I started to write a post about Fall Traditions, but I realized that I couldn’t do that without writing about summer traditions. The oldest in my family are those centered around Cape Cod.


I suppose this post could start with summer traditions: every summer my family and I go to Cape Cod. I once called it the “liminal land of my youth” which I suppose is a bit pretentious, but I loved how it sounded, the repeated “l”s in the words words like waves breaking on soft ground.

And every summer on Cape Cod we go to “my” beach, even though by now my parents live three towns over. And every summer, since I was 5, I’ve eaten lunch at the shack at the top of that beach. When I was little I ordered the foot long hot-dog, and was allowed to get a can of Root Beer from the soda machine. At 7, I had my first raw oyster there. With my boyfriend-fiancee-husband I whiled away many an afternoon, drinking Pete's Summer Ales, picking at the best lobster roll I’ve ever had (still). For more than 30 years I’ve happily eaten the clam chowder at this shack, on that beach. It’s the best clam chowder I’ve had at any beach shack, maybe the best New England style clam chowder I’ve ever had.

Of course, the view doesn’t hurt, either. Nor does the fact that this is now my little boy’s favorite beach, too, and his favorite "hot dog store", open rain or shine, nor’easter or heat wave, all year long.

Lobster on my parents’ deck, soft serve at Mac’s, kayaking, watching kites, boat rides, the galleries in Wellfleet, seals, whales.

That’s my summer.

And we’ve added to it, since moving to California, the drive north around the 4th of July (this year, the Sonoma Coast); since J was born: a trip or two to Tilden; and the past two years, with “The Burger Project”.

But nothing is as sweet as that first afternoon at “my” beach, eating oysters, watching the waves.

My parents have a "wilderness" area behind their house, just like we do. Except of course,  it's much different. Where J and I hike over schist and serpentine and through yellow, strawy native grasses to find the bench and the butterflies, my parents have a boggy marsh, rabbits, tall trees.



I heard Terry Tempest Williams on To the Best of our Knowledge talk about doing an observation of Prairie Dogs-- for the first 30 minutes, she said, nothing  happened. She thought she'd die of boredom. Then, suddenly, she saw a whole world whirling in motion.  I suppose this is like clouds moving, or the tides changing.

I couldn't tell J who or what the birds were, or answer him when he asked why they were talking. And I am not sure how to learn these things-- it seems like something that should be handed down through the generations, but I grew up in a city, too.

These are just a few of the horseshoe crabs that were on the beach the other morning-- dead.

The first time  I saw a horseshoe crab I must have been about 7. It was in the water, I thought it was a rock until I stepped on it, and it moved.  We never saw them washed up like this. It's not a molt-- not a new moon,  and there weren't cracks on the front of the shells  (where the crab would have crawled out). They died. I don't know if this is because of the oil spill, or simply the storm the other night, or the water being too hot, or everything changing all at once, all together.

They made me think of dead Greek warriors,  and Sutton Hoo helmets:




I remember one summer here, I must have been around 6 or 7, my father began reading the Odyssey to me. Perhaps he was inspired by the horseshoe crabs.
Maybe if J had been older we might have play-fought with these, then, like those heroes of old. Instead I "drew" a "jellyfish" in the sand around the "crab fishies" trying to explain to him what had happened to these old men of the sea, even though I  don't really know.

We're on Cape Cod, and as always I am  so struck by how different the colors are here from  San Francisco. Mostly it's yellow vs grey, but looking at these photos I realized that some of the greens are really tonally different. They have a blue-ness that I don't recognize out west. I am not sure, quite, how to describe it.

J's color palette seems to have changed too, this is a collaboration between the two of us, but he painted the yellow and some (most) of the violet:



Ironically I think these are cooler colors than he usually picks.

From SouleMama: {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment.

I’m not sure how it started, but it’s been a really fishy summer.

Maybe it was Leo Lionni-- we’ve been on a Leo Lionni and J and I have really enjoyed reading “Swimmy” together. The watercolor illustrations of the jellyfish, the eel, and the “sugar candy rocks” (coral) are really amazing. Perhaps it was when we went to the Academy of Sciences (thanks mom!) and saw the very same things, that sealed it. I certainly liked being able to come and read the book, and say, here, see, we saw this. And then the next day, we painted some of the fish we’d seen. It was a great way to stretch the museum visit-- free for us thanks to my parents’ generous gift, but it would have made me feel good/better if we had paid, or if we’d bought the book instead of checking it out of the library.



But then it went on and on! When we drove north for the 4th of July, we stopped at a winery with and incredible koi pond; J and I played there with the fish for almost an hour. And so then when we came home, at J’s request we sat and  painted “yeggow fishies,  oran fishies”:



I’m not sure what other fish activities we will do this summer. We’ll visit Lt’s Island, where you can see a lot of water bugs, and I might try this craft: .

