I absolutely LOVE cherries. Artificial cherry flavour has a bad reputation, but it’s my absolute favourite fake flavour (lollipops, jello, popsicles). I love fresh cherries even more than fake ones and nothing says summer to me more than cherries. Growing up in Vancouver meant that summertimes were made for road-tripping it down to the Okanagan Valley to pick fruit at all the U-Pick orchards.
Sometimes my whole extended family would go on a camping trip together, but my favourite times were when it was just the four of us, me, my mom and dad, and Kevin. We’d pack a tent, bring some buckets and live the fruit picking life for a couple of weeks. No TV, no phones (smart phones didn’t exist back then!), just the stars, the barbecue and massive fruit orchards.
My dad would insist on driving around to all the orchards to find the best u-pick price. My mom would be more concerned about the quality of fruit and whether or not pesticides were used. Kevin and I would just be itching to get out of the van. Fruit picking is a lot of fun and a lot of hard work. Still, we were pretty quick about the whole thing – the ladder would come out, trees would be climbed, fruit would be picked. On our way home, our little van would be packed to the brim full of peaches, cherries and apricots. After the long and winding drive, we’d invite our family and friends over to help themselves to the free fruit stand we’d set up in our backyard. Those trips were always my favourite part of summer.
Sadly, I haven’t gone to pick cherries in a long time now. Happily though, my Whole Foods carries locally sourced BC cherries. I partnered up with them today to bring you this post and a giveaway! Whole Foods is giving away a $50 gift card to one lovely reader.
To enter: please leave a comment below with your favourite childhood summer food memory. Giveaway ends on July 22nd at 12AM PST. Open to US or Canadian residents only. Winner will be chosen by a random number generator. Good luck!
UPDATE: Yay! Cindy M, get ready to go shopping because you just won a $50 Whole Foods gift card! Congrats!
Easy Pistachio Cherry Tart Recipe
makes 9 tarts
- 1/2 sheet store bought puff pastry, thawed
- 1/4 cup ricotta
- 2 tablespoons cream cheese
- 2 tablespoons honey, or to taste
- 14 cherries, halved and pitted
- 2 tablespoons chopped pistachios
Cut the puff pastry into 9 equal pieces and poke all over with fork so they don’t puff too much in the oven. Bake according to the package. While the puff is baking, whip together the ricotta, cream cheese and honey until fluffy and smooth. Adjust to taste. When the puff is ready, cool and if needed, flatten slightly so the cherries have a nice level plane to sit on. When cool, spread with ricotta mix, top with cherry halves and chopped pistachios. Enjoy!
My favorite childhood food memory is catching shrimp with my grandpa in Galveston. I twisted, turned, and knotted the net a million times, but my Poppie was always patient with me and let me go again. We’d then take the shrimp upstairs and my Nina would fry them up with the fish my Poppie caught earlier that morning and she would serve them up with some homemade tartar sauce. So good.
I loved eating watermelon on the back patio with my family!
My dad would always make malted milk pancakes. Often, they were underdone in the center, but this didn’t matter to me. They were still delicious.
My Dad always made raspberry sorbet during the summer. I loved it!
My favorite summertime food was definitely blueberry pancakes made with freshly picked blueberries.
making hand-churned raspberry ice cream with my grandpa. :)
My favorite was eating watermelon at barbecues. It’s not summer until there’s a huge watermelon that gets shared!
These look Delicious!! My favorite childhood memory has to do with cherrie and family as well. The first thing I learned to cook were pies with my grandmother and we wou;d always make cherry pies because they were my dad’s favorite. I always will remeber her little counter top radio playing the oldies and me standing on a stool barley tall enough to see over the counter. I got so excited that I got to help stir the filling. Good times. :)
I loved when the ice cream truck came down our street. We’d hear the familiar jingle and scramble to find some coins in the house then chase the truck down before he drove too far into the next neighborhood. Those chocolate eclairs, weird baseball mitt things (with the baseball bubble gum), and rainbow sno-cones were the best ever on a hot day :-)
My mom making us homemade popsicles!
I think grilling is my favorite memory! Rain or shine, my dad would be out there grilling anything he could get his hands on, especially since we live in the Midwest and grilling season is short. Also, your pictures are just bonkers awesome!
