baskets, fully stocked with handpicked goodies. They do try. First, the selections do not include roast bone marrow. Second, they make you feel very important.
At least, Harrods did. For a stopover last week on my way to the World Cup in Germany, I called ahead from Denver after spotting the menu at harrods.com and a very distinguished- sounding gentleman took my order.
“What can I get for you, Mr. Hundausun?” he said. I kept thinking he was sitting on the phone in top hat and tails.
Harrods has three choices. You can handpick individual items for a three-course meal from such choices as kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes and fig chutney in Category A; smoked salmon, beef kofta and barbecued chicken wings from Category B; and Caraibe chocolate cake, berries with whipped cream and Arabic sweets from Category C.
You can also pick one of two set menus. The Cedar Picnic is shrimp roll with shrimp rice and pineapple salsa, tiger prawn skewers with Thai salad and a fresh fruit tart. I chose the Sycamore Picnic: tomato mozzarella and basil on roquette salad, chicken saltimbocca with lemon potato vinaigrette and raspberry cheesecake with mango coulis. I added a bottle of Bourdeaux Sauvignon Blanc.
It is not cheap. My three-course meal plus wine cost 41.45 pounds, or about $77.75. Or more than the best meal I could find in Rome. At $77.75 I wondered if one of the Sun’s Page 3 girls would serve me. This is nothing. Fortnum & Mason, a London institution since 1707, charges from $130 for a simple afternoon tea to $690 for a four-person feed and intense economic counseling.
The process at Harrods makes it seem worth it. I walked through the first floor of the store that has been around since 1832 and served as the shopping grounds for the likes of Noel Coward, Sigmund Freud and Oscar Wilde. I walked past the posh jewelry shops and high-end women’s accessories (blue jacquard scarf for $168, ladies?) and reached Harrods’ food hall.
Food hall isn’t real accurate. Call it a food village. The 35,000-square-foot emporium included massive fresh vegetable and fruit stands, a seafood grill, a butcher shop and various eateries all featuring marble countertops and views of the dozens of flower arrangements and stained-glass decorations. This place makes Whole Foods look like the Central Market in Phnom Penh.
At the food orders desk in the back, a blond clerk took my name, made a call and in 60 seconds a man in suit and tie presented me with a gray, zippered cold bag holding my three courses packed in plastic boxes and stacked in order of consumption.
“Enjoy your picnic,” he said ominously.
I walked out onto Brompton Road in stodgy Knightsbridge and felt St. Anthony, the patron of travel, had listened to my morning prayers. The rains that pelted London all week and all day had vanished. The thousands of umbrellas, which earlier sprouted automatically as if extensions of Londoners’ arms, were gone.
I briskly walked across the street and down an alley to nearby Hyde Park. Similar to Central Park except New Yorkers would have no use for a cricket ground, Hyde Park was soggy and quiet. I found two chairs under a thick crab-apple tree and opened my bag as gray clouds approached.
I liked the salad. The little white mozzarella balls weren’t drab as many are, and the cherry tomatoes were ripe and sweet. The saltimbocca consisted of eight big slabs of veal, ham and sage, although it wasn’t nearly as good cold as hot.
Especially when the rains returned. The rain came down in sheets, the thick branches not even slowing it down. I remember seeing rain like this last summer in the Mekong Delta. But temperatures in the 40s made it intolerable. I wasn’t alone. Parading flocks of geese stopped frozen in their tracks.
I started chugging my quickly watered-down Sauvignon Blanc in a weird flashback to days at my fraternity keggers.
So if you’re planning a trip to London, make sure you have a big hotel room with a dining room table or go July 15. Better yet, buy some meat and fruit at Harrods, take a seat at a marble table and look at the stained-glass windows.
And at the rain coming down outside.
John Henderson can be reached at 303-820-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