What I’d really like, though, is to magically know how to crochet or be a good enough knitter to make this necklace:

For the past year or so, we’ve had a meat club subscription from (to?) Marin Sun Farms. Lately-- say the last 3 months or so-- “the box” has become our sole source of meat. No extra steak, no sausage for the heck of it, no chicken breasts cause I feel a little lazy.

While it can be a little burdensome/constraining (the meat is frozen and we don’t have a microwave, and our freezer is pretty small, plus, I do like a chicken breast on a whim once in a while), it general it’s been really great. The subscription has allowed me to keep really close watch on our food costs. And I feel good about knowing exactly where all our meat came from, that it is humanely raised with no freaky hormones/drugs. And, it’s the best lamb I’ve ever had, close to perfect pork, excellent steak, and wonderful eggs.


What has surprised me more is how the box has affected my cooking habits and recipe experimentation. We get a package that includes about 5 lbs of ground meat and 2 lbs of “steaks” (steak, but also pork chops, lamb chops, chicken breasts, etc.... so far,though, we’ve only ever gotten steak). That is a lot of hamburgers if you break 5 lbs down to 1/4-1/3 lb per person. And 2 lbs of steak across 2.5 people works out to weird portions, too.

So, now we have a weekly burger night-- we’ve gotten to the point where it’s homemade burger, homemade ketchup, homemade pickle (actually I like Happy Girl's better than my own...), homemade buns (M makes them-- fabulously-- using this recipe). I haven’t tried making mustard yet. But it’s a fun game, just how much of it can we make ourselves-- it relieves what for me would otherwise be the tedium of having to eat a burger every week.

And I’ve gotten pretty good with making beef tacos, we have nachos, I mix some beef into a version of bolognese (I guess I really should call it sugo). But we still have a freezer full of ground beef. I am thinking maybe we need to have a hamburger party. With the ground pork, I’ve learned how to make chorizo verde, created a vietnamese burger recipe, and eaten way to many pork balls (my childhood favorite).

Meanwhile, steak is on the other end of the spectrum. M loves steak and would happily eat a pound to himself every week. However, he’d rather have a steak every week than the whole pound-- frequency is more important than quantity. So I prepare 1 or 2 packages a week (depending on the portion size packaged, which can really vary) carefully, and make interesting side dishes, and a desert.

On hot weekends (all three of them!) this has been sunday dinner: some homemade hummus and toasted pita, a few roasted peppers eaten with a glass of wine while the rib eye or new york strip marinates; boiled new potatoes with lots of salt and cracked coriander, anchovy butter for the steak, cherry tomato and sliced green bean salad, walnut cake.

Ironically, after this sort of meal we often end up with leftover steak. Which we all love in a lentil salad for a quick supper later in the week, or for a picnic lunch on Saturday. For me, lentil salad is one of the emblematic foods of summer. And it is perfect for a picnic-- bright and tangy, but packing a protein punch-- good fuel for a few more hours of swimming or hiking, and no carbs to slow things down (the midday summer sun is enough to make me want to nap, anyway!).

Lentil and Steak Salad
1 c lentils
4 tbs red wine vinegar or 2 tbs red wine and 2 tbs tarragon vinegar
3 tbs extra virgin olive oil
~ 2 diced shallots (a little less than a quarter cup), or 2 tbs red onions or 3 tbs scallions
3 tbs chopped parsley
1 tbs to 1/2 c chopped steak (if you have less than a 1/4 c, increase the olive oil a little, to taste)

Directions:
Sort and rinse the lentils: depending on where you got them,there will be some pebbles mixed in here. I live black (beluga) or green (de puy) types of lentils the best. I don’t think you are supposed to, but I mix a little of each together to get to 1 c.
Put the lentils in a sauce pan and cover with about 3 inches of water, bring to a boil. Turn heat down to a simmer, and cook, without a top. This step is really variable-- some lentils cook in 10 minutes, others in 30. Set a timer for 10 minutes and check every 5-10 minutes after that.
When they are done, drain loosely, i.e. it’s ok for the lentils to be damp-- don’t be too aggressive, you want some extra water.
Immediately toss the lentils with 2 tbs red wine vinegar salt and pepper-- this sort of locks in the flavors, I think the lentils absorb some of the vinegar and it keeps them from turning to mush.
Let sit while you chop up the other ingredients.
Add the olive oil, shallot, 2 tbs more vinegar (or less, to taste-- and here I prefer tarragon vinegar to red wine, gives it all a little kick), parsely and steak. Stir to combine.

Variations:
lamb + cilantro + red onion + lemon (instead of steak, parsley, shallots and tarragon vinegar); salmon + chives + scallions + lemon;
goat cheese (1/4 c) + tarragon or parsley + shallots + your choice of vinegar.

