This year I am “summering” like I have never summered before. The urge to live out of a suitcase and be outside and in a body of wild water feels urgent this year, more urgent than last year, where I was still in what I like to think of as a very prolonged period of recovery and going anywhere felt scary and hard.
I feel sort of embarrassed to admit a lot of this urgency stems from the whole “you only get 18 summers with your child” internet trope (I try to avoid those, but they creep in). While I hope that’s not true (I will be such a wonderful mother that my son will of course want to spend every summer with me in a healthy and boundaried but also deeply attached and affectionate way until the day I die), I do use it as a tool to convince my husband that we should go away every weekend from June to Labor Day, which, halfway into July, we’re close to accomplishing.
This is the only summer he will be a year and a half, the only summer he’ll still be sort of a baby. The only summer he will not be using full sentences to explain how he feels or what he wants or where it hurts or what he loves, the only summer where he doesn’t know what ice cream is or how to ask for it (edit: we have given him a taste of ice cream this summer and he immediately “asked” for it). The only summer he’s never had a haircut because I can’t bear to cut his little ringlets that look like perfect curly fries. Only sixteen more summers, maybe.
They say it takes about two years after having a baby to return to yourself and when I heard that, thought: That can’t be true. It won’t be true. (Reader, it might be true). All to say, I haven’t been home much, which usually means excessive dining out and Cheez-Its for lunch, but truthfully and maybe unsurprisingly, I haven’t cooked this much in years.
Slowly over the last few months, my “summer purse” has transformed into a toddler go-bag, my essentials of 56 lipsticks/balms, old New Yorkers and mushroom chocolates replaced by diapers (swim and regular), wipes for all body parts including my own, snacks of various textures, colors and nutritional content (current favorites include freeze-dried strawberries, dried seaweed, dried mango, dates, rice cakes and pretzels, though I suspect any hard, salted cracker would make him happy) and two types of water bottles (don’t ask). While I mourn the loss of me pretending to read an old New Yorker on the blanket in the sun, the flip side of this new on-the-go lifestyle is my car is turning into what dreams are made of: effectively a mobile kitchen, stocked and equipped with both cooking utensils and shelf-stable pantry ingredients. One cast iron skillet (9”). Tongs (long). Tupperware (misc.). A 3-liter tin of olive oil, one deli cup each of kosher salt (Diamond) and flaky salt (Jacobsen), small Ziplock baggies of crushed red pepper flakes, one small jar each of fennel seed and cumin seed and a small Ball jar's worth of decanted soy sauce, vinegar and sesame oil. Beans, probably.
The beauty of summer cooking is that you don’t need to have or do much to have a good time (words to live by). Some of us wait all year for this miracle combination of long, hot days and sporadic rain showers to give us the best things we’ll eat during this too-short season. Sweet-sour tomatoes with stems so fragrant they launched a thousand expensive candles. Misshapen cucumbers crunchy as chips. Long, wild beans with tops and tails so tender there’s no need to top or tail them. Garlic scapes so abundant you buy them even though you’re not entirely sure what to do with them (I have some ideas). With the basics at your disposal/in the trunk of your car, you can save yourself a trip to the neon-lit big box grocer and put your energy towards finding charming farmstands and grumpy men to sell you fish. It's my favorite way to eat and I think it's the most enjoyable way to cook.
This week, for paid subscribers, I’ll be sharing some of the meals I cooked over the last few weeks, all with recipes. Included: a new potato salad with approximately 5 ingredients, an impassioned argument for grilling swordfish as much as you possibly can from now till September, a few ways to make tomato salads, cooking for a (large) crowd, my love affair with grilling tiny broccolis, and, due to popular demand (one person demanded it), a chicken parmesan made on a sheet pan – among other things.
I’ll also include a nice downloadable checklist of tools and ingredients you might want to keep around should you decide to hop in your car and head to a rental in a place you’ve never been.
While you can follow each menu as I’ve done and you’d be quite pleased (if I do say so myself), I think you’ll also find a collection of very simple, lovely summery produce-heavy recipes that you can use however you like, hopefully encouraging you to do less and enjoy more this season, even if you’re just staying put.
LaGuardia Airport (Terminal C)
Some people go on vacation to a faraway place with sea breezes and endless sunshine, but me? You can find me at Terminal C at LaGuardia airport up to one hour before a scheduled flight. Recently, due to excessive travel, I found love in a hopeless place (LaGuardia airport, Terminal C). This is me now, and “Loves LaGuardia” is the first thing I want someone to know about me when we meet. It changes the travel experience in such a dramatic, jarring way that I can’t believe there is another way to travel. The traffic to get there? Manageable. The TSA line? Fast and efficient. The TSA agents? Kind and courteous. The food? If I said the matzo ball soup at Bubby’s is the best soup in the city we all know that would not be true, but I’m still tempted to say it!! The ride share pick up area? Hardly chaotic, which is about the highest compliment I could give. While yes, I am comparing this to my two most-traveled-to airports (JFK and LAX, both of which are in CRISIS), I have also been to other airports and I’m willing to go on record as saying this is the greatest airport in the world.
Perfect Knockaround Shorts
Much like a reasonable airport experience, “cut-offs for adults” seemed to be a thing I wasn’t sure could ever exist until I found a pair. A pair that’s not too tight around the thighs, a pair that doesn’t expose too much butt, a pair that looks like you sliced off the bottoms of well-fitting jeans with a rise that’s just lower than “high” and higher than “mid.” I have been wearing these most days, and just like a pair of white sneakers, they don’t mind getting a little dirty (in fact, they prefer it). The patina suggests: I live my life. I love ice cream. I swim. I sit on rocks at the beach. I grill. I eat BLTs on a napkin and use my shorts as a napkin and…I live my life!!
Tracy Chapman
My first concert was the Lilith Fair in 1997. Aside from seeing who was, to me, the biggest celebrity I could imagine (Sarah McLachlan), I remember Tracy Chapman radicalizing my pre-teen brain. She’s found herself back into my regular rotation and I can’t recommend it enough, so consider this a recommendation (or reminder) to simply listen to Tracy Chapman. Good inside standing still, but especially great on long drives, even better if you’re alone (though I have not been alone in a car in what feels like years). Good at any hour of the day, but especially wonderful first thing in the morning before other people are really awake, or as the sun sets on a Sunday, even if there’s a little bit of traffic.
Granola at Home That You Didn't Have to Make Yourself
In case you are not one of the esteemed members of the paid subscriber community, you may have missed that last week, we took our Golden Granola with Sour Cherries from the limited batches sold at First Bloom and started producing it in larger quantities for everyone’s purchasing pleasure. Light on clusters, barely sweetened, tender plump sour cherries and the right kiss of salt and spice. I think it’s perfect and hope you do, too.
