‘Tis Most Meet--or Meatless--to PicNick During Intermission

With only an hour between Parts 1 and 2 of “Nicholas Nickleby,” it doesn’t make much sense to drive to a restaurant for dinner. One solution is to book a table at one of the Music Center’s restaurants, either the Pavilion (972-7333) or the Hungry Tiger (972-7322).

Another is to order a box lunch through the Ahmanson’s Back Stage Cafe, which for $9 offers a choice of cold chicken or roast beef, plus salad, fruit and a muffin.

Orders have to be received three days before the show you’ll attend. Address: 135 N. Grand Ave., Los Angeles 90012. (You can also take a chance on the Backstage having some extra box lunches, as it did Sunday.)

But many people at Sunday’s performance turned it into a tailgate party, without the tailgate. Roger and Diana Wolff of Palos Verdes even set up their own table on the Music Center Plaza, complete with folding chairs, a linen tablecloth and real silver.

It all came out of the Woolfs’ car trunk, along with a picnic cooler of pastrami sandwiches and Korbel Brut champagne. Dickens the reformer might have looked askance at such conspicuous consumption. Dickens the party-giver would have loved it.