Ahhh, home sweet home, baby. As lovely as it is to be away, especially in a place as insanely gorgeous and idyllic as the Hamptons, it is great to be settled at home, too. Here I am, unpacked (yes, I am unpacked, I who loathes major-buzzkill-downer-vacation-is-over-unpacking, I just bit the bullet and did the dirty deed and now I am sooo chill, yeah), sipping an ice-cold Pilsner Urquell, snacking on a freshly-picked tomato (from my pots on the deck, sliced, with a sprinkle of salt), downloading photos, and catching up on my email and (obv) blogging. I'm about to whip up a little pasta somethin-somethin, I think angel hair and (more) tomatoes and perhaps a touch of cream. Arugula salad with shaved Parm because the arugula looks shockingly decent after a week in the cooler. Basically, total comfort food, quite restorative at the end of a long day of travel. And even though it's only from the east coast, a long day it is - Hampton Jitney to Flushing Queens to cab to LaGuardia to long hang at the airport to flight to MSP to waiting for luggage to no-AC-cab to our house... That's eight-plus hours of travel-time, ack, and I'm ready for a little (healthy) comfort food. Yeah! Vacation is nice, but home is good too.

So, the last couple of days of our trip, the sun (sort of) shone. Great beach day on Friday, with huge waves, actually kind of scary-huge. And very wet - just when we thought we had skated past high tide, oh no, we got totally soaked, as did all of our belongings...books, umbrellas, towels, chairs, butts-in-chairs. Irritating but minor. John, his bro Tom, and their friend Jamie Frankfurt did some swimming (there was no way I was going into waves that big, Kiawah this was not, ha) and Nathan did some wading while I lazed (and dried my butt) on the beach finishing A Thousand Splendid Suns, which I loved, loved, loved.

Yesterday (Saturday) afternoon a thick fog rolled in (see above, I happened to catch the back yard just as it oozed over the pool), so after a lovely lunch at Atlantic Golf Club, and while Tom and Valerie graciously took the kids to the beach, John and I roamed downtown EH, browsing Book Hampton, Citarella, and watching Danny Glover parade by in an anti-Iraq-War protest.

When everyone returned home, and showered off their sand, we launched into preparations for our last dinner - beef tenderloin on the grill and more sweet corn. Let me pause here for a moment to explain the Annual Levy Sweet Corn Spectacle. Let's see, there were nine of us for dinner last night - John, Nathan, & moi; John's parents Dot & John; John's bro Tom, his wife Valerie, & their two kids. I think we shucked and boiled 28 ears of corn and all - yes, all - were consumed. No, we didn't each eat three ears of corn, nothing that rational or simple. Valerie and I were in for one each. The kids maybe had two each, max. Dot, two, perhaps three, certainly no more. That leaves, if my math is correct, more than five ears each for the three Levy men. Yep. Buttered and salted and inhaled, type-writer style - ding! - in an unusual sweet-corn-consuming ritual, it really has to be witnessed to be believed. The Levy men are famous for it, deservedly so.

And then, just like that, it was all over. After a dark chat on the front porch, it was time to pack, and sleep in our cozy (gorgeous, thank you, Dot) beds, and make our long way home. Summer 2007 is drawing to a close, my friends, I know you all feel it too. Sigh. It's been a great one, hasn't it?

Hello from East Hampton! We're having a lovely vacation with my in-laws (Dot & John) this week, away from the rain and gloom in Minnesota. The drought is officially over, eh? Sheesh. It was raining here, too, when we arrived (on Tuesday). But the sun peeked through last evening and is shining still (at least this morning), so we're all good, baby. Georgica Beach, here we come!

Grabbing some exercise here is a truly lovely experience - walking the mean streets (ha) of EH. The streets are grand tunnels of dappled tree-lined shade, peaceful and quiet and in full August bloom - basket-ball-sized hydrangeas, hydrangeas everywhere, blue and peaches-n-cream and pale green and pink and purple. Stunning. The houses - well, you could probably guess that in "The Hamptons," the houses do not suck. Variations on a serene, cedar-shingled, white-trimmed theme. Mostly big (real big), some small and cottage-y, all chic beachy. Very Not Minnesota. Fabulous.

