We had an Easter Sunday picnic basket from the Post Ranch Inn’s Sierra Mar restaurant that turned a casual lunch into haute cuisine . . . a vegetable sandwich made positively voluptuous – studded with thickly sliced grilled eggplant, beefy tomato, and mild roasted red peppers, all dripping with richly flavored olive oil, sandwiched between slabs of densely olive-studded bread, and slathered with creamy parsley-laced Jersey ricotta. Mmmm. All the more awesome – accompanied by chips, a crunchy melange of thinly sliced and quickly fried roots: turnips, parsnips, golden beets, yams. Yum.

Their chicken curry was a close runner-up, shredded chicken mixed with Greek yogurt and curry spices, layered on another toothy homemade bread, this one laced with pecan chunks and raisins and probably made with spelt, and a few fresh spinach leaves. The spicy apply chutney was meant to be slathered on the bread for a fully tricked out taste sensation.

Other treats in our lunch baskets: packets of dried mixed fruit, figs, cherries, apricots, and golden raisins; salty mixed nuts, walnuts, cashews, hazelnuts, and pecans; and a crumbly oat and raisin-laced house made granola bar. I brought those goodies home for Kid Two to enjoy in his lunch this week.