Watermelon in the backyard with a sprinkle of salt. Wouldn’t be summer without it!
I think my favorite summer food memory is getting those firecracker red, white, and blue popsicles when my family was camping during the summer. I dont think Ive had one in years!
having watermelon out on the boat at the lake near where I grew up
We went to Puerto Rico every summer, so traveling there with my family is my favorite memory!
My mom makes a strawberry yogurt pie with cool whip. Totally artificial but delicious. Anyway, my favorite memory is not eating it, but adding the chocolate chips to the batter and hearing the clicking sound they make as they collide in the smooth yogurt.
I spent many childhood summers in Maine with my grandparents. Most favorite food memory of those summers; rhubarb. Behind the house on Katahdin Avenue, the garden filled with a variety of beans, squash, berries and the rhubarb. The siblings/cousins would scramble out the door for a morning of exploring/fun but first, I headed to the back of the garden, grabbing a couple of rhubarb stalks, sliding them into my back pocket. A snack for later just in case…of course there was also the strawberry rhubarb pie, rhubarb compote for ice cream and rhubarb jam. Thank you, this giveaway brought those fond memories back to me!
My favorite childhood summer food is a toss up between sweet corn and popsicles. We ate a LOT of both. I recently got on the popcicle making bandwagon and let me just say – watermelon mint lime.
Eating salt water taffy on the boardwalk on Virginia Beach!
My favorite summer memory is eating snow cones of all different flavors :)
My favorite summer memory probably has to be the meals cooked over the campfire when we used to go camping every summer. Nothing fancy, by any standards, but we always roasted marshmallows and I still love the smell of a campfire.
Homemade ice cream. For Memorial Day, Father’s Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day and any family birthday that came up, my grandma, aunt, or dad would make wonderful flavors like Mint Chocolate Chip, Fresh Strawberry, Rocky Road, Tropical Treat (pineapple, cherry, banana)and others. Still just makes my mouth water to remember those days. The fact my grandma had a pool in her backyard just made her place THE place to be all summer long.
One of my favorite summer food memories is eating fresh blueberries with a splash of cream. We used to always spend a few weeks of the summer in TN, and my aunt would usually take us blueberry picking. We would come home and she would bake all kinds of goodies, but just eating a bowl full of the fresh berries was my favorite!
Mine is coconuts! I have distinct memories of drinking fresh coconut water in the summers. After a visit to the grandparents, my mom would stop by one of the many trucks sitting by the side of the road, filled to the brim with fresh coconuts, and select three for us. I’d watch the coconut-hawkers hack at the fruit with machetes until a straw could be inserted, then my sister and I would sit in the back of the car and chug all the coconut water. When we got home, we’d hack at the shells so that we could eat the meat inside. I love coconuts!
Getting ice cream with my parents on warm summer Sundays! I inevitably went for the fresh, delicious strawberry ice cream. What a treat it was.
Favorite summer food memory is spending all day at the pool then taking a break to eat watermelon and coconut popsicles. And then subsequently jumping in the pool to get away from the bees that would inevitably try to land on your sticky hands.
Hmm, grilled peaches with mozzarella! YUM!
What a tasty treat!! I love anything with cherries :)
This tart looks so yummy and the photos, as usual, are gorgeous! Can’t wait for your book!
As a kid, we would often travel to my cousin’s house in New Jersey, and they were lucky enough to have an ice cream truck regularly drive around their neighborhood. That never happened where I lived so I always loved visiting them so I could indulge with Mister Softee!
Nothing beat when my dad would grill chicken and slather it in his secret sauce – we’d all eat outside and listen to the cicadas hum!
I remember eating watermelon at family picnics in the summer!
Growing up in China, I remember those hot humid days in Guangzhou, the Cantonese city. The streets were full of vendors. One time I complained to my mom that I was passing out from the heat and needed something like a Popsicle. But instead, she got me what was supposed to be “good for me”. A glass of iced herbal tea (Liang Cha in Mandarin, or Leung Cha in Cantonese), I mean, this was no Celestial Seasonings fruity, floral, light herbal tea, it was full-powered, bitter, deeply-dark and pungent liquid. Thank God the vendor had honey that he was willing to give out, lol. But now, I live in the states and there are times in the summer that I actually wish to drink one of those herbal teas! Thanks for the giveaway, love your blog~
My favourite childhood summer memory would be heading to the Pacific National Exhibition each year to enjoy our annual family feast of mini cinnamon doughnuts and cotton candy!