I haven’t tried it with chicken breast, but I don’t think it would be a great flavor/texture combination. You want a protein with a more robust flavor and a defined texture-- in fact, I’d go easy on mixing in the salmon for that reason-- ust lightly, and ad the end, after all other ingredients are in and seasonings adjusted.

I bought a watermelon today to make "Frozen Watermelon-Lime Bars".

I started to just write down the changes I made to the recipe, but realized they were more extensive on paper than they had seemed in my head... so here's the recipe, revised and improved:

Ingredients
For Watermelon Sorbet:
1 (2 1/2-pounds) piece of watermelon (this was about half of the watermelon I had... more on that later)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons tequila

For Lime Semifreddo:
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon grated lime zest
3/4 cup fresh lime juice
3/4 cup chilled heavy cream

Directions
Make watermelon sorbet:
Line a 9-inch square baking pan (2 inches deep) with plastic wrap, leaving a 2-inch overhang. Put lined pan in freezer.
Coarsely chop watermelon flesh (leave seeds in), then purée enough to yield 2 1/2 cups in a blender. Strain this quickly to take off about 1/4 cup of juice.
Return flesh to blender and add sugar, juice, and tequila to purée and blend 30 seconds.
Freeze sorbet in ice cream maker. Transfer to lined baking pan, smoothing top. Put in freezer to harden, for 1 hour.
Break up the semi-frozen watermelon sorbet with a spoon, and then smooth it out again. Freeze another 30-60 minutes.

Meanwhile, make lime semifreddo:
Whisk together condensed milk, zest, and juice. Beat cream until it just holds stiff peaks, then gently fold into condensed-milk mixture.
Spread over sorbet (after the 2-stage freeze), smoothing top. Freeze until solid, at least 2 hours.

The recipe actually caught my eye in an ad for the new Gourmet app. I don't have an iPad, so no comment on the app functionality, but I am glad there is some hope for the Gourmet brand yet. I actually think it's a really interesting development, and don't have the reflexive, "OMG, it's franken-magazine!" response which seems to be the default reaction. Maybe I have worked in technology too long. I am curious whether this was a McKinsey recommendation, an after thought, or the work of yet another consulting company (my guess, the latter).

Anywy, the desert only used half the watermelon, so I made a salad with the other half:

Ingredients
2.5 lbs watermelon
1/4 red onion
1/4 cup chopped black olives
handful chopped mint
1/3 c olive oil
juice of 1 lime (about 3 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon rice wine vineagar
salt
hot pepper to taste

Directions
Chop the watermelon into chunks-- about 2 inches square. Toss with other ingredients, and enjoy-- don't mix until right before you are ready to eat.

All of this was inspired by experimenting with making Horchata for my son, who is addicted, and spends about an hour every Saturday morning (from the time we hang up from chatting with Nonna and Babbo, until the moment we arrive at the stand at Alemany) chanting "Horchada! Horchada! Farmer's Eat!". I started with this recipe, but I am still working on it. Too powdery. And I think my cinnamon was a little stale, even thought I bought it today. Next time, a trip to La Palma is in order.

If only Nopalito would just publish a cookbook already. Which is another way to say that while the green tacos were AWESOME tonight, I still can't even come close to Nopalito's, and no recipe yet.

Some of my ancestors came to this country in the late 1600’s. They pretty much stayed where they landed. Some family came to this country in the late 1800’s, they moved a little. My family that came to this country around 1700 moved and moved and moved, out into the middle of the country. The ones that came to this country in 1918 moved too, south and south and south. I am from this country, but now from the other end of it, and a High Provincialism is in order: I live in California by extreme choice, and except for the days of budget crises and IOU’s, the mashup of technology and nature reflects my personality perfectly.

But in the summer, at least for a few weeks, I tend to wonder what I am doing here. Every summer, for a few weeks, I return to the land of my most ancient forbearers: I spend a week or two every summer on cape cod, swimming, paddling, hiking, and cooking and eating THAT local food.

This summer was the second with my son in tow but really, it seemed like the first, as last year he was not even three months old.

So our vacation changed a little. I had a massage one day, and went running three others, when rain threatened and he napped through the good beach hours. Beach yoga, and visits to the baby beach replaced paddling and hiking. We didn’t make it to as many galleries, to the movies, or stay up as late. It was the best vacation we’ve had in a long time.

We ate lobster twice, and J ate blueberries every morning. He’s enjoyed blueberries at home, and his breakfast of choice for some months has been blueberry waffles. But this was different. He picked them off his grandparents' bushes for a quick snack, had a a bite of cornmeal and blueberry muffin for breakfast, a bowlful for lunch, and gobbled down the Blueberry slump I made for our traditional-last-night-lobster (and bluefish pate, and oysters, and corn)-dinner.
On the plane home, he said to me, twice, “Blueb! Blueb!”. It took me a minute to figure out, but then I pulled out the bag I'd brought with me, and mentally counted "15!" on his growing vocabulary list.


