Overcome the rain with an indoor picnic

Do not be put off from enjoying a picnic by hosting it indoors if it rains

The weather outlook for the coming weeks may be less than uplifting but sometimes the best way to overcome the rain is to prevent it from putting a halt to your picnic plans.

While picnic food and wine could be spoiled by a downpour during an outdoor meal by the lake, that doesn’t mean you can’t move the experience indoors for an alternative romantic feast.

So why not throw a rug across the living room floor, take out those fine wine glasses and your straw basket full of staple picnic delights to forget about the disappointing weather?

Of course no picnic would be complete without strawberries, so it is best to match your wine with these fruity treats.

Preparing for the picnic will take some time if you want to do it right, and just because you will be indoors, does not mean you should skimp on the essentials.

A typical checkered picnic blanket should be used, yet the benefits of being indoors might mean you add candles to create a relaxed atmosphere.

Other foods associated with picnics include sandwiches, olives, crisps and dips, so creating a top-notch meal can be fairly effortless.

Yet it is strawberries that remain the epitome of a successful picnic, in part because they symbolise the essence of outdoor dining.

They are also popular with many diners, so if you use this idea for a third or fourth date, you might really impress that new love interest.

Susan Atkins writes the wine section for the Sunday Telegraph’s Stella magazine, so she is well placed to offer some insight into the right wines to match with strawberries.

The expert, who regularly appears on BBC One’s Saturday Kitchen, advised pairing strawberries with a light wine.

Ms Atkins warned that dessert wines could be too sweet, while dry roses might taste very sour when matched with strawberries.

Instead, she advised selecting “lively pudding wines with a streak of crisp, clean acidity”.

Writing for the Telegraph.co.uk, she said: “A perfect pairing of strawberries with the right wine can be so blissful that it’s worth making the effort to get it just right.

“So consider something from a cool-climate region, because cooler spots produce grapes with high acid.”

As such, German wines were singled out for their “beautifully balanced dessert Rieslings”, while an Italian moscat d’asti was also recommended.

The only think left to do is sit down, enjoy the indoor picnic, and hide the TV remote to ensure you are not distracted from the wonderful meal before you.

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Overcome the rain with an indoor picnic

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