Cherry is my favorite, too! They don’t grow locally and so I end up paying a fortune for one bag every summer (just one–but it gets savored).
One of my favorite food memories as a kid involves shucking corn. My dad had a farmer friend who would let us have first pick of fresh corn. I remember my dad’s little pickup with the bed just filled with corn. And my brothers and sister and I would be in charge of shucking and picking out the grubs. I hated it at the time but these days I can only look back on fondness. Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles would come over and take their share. We’d make homemade, hand-churned lemon ice cream. Those were the glory days.
I love cherries too! I go cherry picking in Brentwood, CA and they have the best bing cherries I’ve ever tasted! I want to try this recipe the next time I have an excess of cherries – sadly, a rare occasion.
When I would visit my dad’s family in Pennsylvania, we would always go to a local farm known as Triple B and pick whatever was in season. Usually that meant strawberries, but I’ve also been there when they’ve had corn growing (nothing compares to fresh corn!). I used to love picking as many strawberries as I could with my friend, but the real challenge was not eating them all before we got home!
My favorite food memory from when I was a kid is eating corn on the cob, slathered in butter, outside on my parents’ deck.
I remember sitting by the campfire, surrounded by my cousins, roasting marshmallows. We hear a meager squeak from the youngest one and our heads all turn in her direction. “Can I have a napkin?” she says ever so politely, her hands in front of her face, each finger spread to reveal a web of marshmallows.
Another time one of my other younger cousins would not stop talking, and would not start listening. So much so that, when an ember lept out of the fire onto his shaved head and we screamed that his hair was on fire, he continued talking until his dad had to run over and give him a nice, firm whack on the head. The fire went out. The talking did not (sorry that ones not food related! just popped in my head)
grilled chicken and potato salad, where always favorites and memorable when the family got together during the summer.
So many good memories but I’ll always cherish picking out my favorite fruit tart from Draegers for my August birthday!
When I was younger, my mom made this casserole with pasta, cheese, tomato sauce and ground beef. My sister and I called it “Yummy Junk.” Every time she made it, my sister and I would be so excited and just yell about Yummy Junk. Any similar dish just makes me think of home.
Ice cream sandwiches on a hot summer camp day.
Eating firecracker popsicles on the driveway in July–it just screams summertime!
I miss outdoor grilling with my parents and long days spent at the pool with my sister.
One of my favorite memories is making Kool-Aid every day from those powder packs. Like I needed more sugar, but hey ;)
My family would make a large pot of zaru soba and we would each have our own bowl of dipping sauce with ice cubes to chill it further. When I think back at what food memory stands out most from my childhood summers, it would be this.
I remember making homemade cherry and blueberry pies with my mother when I was younger. I loved to make the crumble to go on top.
I loved eating at my grandparents house in the summer. My grandma always made homemade fresh pasta. It was delicious!
4th of July BBQs in the backyard with Dad!
My mother would pull out the electric old-school ice cream maker and churn homemade buttermilk pineapple sherbet! Oh, wow, just thinking about it is making my mouth water!
sitting with a huge watermelon and some spoons with my family!
My favorite memory was making ice cream in a coffee can – probably not the tastiest but it was sure fun!
My favorite summer food memory is deep fried cheese curds at the Iowa State Fair. DROOL.
My mom used to make this weird (but good) jello cake thing. It had jello interspersed throughout yellow cake and whipped cream frosting. So refreshing and good!
My favorite childhood summer food memory is catching crawdads in the creek when we went camping every summer. At first we just caught them for fun – we didn’t realize we could eat them until my friend’s dad told us they were delicious and cooked up a bucket of them for us on the camp stove. After that, though, we couldn’t get enough!
I have 2 food memories. Watermelon… and snowcones. To be a kid
My favorite summer childhood food memory is of eating strawberry shortcakes at my grandma’s house – we used to pick the berries fresh, then make up a batch of shortcakes. They were delicious!
