In celebration of the holiday, Picnic will be closing EARLY at 3pm on Saturday. And we will be CLOSED all day Sunday.

Our tasting tour of Washington continues with boutique winery Hestia Cellars. Named after the goddess of hearth and home, Hestia crafts old world wines to enjoy with family and friends. Produced at a their estate in the Snoqualmie River Valley, Hestia sources the very best fruit from throughout the Columbia Valley appellation. Join us this Thursday and meet winemaker Shannon Jones. The extra connection of tasting with the wine's maker is priceless.

Come celebrate the sunshine with us this week and taste some great wines.

Our friend, Vito Sergio Parente, is returning to picnic this Thursday, June 11th, to pour a cross-section of the wines being produced in South Africa today. A great wine region and one that should not be ignored. 

Join us this Saturday, June 6th, from 3-5pm to taste the amazing wines of Shady Grove Winery. Winemaker Anthony Fuller with charm you with his BIG personality and regale with TALL tales of starting his winery from the ground up.

Come taste Airfield Estates this Thursday at picnic. A longtime grower of grapes for other vintners, Airfield Estates is now producing wonderful affordable wines of their very own. Come taste some of our favorites and see for yourself.

One of our most popular items at picnic is our housemade lasagne. Like everything else we do here, we try to make as much of what goes into our food ourselves. Our lasagne is no exception to this mantra. We make our own pasta, our own ragu, and our own ricotta cheese. Kneading the pasta by hand ensures that the cooked noodle will have a pleasing bite or chew to it. The ragu bolognese is lovingly made very slowly with great care (and plenty of white wine). And, last but not least, we make the fresh ricotta cheese that reinforces the lactic notes from the ragu as well as providing another opportunity to pack the lasagne with flavor. By adding a few items to the cheese - eggs, herbs, and a handful of assiago cheese we take the somewhat mellow flavored ricotta to new levels. In the end, the lasagne becomes something that is truly greater than the sum of its parts.

"Ricotta" means re-cooked in Italian and is surprisingly easy to make yourself. The end result is truly superior to the tubs of ricotta that you see at your local supermarket. Usually ricotta is made from the whey that results from another cheese-making process. Our version uses two common ingredients: fresh whole milk and buttermilk. Heated together the acids in the buttermilk cause the milk solids to coagulate and separate from they watery whey. In fact, most acidic liquids will have a similar effect. Try the recipe with lemon juice sometime (for 8 cups whole milk use 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice).

Fresh Ricotta Cheese

Ingredients:

8 cups whole milk

2 cups buttermilk

Equipment:

Candy or probe thermometer
Cheesecloth lined-colander or chinois
Large pot

Combine the milk and the buttermilk in a pot and place over high heat. Whisk or stir occasionally to prevent scorching on the bottom of the pan. Use a candy thermometer or probe thermometer to monitor the temperature of the mixture. As you approach 180F you will see the milk solids gathering together into bright white curds and the milky whey separating itself out. At 180F remove the pan from the heat. Gently ladle the curds into a very fine mesh strainer (we use a chinois at picnic) set inside a larger container or pot. Alternatively, a colander lined with cheesecloth works very well. Allow the remaining liquid to drain away and your done. Well done! You've just made ricotta cheese.

Ricotta is best used immediately, but if you have to store it for a few days be sure to wrap it well as it easily picks up other aromas from other food items in the fridge. Ricotta can also be frozen.

Makes 2 cups fresh ricotta cheese.

Picnic is now offering some of our products vacuum sealed for easy boil-in-bag reheating. Simply bring a pot of water to a boil, drop the number of portions you require and wait 15 minutes. That's it! We are currently featuring red wine braised short ribs as our first menu item featuring this convenience. It is sort of a tribute to my days at Crush restaurant where short ribs continue to be one of the their most popular items. It is a great dish that requires hours of long slow braising to make well. Picnic has done all that for you and all the time you need is 15 minutes!

Jenny and just had a refreshingly great meal at a new restaurant in the Wallingford neighborhood, Cantinetta. Open only a week they were doing a nice steady business during our visit. It is great to see people coming out to support a new restaurant.