Labor Day Park Crawl

When the kids were young enough to take direction (do my bidding) but old enough to ride bikes, we started a tradition of biking from park to park on Labor Day, ending at Brandon Park at noon, where Phil would walk over for a picnic with us. Lycoming College always has classes on Labor Day – putting the “labor” in Labor Day, I guess. Sometimes we would enlist other Lyco families to join us. With one spouse working every Labor Day, this never feels like a vacation weekend to us, but Ben looks forward all summer to our picnic, so especially this year, I wanted to maintain the tradition.

Ben helped me prepare the picnic lunch of grape shrimp salad, Tuscan tuna and white bean sandwiches, chips and lemonade. 

We love this tuna sandwich for its flavor, heft, and herbs. Ben doesn’t even put up a fight about lemon juice and olive oil replacing his beloved mayo. If you make it, be sure to use high quality tuna packed in olive oil.

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/tuscan-tuna-and-bean-sandwiches-234263

Our family loves shrimp, and never more than when it is in this snappy, refreshing salad! The original recipe calls for an obscene amount of mayo and sour cream, so we adapted with this version below, with a higher ratio of grapes, and a lot less dressing.

Shrimp Grape Salad

1/3 cup sour cream

1/3 cup mayonnaise

1 pound large cooked shrimp, peeled and deveined (with tails removed)

4 cups seedless green grapes, washed and patted dry 

1/2 cup chopped fresh dill, or more to taste

Salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste

Whisk sour cream and mayonnaise together in large bowl. Add shrimp, grapes and dill, tossing to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate, covered, for at least 4 hours.