Blueberry Slump
4 cups blueberries
4 small plums, pitted and sliced thin
½ c water
½ c sugar
1 tbs cornstarch
1 tbs grated ginger
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
1 cup heavy cream

Instructions
Preheat the oven to 450°F. In a cast iron skillet combine the blueberries, the plums, the water, the sugar, the cornstarch, and the ginger, bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly, and simmer it for 5-10 minutes.

Biscuits:
In a bowl sift together the flour, the sugar, the baking powder, and the salt. In a bowl beat the cream until it holds soft peaks, spoon it into the well in the flour mixture and combine the mixture with a fork until it just forms a dough. Most recipes call for then rolling out your batter and cutting the biscuits, which you can certainly do I simply form mine very very lightly by hand, which I find results in an airier texture. However you do it, you want 6ish biscuits.
Drop the biscuits on top of the fruit mixture. Bake in the middle of the oven for 15 minutes, or until the biscuits are lightly golden and the fruit is bubbling.

When I was seventeen or eighteen I moved to New York City. I went to NYU that fall, but before then before the studio in the village, the loft in Williamsburg, and of course the dorms, I lived with friends for a summer on the edge of Gramercy Park.

It was a condo in a new-ish building, built over a supermarket. It was a few blocks south of Les Halles, and a few blocks north of the greenmarket. There was a Chinese takeout joint on one corner, and a sushi restaurant on another. A block away a place called Lulu’s served strong margaritas and faux tex-mex to a cocaine-ish after-work/model-wannabe crowd. 80s leftovers.

The Chinese takeout place did lots of stuff well, and I didn’t realize yet how many places did so many of these things well, even better, or how much more there was to Chinese food. In some ways I think my real love of Chinese—szechuan-- food has only come from moving to San Francisco, not a exactly a hotbed of szechuan-nese. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Mine at least.

I ordered General Tsao’s, which I’d never had before. Pork Dumplings, which tasted like the Pork balls in London. Scallion Pancakes and Fried Rice, better than I’d had in Western Massachusetts (Chinese takeout knows no barriers!). And I ordered, perhaps at my friends’ suggestion, cold sesame noodles.

It gets hot in the summer in New York. That sounds obvious; perhaps it might be better to say that New York in the summer is a re-definition of HOT. But that sounds like a cliche. I am from Washington DC, where it really gets hot. I grew up in Rome, which might as well be part of Africa come August. I guess I think I have HOT bonifides.

Hot in New York in the summer is a different sort of hot. It is perhaps the nastiest grossest hot ever. Stinky garbage piled everywhere. Heat rising off the concrete. It’s gross. Half the city departs for the Hamptons, Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and the rest of us—you-them- are left to stare at each other. You are left naked in the heat. Can’t wear too many clothes, too tired to mask emotions.

Hot weather food in Washington, on my uncle's farms, on a day I am feeling nostalgic is watermelon. Fruit is refreshing and reviving anywhere on any summer day. But it is so wholesome it's hard to swallow in the grime of an endless July day in New York.

Cold sesame noodles are good cold, room temperature, and lukewarm. They are good after sex, before going out for drinks, for a hungover breakfast. They might actually be nasty hot, and the refrigerator improves their flavor. They are easy to eat, they are easy to make, they are perfect make-ahead food. They make summer in New York bearable, and any meal pleasant.

And now, in San Francisco, babies like small bites, and they are a perfect addition to my lunchbox.

Cold Sesame Noodles

Ingredients
1tbs peanut butter (chunky or smooth is fine)
2 tbs tahini
(OR 3 tbs tahini OR 3 tbs peanut butter)
3 1/2 tbs toasted sesame oil
3 tbs soy sauce
1/4 c water
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs minced peeled fresh ginger
2 tsp rice vinegar
2 tsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp chili flakes or a whole small serrano, chopped
1 lb Asian egg noodles or linguine
3 tbs minced scallion

Directions
Blend together the peanut butter, 2 tablespoons of the sesame oil, the soy sauce, the garlic, the gingerroot, the vinegar, the sugar, the chili paste, and a pinch of salt. In a kettle of salted boiling water cook the noodles until they are al dente, drain them in a colander, and rinse them well under cold water. Retain a ¼ of the cooking water. Mix the cooking water into the paste as needed/for texture (I usually don’t ad or add maybe 1/8 cup, but my husband does ¼, and that tastes good, too)
Drain the noodles well, in a bowl toss them with the remaining 1 tablespoon sesame oil, and mound them on a platter. Let cool for 15 minutes (on the counter or in the refrigerator) and then mix with sauce. Sprinkle them with the scallions + enjoy.

tahini jar photo from erikflickr