When I was a kid I loved getting up early for the beach or fishing and making Portuguese buttered chourice rolls with my dad.
Fruit tarts made with puff pastry!
S’mores! Yum.
love memories of summer barbecues
food over the campfire in the mountains!
eating arepas at the beach in venezuela
My favorite summer food memory is eating all kinds of salads for dinner when it was too hot to cook!
What a beautiful tart! Pistachio and cherry sounds like such a perfect combination. My favorite summer food memory is of having big glass of homemade lemonade in my grandmother’s backyard (conveniently next to the lemon tree from whence the lemonade came, haha). Thanks for the giveaway opportunity!
my favorite summer food memory is having ice cream and fish and chips by the water :)
Eating many ears of corn on the cob for my entire meal as a kid!
Huckleberry country is where I live, also known as the Flathead Valley in Montana. On the hottest summer day’s I would help myself to the huckleberry stocked freezer in our home and fill my bowl to the brim with those precious dark purple gems, fresh milk and a dusting of sugar. I can still visualize myself sitting on the steps of the back porch with my huckleberry bowl perched on my knees, chipping away at the milk and berries. It was a time of solitude that was special to me and a cooling relief on those hot summer day’s.
S’mooooooorreeessss!!!
My favorite summer food is eating grilled corn at our backyard patio.
My family spent a summer in Bar Harbor Maine when I was young. I remember walking out of the cabin door and picking wild blueberries. It was a long time ago, but I still want to go back and visit Maine again….
I would always make shaken homemade vanilla ice cream in ziploc bags!! There was one time where the bags popped and i got vanilla ice cream ALL over me….
I used to love having cookouts with my cousins. We’d always play a huge game of wiffle ball too!
My favorite childhood summer food memory is the family reunions we’d have every summer just before school started back up. My whole extended family and loads of family friends (even my dentist!) would come to our house for swimming, fun and tons of great food. The party would often spill over into the neighbors’ houses and would last two or three days. My mom would make her famous baked beans (still one of my favorite recipes to make and eat), sweet corn on the cob and macaroni salad. And of course we’d have burgers and hot dogs cooked on the grill. So much wonderful food and so many wonderful memories.
My favourite childhood summer food memory- mango salad and BBQ that my parents prepared in our backyard party.
My favourite childhood summer food was all kinds of fresh fruits – in pie form! Peach pie, raspberry pie, strawberry pie, cherry pie. All direct from the Okanagan. Add a bit of whip cream, and summer was perfected.
watermelon! my birthday is in july and one time instead of cake, we cut the watermelon in half, stuck candles and made a watermelon cake for my birthday.
Picking raspberries from my grandparents backyard garden.
The thing I remember most about my summers growing up, were the incredible doughnuts we would have every morning while we were on vacation in Sunriver. We would ride our bikes into town from our cabin and try to beat the other early risers who needed their doughnut fix.
Pimento cheese sandwiches with my mom by the pool for sure!
I remember going to pick strawberries with my family. Then we would come home and eat fresh berries and make pies
My favorite childhood memory (memories?) are going to the small ice-cream shop by the high school and getting the largest scoops of ice-cream ever. On especially lucky days, there would still be a couple of doughnuts left from the morning and I’d pick up a coconut doughnut to go along with my treat.
Eating big slices of watermelon and not caring in the slightest how sticky I was ;)
Those cherries look amazing! When I think of summer food, I always remember my grandpa making fried chicken (one of the few meals he cooked).
I remember growing up and eating incredibly hot, sizzling bowls of Vietnamese pho during the summer, even on the hottest days when you could see the heat radiating above the cement in the distance. My mother would still insist on making it though, bringing up her memories of Vietnam, where everyone ate pho in the morning in preparation for the long day of work ahead. Now that I’m older I can’t get enough of it, especially on the hottest days of the year in the morning when that sudden craving of summer Vietnamese basil starts kicking when I water the garden and release all its delicious anise-y smells.
FREEZIES! White colour, please.
Strawberry picking with my grandpa, and then handing the strawberries over to my grandmother for her most-delicious strawberry rhubarb pie!
