SEATTLE — Picnics don’t have to be limited to sandwiches and a bag of chips on a wooden table.
Small business Love and Picnics arranges luxury picnics in Colman Park on the banks of Lake Washington.
"You have views of Mount Rainier, and obviously the lake and boaters going by,” said co-owner Terrence Santos.
He and his wife Julianne launched the business in 2021. Each picnic includes soft cushions and blankets set beneath an umbrella, a Bluetooth speaker for music, Bocce ball and other games, and a Polaroid camera for capturing memories.
"I hope they feel celebrated and special, kind of like you do when you go into a 5-star dining restaurant,” Julianne said. “This is that, as a picnic."
One special picnic also offers guests a unique experience: eating a delicious Filipinx meal without flatware.
"We call it Kamayan, which is Filipino for eating with your hands, which is the traditional way we eat back in the Philippines,” Terrence said.
The meal is catered by acclaimed restaurant Musang and includes generous portions of Lumpiang Shanghai, Pancit Canton, Spring Laing, chicken and more. Complimentary water is also provided.
But there are no plates or forks. Guests use their fingers to form bites atop banana leaves.
"Initially start with rice and then you take a piece of 'ulam' or food,” Terrence explained. "Mound it up with the rice so you form a little bit of a pyramid, and that allows you to pick it up, and what you do is use your thumb to push it into your mouth."
A meal for two costs $295. Guests don’t need to clean-up are are almost guaranteed to have leftover food they can take home in to-go boxes (also tied to Filipinx tradition, where a guest always leaves a home with an extra plate for food “for later.”)
"Just being able to learn about each other more, in even these little ways, helps all of us kind of create a better world,” Terrence said. “That's our hope."
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