Sometimes, picnic dinners are the best. Whether the baby took longer than expected to go to sleep, there was traffic getting home and it’s now 7:30, it’s too hot outside to turn on the stove (that would be nice), or you just don’t have the motivation to cook, a hodge podge of condiments, cheeses, meats and crackers are what’s necessary (especially if it also includes a glass of wine).

I always have crackers, some cheese and olives on hand for this occasion. You could even freeze some artisan cheese and pull it out when you get home. Once you’ve got your “grubbies” on, the animals are fed and you’ve had some time to unwind from the day, your cheese will be ready to snack on.

I was lucky enough to find myself in Santa Cruz yesterday and so I stopped in at El Salchichero. One of the cheeses is a farmstead goat cheese called Capricious from Achadinha in Petaluma and is so freaking good. The other cheese is a triple cream brie. We also had some assorted olives, roasted tomatoes, crackers and bread, figs, dark chocolate covered almonds and extremely local honey (like from the house 4 doors down local).

My favorite combo was a cracker with the Capricious, a sliced fig and drizzle of honey.

Go get in your grubbies* and have a carpet picnic tonight.

*Mom would call her house clothes or pajamas “grubbies” and it stuck.