We lived in the city, so no picking any fruit but my fav part of the summer was the LIMBE MAN! A little old man would come down the street with his cart and a big block of ice, he would shave some for you and ask your flavor all for 25 cents! Best part of my day!
My favorite childhood food memory is making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with my mom to pack in our lunches for the week. I don’t think I can ever get tired of PB and J sandwiches because of those memories haha.
just being kids, sitting on the patio out back, eating whole watermelons with spoons
Favorite memory is watermelon seed spitting contests :)
I loved going to the creamy whip a few blocks down with my mom and dad to enjoy a swirl cone with rainbow sprinkles!
My favorite summer food memory is indulging in my grandmother’s blueberry pie. She would go to a local farm and pick the blueberrys herself.
These look so good.. and so simple too! definitely recreating this in my kitchen!
Eating nice and cold slices of watermelon with the whole family
Picking and making blackberry pie in the summer with my grandma!
Picking figs and pomegranates off our trees in the backyard and eating them
I have 3 favorite food memories of summer-
1. Picking wild blueberries at sleep away camp in Maine-no blueberries have tasted this wonderful since
2. My mother coming home from the market with incredible summer fruit-peaches, plums, watermelon, berries
3. Eating as many meals as possible outdoors- for some reason, breakfast seemed particularly indulgent eaten outside.
For me, plums mean summer. They’ll bring me right back to the fruit stand, heading out of hot NYC for a summer getaway in the country.
Sitting in the garden w/my best friend picking peas straight from the” vines” shelling and eating them.
My dad has a passion for caring for the trees in our backyard, and as a result the peaches on his tree were absolutely heavenly. I remember summer afternoons playing outside and picking a warm fuzzy peach and biting into it and juice bursting out all over my clothes and hands.. still haven’t found peaches that good anywhere else.
When I was growing up, each summer my entire family from Florida, Maryland and North Carolina would spend a week at the beach. I always looked forward to the bright red tomatoes that my grandfather brought from his garden for all of us to enjoy. There is just something about a fresh tomato sandwich in the summer that brings me back to those times at the beach celebrating with food and family.
As a child, anytime I had the opportunity to bake with my grandmother, “Dot” that became my top priority! In the summertime after she was done assembling her pies, the fun began! There was always enough dough leftover for cookies! We would roll the dough once again but, this time we added butter, cinnamon, sugar and slivered almonds, anything we could find in the pantry! It became a fun scavenger hunt and the cookies always had a chewy yet flaky consistency which made for an excellent snack!
I remember being able to visit a friend, we were about 6 years old. Her family had a giant trove of raspberries bushes, and the raspberries were perfectly ripe. I can remember picking the ripe raspberries with the sun shining so brightly, and the fragrance of all those raspberries, and the sounds of summer all around and children’s laughter in the air. Then her mom made us a bowl of cream and raspberries. It was soo good, from picking them and then eating them still warm from the sun.
My mom used to make us slushies using lime juice concentrate and ice cubes. It was probably full of corn syrup but oh so delish. However the best are BLTs with fresh tomatoes from the garden!
My mother would always pick strawberries and then make a fresh strawberry pie. The best!
I remember summers blackberry picking near our house, which was surrounded by wild blackberry bushes. We made enough jam to last the rest of the year.
I remember being little and going to the Upick to get fresh Strawberries! My mom would make mini strawberry shortcakes.
One of my favorite summer food memories was mum making “snowballs”. These were made of sweetened cottage cheese and raisins then rolled into balls the size of golf balls and frozen.
Eating juicy, sweet, sun-warmed apricots plucked from the tree right outside my grandmother’s back door. Best. Apricots. Ever.
We were always in the big garden my grandparents kept. They still keep one, but at 88 years old it’s much, much smaller now. We picked berries and veggies. We spent hours on the big front porch snapping beans, shelling peas, shucking corn – you name it.
we had a garden and i love remembering growing our dinner!
I would say my favorite summer food memory is when my Aunt would bring fresh peaches from Oregon and we would can them!
Picking blackberries with my Mum on the side of the road and eating more than I picked. We then went home and made homemade blackberry cobbler… HEAVEN!
my favorite summer food memory is when i was a little kid, and was still living in korea..
i remember the hot blazing days of being outside, and i’d be super excited to see my grandma bring out the fresh watermelon slices!
they were my favorite, especially after she finger-picked the seeds out for me :)
My favorite childhood summer food memory is eating popsicles and freeze pops when it was 90-some degrees.
