Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Have you noticed since the global economic crisis how magazines and op-eds in lifestyle sections of web pages and other glossies have begun re-spinning the activities of poor people into the new "it" thing, so staying in is the new going out, hillbilly is the new hipster (note to plaid wearers) and locally brewed beer is the new champagne.

So picnics are the new brunch. Who said? Me.....why spend $50 bucks in NYC or more on a flashy brunch when you can sit in the park in Brooklyn, possibly get arrested for drinking a beer in public and eat hotdogs, broccoli rabe and mozzarella sandwiches, jamaican meat pies and drink organic cola and beer.









The best spot in the park, next to the public loos naturally (or "comfort station" as it was so prudishly named). You can even fall asleep in the sun on the grass, something you can't do at a fancy schmancy restaurant. Other people's children are far less annoying in a park.



Here's our hillbilly/hipster picnic



What comes next I wonder? Will Polish be the new French or Spanish? Polyester the new cotton? Fingers the new cutlery? Poor the new rich? Once again I find myself at the forefront of cutting edge trends. Lucky me.

Driving from Munich to Salzburg the other week, we stopped at a gas station to pay tolls. A faded sign promised RRrrrrrreally huge sausages (above). In the area where one paid for tickets and gas, a big glass cabinet displayed a few lonely tins of leberwurst paté. The restaurant went a few steps better, with its steam trays of nameless vegetables, and bread rolls with boiled eggs for breakfast, and the type of melancholic capuccinos served by highway gas stations the world over.



When diesel doesn't provide enough get up & go......fuel up on ham noodles.



A blousey, bosomy lady and her moustached husband ate standing up at an outside banquette, partaking of the wiener schnitzel with fries, as chalked on the sign above. The sky was acid blue and hints of the Austrian alps glinted on the horizon.