You Promised Summer

Meals & Moods July 6-12

This weekend we attended one of those Fourth of July beach bonfires that reminds you why people tolerate sand in everything they own.

It had already been a very full day. We’d begun with a lunch party near Georgica Beach where there was barbecue from Townline, whoopie pies, children and dogs flinging themselves into the pool at regular intervals, and the sort of heat that makes conversation feel like cardio. Our host’s house is across from Grey Gardens, and I briefly considered showing up wearing black tights, a bathing suit, and performing Little Edie’s flag dance on the lawn.

When we got home, I went to my room for what I believed would be a twenty-minute lie down. Three geological eras later, I resurfaced and there, standing over me, was Louise, wearing the expression all eleven-year-olds have mastered: You promised summer.

I know I just wrote a piece about my new summer motto being “If it’s not hell yes, it’s hell no.” But in this case, looking at that sweet expectant face, I couldn’t . . .

Thank goodness, I didn’t. The bonfire was one of those evenings that somehow manages to be both chaotic and idyllic at once with parents in a circle of beach chairs and thirty children orbiting like wildlings.

Then the tide began coming in.

Without missing a beat, the host announced that the children had been entrusted with constructing a seawall. “To protect the community,” another father added. Nothing motivates kids quite like an emergency mission. The older children dragged driftwood. The younger ones hauled shovelfuls of sand with determination. We parents sat back quite pleased the trick had worked. And astonishingly, their seawall worked too—for a while.

Soon fireworks began erupting on both sides of us—small fortunes exploding into the atmosphere while children roasted marshmallows. Then someone noticed lightning—the sort that politely introduces itself several miles away before banging down the door.

The party dissolved with remarkable speed. We walked through the Dunes in near darkness, fireworks behind, lightning ahead, thunder rolling over the Atlantic. Jack, terrified and wearing shorts that had become entirely constructed of wet sand, said,“this is not cozy,” before bursting into tears.

By the time we reached the car, every phone simultaneously shrieked with an emergency weather alert.

We arrived home moments before the storm hit in earnest. Gale-force winds, sheets of rain, trees bending in directions they were never intended to bend. We all ran for shelter, astonished to have made it home seconds before the apocalypse.

Summer, I’ve noticed, is forever balancing on that edge between enchantment and total logistical collapse.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about parties, which in the best cases, are generous extensions of the hosts, reflecting their talents and personalities. The bonfire family lives beside the beach, has a fun crew of young parent friends, and instinctively understands that all you really need is a fire and one ambitious public works project.

The Georgica lunch party was entirely different. Multi-generational and largely writers. The conversation was good and the party favor was a recently published book signed by the host.

This coming weekend brings one of my favorite annual gatherings: a sing-along hosted by our West coast friends the Thieles. It’s their kind of party. A piano, a few guitars and a roomful of astonishingly talented people, everyone singing, casually.

One year Bob Balaban serenaded three-year-old Louise with There Once Was an Ugly Duckling. One year Olivia Rodrigo was there, another year, Meg Ryan.

Owen Thiele—once my assistant, before fame wisely intervened—inevitably performs something I end up filming and rewatching throughout the year whenever I need reminding that charisma remains one of God’s more unevenly distributed gifts.

We hosted his father Bob Thiele’s birthday dinner on Friday, which Owen missed because he was at a sing-along wedding—yes, that one.

Our own parties tend toward the opposite end of the spectrum—small dinners.

Unless, of course, it’s a birthday. Then all restraint evaporates. Louise turns eleven this week, and I am preparing what may be my magnum opus of children’s parties.

The Lost Map of Amagansett.

According to local legend—or at least according to me—an eleven-year-old girl named Betsy Hand hid a treasure from the British during the Revolution. She made a map, tore it into six pieces and hid around the village. The children must find the pieces of the map and reassemble it to find the treasure.

Their search will lead them from our old house (where Betsy’s letter is hidden behind a fireplace brick) to the Schellinger house which is now the library, Miss Amelia’s cottage, Indian Wells spring, where the Montaukett people stopped for water, the Lifesaving Station, the graveyard, and finally back to our garden, where the treasure chest waits buried beneath the hydrangeas.

Or perhaps the roses. I haven’t decided where history happened yet.

This week therefore involves a great deal of tea-staining paper, writing rhyming clues, and burying treasure under cover of darkness. Thank goodness I have Michael to do the cooking, while I take a deep dive into eighteenth-century cartography.

With parties on my mind, I reached for this cookbook:

Round to Ours: Setting the Mood and Cooking the Food by Laura Jackson and Alice Levine: I love this cookbook. Beautiful but casual tables, clever menus, stylish hosts, and exactly the sort of food that makes you immediately want to invite six people over. I follow Laura Jackson who has moved from food to beauty here on Substack.

Meals & Moods

The garden is beginning to dictate the menu now, which is exactly as it should be.

Monday - Camp Starts. Raining all day. Mom has a summer cold.

children - Angie’s cozy day chicken noodle soup, cucumber salad, challah, chocolate chip cookies

Mood: Cosy reset.

Tuesday - Into the city for another Beach Pajamas fitting. Back for dinner on Three Mile Harbor.

children - Taco night, with avocados, cheese, rice and beans, popsicles

Mood: Beach Pajamas

Wednesday - Party-prep day.

Family - grilled Koftas with harissa and yogurt (from Jackson and Levine’s cookbook), pitta bread, summer slaw, pineapple

Mood: Out of body. Referreing to self in third person: “Can she deliver?”

Thursday - Grandbabies arrive.

Family - Clams, cornbread, salad, maybe corn if they have it Balsam Farms.

Mood: Open doors

Friday - Contractor meetings

Family - Nat’s catch of the day, zucchini, lemon potatoes, salad

Mood: Building dreams

Saturday - Nancy’s birthday and the annual sing-along.

Family - Fish cakes, mango relish, corn on the cob, and salad.

Mood: Summer song

Sunday - Louise turns 11

Sandwiches wrapped in parchment. Lemonade. Watermelon, Salted caramel brownies, gingersnaps . . .cake TBD!

Children triumphantly excavating a treasure chest while adults quietly congratulate themselves for surviving another themed party.

Family - Out to dinner

Mood: Happy Hunting

Drop a heart if you liked this post and do re-Stack if you found it useful as that really helps with visibility. If you want more interiors, recipes, meal plans, and thoughts on parenting then do consider becoming a paid subscriber for either a month or a year. Or you can give the gift of Our Amagansett House to a friend.