We don't do the (famous) party scene here at all. We (happily, quietly) eat in every night, although I don't do any cooking (my father-in-law does!), I just sit back and eat all the beautiful things that are served to me - yeah, it rawks, yay for vacation and a big, BIG woo hoo for foodie in-laws! Some of the best fresh produce in the world - sweet corn, peaches, melons, tomatoes - is grown right here (it is truly rural out here) and it is glorious. Glorious! Little white peaches, three bites each, I could eat those babies all day long. The last bites of summer, I fear. Sigh.

So, I'm off for one of those walks. Gotta move my arse around a bit to earn the right to my evening meals and wine. So far I've enjoyed crab cakes, sweet corn, crispy chicken, brisket, tomato salad... Tonight, a cookout of burgers and Atlantic Golf Club 'dogs. Tomorrow, tenderloin on the grill and more corn, corn, corn. NICE!

Hoooey it's a hot one, wowzers. Did we swim today? Hell no, we ran errands - hot errands - like crazy people, but what can you do? Let's just say that I'm very grateful for light-colored car seats. I told Nathan that my dad used to drive - waaaay back in the day, circa early-1970-something - a kelly green, two-door Ford Torino (yep, a precursor to the Starsky & Hutch car; pic is an approximation), with black vinyl seats and no AC. That was the hottest, stickiest car I've ever ridden in, ouch.

The sunshine is nice, though, right? It really feels like summer, now that it's almost August, yeah. We had post-baseball-tourney Boy Soup on Saturday, loud and fun. Nathan's Famous hot dogs on the grill and a giant bowl of potato chips - that's about as easy as entertaining gets!

Hopefully the heat gets my tomatoes going 'cuz they are behind, way behind. I'm ready for fresh tomatoes! Mom and I are heading to the Farmer's Market on Saturday, maybe we'll score some beauties there. I'm getting ready for good sweet corn too. No East Hampton version for me this year, sniff - I'll be missing the Annual Levy Sweet Corn Spectacle. The all-white varieties (Silver Queen-esque, but apparently not really Silver Queen) grown in the Hamptons are insanely delicious and different than what we enjoy here in Minnesota. We might enjoy our yellower, chewier versions with ribs and burgers instead of crabs and lobsters, but it's all good, all good.

Moderate it: although my son keeps trying to insist otherwise, I consider corn a grain (starch, carbohydrate), not a vegetable, so enjoy, you know, in moderation. Unless you're a Levy, then hells bells, go for it!

Despite persistent clouds and rain (boo), we've been able to spend a nice amount of time outside. On Friday, John and I fit in a stroll through lovely Sag Harbor, stopping for focaccia sandwiches at one of our favorite little cafes, Espresso. You only order one of these babies for two or more people - they're huge, half a loaf of their famous focaccia, split wide and stuffed with all manner of homemade, scrumptious fillings. We kept it simple with turkey, fresh mozzarella, arugula, and onions, topped with their signature vinaigrette, and it was delicious.

My in-laws John & Dot arrived later Friday afternoon and treated us to dinner at the Old Stove Pub. Set way back from the road, the Pub is in an old farmhouse, cozy, very casual, and perfectly candlelit for a rainy September's eve. Steaks are their specialty, so steaks we had - The Broadway, baby, a sizzling slab of ribeye, dabbed with herb butter and served steakhouse-style with platters of sides to share. Their version of spinach is sauteed with lots of garlic (I actually could have had just that for din, so yummy) and the potatoes are cut skin-on, fried, and showered with fresh herbs and coarse salt. The Johns somehow finished with "cold fudge" sundaes for dessert; I couldn't do it, totally ran out of steam. But for them, steak and ice cream, NICE!