Lake fishing for bass and walleye, then returning to our waterfront rental house to fillet and cook those suckers for dinner.
Every 4th of July my family and a bunch of friends would all cook breakfast in the park on camp stoves and then have a big potluck meal.
Crepes filled with fruit and vanilla ice cream! They only happened in the summertime, but ohhh wow were they good.
We lived in a small town in BC that had extreme seasons, blistering bone dry hot in the summer, and waist high snow (I was a kid) in the winter.
There was only one grocery store in town, that always carried the same apples, oranges and bananas year round. Every summer, my dad would pack us into our Chevy Nova to the Okanagan in search of fresh fruit. We would come home with 20 lb boxes of just picked pears, ice cream pails of bing cherries…My favorite was the peaches, each prize nestled separately on cardboard hollows. While I could grab a a crisp pear out of the box anytime, my mother rationed those peaches! She canned peaches for 2 days in that hot steamy kitchen, just so we could enjoy the sweet taste of summer in the dead of winter.
When I was a kid, I always looked forward to spending the summer in Hong Kong. My parents would lead us through the nooks and crannies of the city to eat rich and savory-sweet tang yuan, delicate vegetarian fare served in a Buddhist monastery located beneath a highway bridge, and (sounds disgusting but is totally delicious) hairy crab. Once we even traveled an hour outside the city proper to a shack that doubled as an aviary and a restaurant serving the best roasted fowl.
Though I haven’t been back for four years, HK has left its indelible mark on me, inspiring not only my love for food, but my desire to experience other cultures through their cuisine.
To me, summertime means waterskiing at dusk and sitting down by the campfire afterwards making s’mores. S’mores forever.
That last picture with the pistachios falling is AWESOME!!! I love cherries. My favorite summer food memory is eating super soft and sweet South Carolina peaches with my family at the beach!
Gotta be sitting in my backyard with half of a watermelon and stuffing my face. Great for anyone, really, but especially for a six- or seven-year-old. =)
Road tripping and camping in Yellowstone!
Baking cookies with my mom is a very strong childhood memory–not just in the summer, but all year long.
I have a lot of memories of family barbecues in the backyard. Those were great times.
Favorite summer food memory is street food from back hom, roasted corn!
I loved eating bomb pops with my brother at the pool.
Thanks for the chance to win!
BBQ, all the way. Staying up all night at the lake to cook the pig!
Favorite summer food memory is the roasted corn my Nana would get at the Ohio State Fair… it was technically for my Nana, but we would all beg bites off of her until there were only a handful of kernels left. Eventually, we learned that we should all get our own cobs.
Homemade cherry ice cream poolside
my favorite childhood food memory is when we would make s’mores at a lakeside bonfire on our summer vacations at Devil’s Lake (Michigan)
Eating watermelon after barbecues in the backyard with my family and on a great night, a friend or 2 as well who was there for a sleepover.
My dad making a Singaporean shaved ice dessert for all of us. It would be so much fun helping him shave the ice with our old school hand-crank ice shaver and topping the fluffy shaved ice with red bean, cherries, pandan jelly and fresh fruits. It was awesome on a hot summer day!
Hearing the sound of the ice cream truck!
I would go to my grandparent’s cabin in Minnesota in the summer. My grandma’s fresh rhubarb pie brings back great memories.
Spam musubi!
Eating watermelon outside in the park!
I favorite summer food memory is….we use to live near a creek so, every evening when it is cool we would go down there to catch crawfish. We would get close to a 2 gallon bucketful…we would go home and boil them as an appetizer before diner.
Going to my grandpa’s orchard and picking apples and apricots. Nothing tasted better.
Otter Pops. Yes, it’s true. In Phoenix we practically LIVED by the pool in summertime. After a day a pool play out in the heat…. there was nothing like a cool, sweet Otter Pop to refresh the tongue and spirit. My favorite flavor, ironically, was “the red one” {which I think is cherry}. It’s been too long since I’ve bitten, sucked and sipped that Otter Pop awesomeness. And now I must go to Costco and buy a giant box. Happy Summertime!
