Picnic Pleasers

Looking for ideas on how to turn your next picnic into a feast? We’ve asked some of the nation’s top food retailers their suggestions for filling a picnic basket with some of the finest specialty foods. Their picks, which include items from salty chocolate and crunchy crostini to cured meats and sparkling drinks, ensure your next picnic will be delicious and memorable. Check out these items at your local specialty food shops or online.

The retailers: Rebecca Thomas Snyder,  Kybecca Wine Bar & Shop, Fredericksburg, Va.; Pat McCarthy, DeLaurenti Food and Wine, Seattle; Laura Nuter, GRAB Specialty Foods, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Stacy Linehan, Treats, Wiscasset, Me.

Beverages

•    Bibicaffe Sparkling Espresso Drink
•    Canella Blood Orange Bellini
•    Duche de Longville French Sparkling Non-Alcoholic Cider
•    San Pellegrino Aranciata and Limonata (canned)

Bread and Crackers

•    Pain D’avignon Baguette
•    Water Wheel Organic Fine Wafer Crackers

Cheese

•    Hahn’s End Creamery Ragged Island Cheese
•    Midnight Moon Aged Goat’s Milk Cheese
•    Rovagnatti Mortadella
•    Seal Cove Goat Cheese
•    Taburetto di Bosco (Sardegnian pecorino cheese)

Dessert

•    Fine & Raw Chocolate Bars
•    Mast Brother’s Sea Salt and Almond Chocolate Bar
 

Meat

•    Biellese Finochietta Pork and Fennel Salumi
•    Fra’ Mani Salametto (salumi)
•    Hunter Sausage (Cacciatorini)

Wine and Beer

•    Burgans Albarino 2008
•    German Gilabert Brut Nature NV, Sparkling Wine
•    Hitachino White Ale

—Denise Shoukas and Nicole Potenza Denis