School’s out, and summer is at full tilt, which means it's prime picnic season. While I’m confident you’ll have your drinks chilled and your snacks packed as you head out to the beach, park, or campsite, I wonder if you’ll remember to bring a picnic’s most important tool: the humble pocket knife. I planned a picnic over in Brooklyn's Prospect Park a few weeks ago and took it upon myself to bring snacks, cheeses, fruit, and from a vacation the week before.
I also brought my pocket knife, and it’s a good thing I did: Some friends stopped by the blanket with a fresh, unsliced loaf of homemade bread; a cake was also involved. My knife was the hot tool for the entire four-hour affair. Slice some cheese, slice some bread, then slice the cake.
Give it a quick wipe with a napkin and it’s ready to slather salty, cultured butter onto the bread. Had someone brought a melon, we could have hacked it apart too. But what if I had the knife? I shudder at the thought.
You might already be doing the right thing by , and a picnic isn't that different. Maybe you're not headed to the Florida Keys, but you’re relaxing, and eating somewhere without access to your kitchen. The last thing you want is to be by the lake, an hour's drive from civilization, with a brick of cheese and two summer melons and no means of cutting into them.
But a small, single bladed folding pocket knife tucked into your picnic basket is all you need to avoid this sad circumstance. Here’s some features of a .