Eating grilled corn on the cob
Definitely grilling on a warm summer day, followed by some juicy watermelon!
My favorite summer food memory is my parents making grilled veggies and BBQ tofu on warm summer nights.
my favourite summer food memory would be at the cottate – corn roasts, pit bbqs and stopping at a small town bakery on the way and loading up for the cottage.
Great Tastes = Food Memories !!
I loved picking corn in my grandfather’s backyard .. then heading inside to shuck it ( still warm from the sun ) , boil it & sit down to fresh corn with butter melting off the sides .. a homemade burger ( you know, soft, covered in gooey cheese & a soft bun ) , fresh tomato slices ( yes, from the garden of course !! ) , great homemade corn relish & a piece of butter lettuce .. finish it off with fresh strawberries & whipped cream = yum !!
My favorite childhood memory is making applesauce with my grandma and grandpa. This was an event that spanned the length of an entire weekend and we made enough applesauce to freeze and enjoy all winter/summer long. The applesauce was tart with just a hint of sweetness. The whole kitchen was filled with apple peels and the smell of cinnamon.
Seedless watermelons are a great convenience, but how can they ever compare to the big juicy ones full of seeds? Take a bite of watermelon. Let the juices drip down your chin. Try not to swallow the seeds because you’ll need them to see how far you can get them to fly across the yard! Oops, I really didn’t mean to hit you, brother!
Best summer food memory: harvesting in my grandpa’s backyard and cooking it all up with grandma. Cucumber, tomato, sweet onion, basil salad with evoo, red wine vinegar (maybe some shaved parm); roasted figs stuffed with fontina, wrapped with pancetta; thick roman green beans stewed with peeled tomato, whole basil leaves, and hot bishops hat peppers; zucchini and their bright yellow/orange flowers turned into pan-fried fritters. Mmmmmm . . . makes me feel like a kid again.
Sweet corn just barely cooked after my dear grandpa had picked it five minutes before in his garden. The corn was almost as wonderful and sweet as he was. We needed only butter and salt to make it even better. The memory of my grandpa being proud of his garden may be even better than savoring the taste of the corn.
my favorite would be marinating whole chickens and pork skewers for my dad to grill. We’re Thai and Thai food just tasts 10x better when cooked outdoors! Then we’d invite our neighbors and friends.
My favorite summer food is eating ears of sweet corn with a little butter and salt for dinner!
My favorite summer food memory is about a magical day where I went to visit my grandma and got to eat both a huge slice of ice cold watermelon and a bowl of homemade chocolate ice cream. What kid wouldn’t love that?
I love our family trips to Colorado
My favorite childhood summer food memory is getting ice cream from the ice cream truck at the park near my house every summer.
My favorite childhood memory from summer is a family trip to Florida.
My grandparents were farmers in Eastern North Carolina. One of my fondest childhood memories was going out to the field to pick a watermelon with my grandfather. The melons were large enough for my eight-year old self to sit on and I couldn’t wait to get inside for a slice. The pop of the rind when cut and the sugary smell before that first sweet bite are vivid to my senses to this day.
My mom used to make this no-bake pistachio pudding pie that was to die for! It was cool and creamy, and lime green! I think it was a pre-made pie crust with an instant pudding type filling, and then we spooned some whipped cream on top. It was refreshing and definately a summer treat!
Lots of popsicles- watermelon, cherry, grape, and lemonade!
You know that feeling at thanksgiving when you are on the brink of falling asleep or needing to unbutton that button on your pants (fortunately, Growing older has given me the wisdom to wear dresses) I replicated that experienced frequently in the summer eating cantaloupes. I found nothing more enjoyable than having my mom hand me half a cantaloupe. I got to scoop the seeds and it was ready for me to take on my adventure. I would scoop and eat an entire half, sometimes whole, cantaloupe to myself somedays. Could still do it these days if I could just stop my watermelon craze as I am walking down the produce isle…
Sliced papaya with a squeeze of lime and dash of salt/ Picking blackberries from our woodsy backyard and transforming them into southern cobbler/ Catching and boiling Blue Crabs on vacations to Edisto, SC.