The summer solstice reminds us that all of our senses are exploding more intensely this month in the Hamptons. Defined by the solstice, a term derived from the Latin words for “sun” and “to stand still,” it should come as no surprise we want those flavors to do just that: linger as long as the tastes, sights and aromas of the early morning light, the spicy sweetness of a basil-smothered tomato and even the barbecue-sweet and salty crunch, my cob rolled in fleur de sel, the salt known by French chefs to melt on contact.
I want everything out here to last. It’s the Hamptons cornfields that get to me most of all. Every tick-tock of time as these days go by, wanting to grab all of it at once is not that different from the desire to hold on to every last ear of corn before the kids head back into camp. They’re shoulder high, and a few weeks from perfect balance of sweet and salty. The corn isn’t quite here yet, the really award-winning stuff, I tell myself as I continue.
Way back in June, right around that summer solstice, I could barely detect the corn stalks reaching their baby leaves up on the back roads of Sagaponack and on the last few farmland stretches of Route 27.
But rather than let melancholy take over, I remind myself to focus instead on all the gifts we have out here. Dunking my body into the cold ocean every early morning is like medicine, shocking and healing me all at once. The distant nasal honk of the LIRR passing through town signals us all like a foghorn that families and old friends are reuniting on the platform. And that’s when I get most excited about what I’m cooking for everyone about to fling the back screen door open.
As my kids have gotten older — they’re now 16, 14 and 11 — and really tried to run away, I’ve had to start thinking about clever ways to draw them back to that very screen door. My plan: build an actual hearth to pull them home. And what better hearth than one designed to make pizzas on my very own back deck? Food brings us to those human moments we’re really all out here for in the first place. Cooking all the local produce and seafood tells those we love that we cared enough to create something magical just for them.
So we spent the winter installing an outdoor wood-burning pizza oven at our home that, thankfully, has drawn kids to it like bugs to a porch light. They love to create their own pies. We have a $5 prize for the best-tasting pizza each time we fire up the oven — everyone makes his or her own, shares and serves it on a wood plank, and we all vote for the best pie. It often turns out that the youngest kids have the winning touch, with a thin crust, ample sauce (but not too liquid-y in the middle) and just the right amount of toppings to make the pizza sing. The grown-ups never win the $5 prize, and the game isn’t even rigged. It’s just that grown-ups ham it up too much — literally, sometimes — and overcomplicate everyone’s favorite dish. It’s the kids who relate to the simple pleasure of it, a pleasure elusive to the grownups, who think they know better.
Cooking summer pizza with the freshest local produce is my way of making the moments out here stand still. That June summer solstice is scientifically considered an instant in time, an infinitesimal tilt in the earth’s axis when we’re most inclined towards the sun. Without the earth spinning on that axis, we’d have no seasons, no summer corn, no frothy butter on plentiful August shellfish.
And so I’ll decide to enjoy and worship all three months of that summer sun — one that stubbornly wanes and tilts a little bit further away each passing second of June, then July and now August. Like our kids running out that screen door, there’s so much out here to help us grasp one more moment together — and hopefully, in the process, draw those we love back home.