Yesterday John and I took a quiet bike ride through the village of East Hampton - leafy and serene despite the overcast sky. We did some serious house-gawking, I mean damn; major bonus to be up on bikes, you know, the better to spy over those pesky fences and hedges.

We spent the afternoon with John's bro Tom (and pup Spice!), checking out his new digs in Bridgehampton and putting together a lunch of tasty leftovers. Despite the sunless sky, we hit the beach for naps, chat, and reading. After showers, and cocktails here at the house, we five had an amazing dinner at 1770 House in East Hampton. Tucked into another charming old house-turned-inn (not so uncommon in a town first settled in 1648), we settled into a corner table for some serious eats. I opened with a chilled puree of sweet corn soup, geniusly garnished with a hot, crispy piece of pork belly, and just about swooned. Oink friggin oink, yum. Pretty much full at that point, I dug anyhow into my second course, a crispy-rosy duck breast, sliced and fanned prettily over a pile of pillowy, homemade spaetzle, drizzled with a rich duck-wine-fig sauce to pull it all together. I finished with a piece of cheese and a glass of muscat. Uff. Dah. My bed felt goooood after that meal.

Today, we're awaiting the arrival of our Minnesota-friends Jon & Amy Brown, out 'round these parts to celebrate their anniversary. Our original plan was to arrange some sort of dinner on the beach, as the sun set, but that's looking highly unlikely given the weather. Backup plan - The American Hotel in Sag Harbor, uber-romantic and anniversary worthy. It's not the beach, but is much easier on the hair, and as you know, that's OK by me.

Moderate it: alright, we're eating out every night, which is never a formula for moderation. The best I can do is really focus on when I feel even slightly full...and then push what's left of my food off on the men at the table. Seriously, nothing gets unnecessary food out of the way faster. Thank goodness for men.

The Hamptons, at least from my (very limited) perspective, is not about parties, people, or palaces. It's about the landscape - so lush, so stunning, so not-Minnesota, it takes one's breath away. I don't know if it's the pretty girls or the fancy cars that the trees get off on, but whatever it is, they grow here like no other place I've seen. Huge, tiny, wild, manicured, airy, dense, flowering, spare, grand, sweet, sweeping, charming...the variety and contrast keep you looking and looking, trying to take it all in. Even the downtown retail areas are lush and leafy. Butt all that verdancy up against wide stretches of white sand and crashing ocean, bathe it all in the famously super-natural golden hue (the light here is as unique and lovely as the trees, but that's another breathy rave...), and you start to understand the appeal of the place, traffic and ostentation and all. It's just plain gorgeous.

Something about those pretty girls and fancy cars makes for lovely vegetation of the edible sort as well. Of course there's the corn that I've already nattered on about, incredible stuff. And hopefully it's not too late to score peaches, oooh, especially the squashed little donut version, sweet and cute to boot. I'll drag John to a stand later today and report on the bounty.

Although I don't think I'm doing any cooking out here - a shame on one hand (given the produce and fish options), but kinda cool on the other because we're usually out here with the kids, and John's brother's kids, and big groups of friends, so we only cook and eat in. (No complaints! The eating in around here is amazing, especially when John's dad is cooking...veal a la danoise and Viennese shrimp toast? Pahlease - The. Kill.) This time it's just us, and John's parents Dot & John, and it's past peak season craziness, so we're going to hit a few restaurants...can't wait.

In fact, last night it was just John and me, so we slipped into famed Della Famina, in "downtown" East Hampton, for a lovely din. We both scarfed down a salad that I'm going to crave for days, I can tell - hot, crispy shrimps atop a mound of shredded lettuce and vegetables, tossed in a fiery dressing. You know me, any dish that gets that hot, cool, creamy, spicy, salty, sweet thing going just slays me. Delicious.

It's cool and cloudy here, not pool weather, but no matter. Good for walking, and driving around (no traffic in September, yay!), and reading good books. And blogging a bit, too, so stay tuned...

Moderate it: I blew it last night, skipped one of the easiest rules of moderation - when ordering a salad in a restaurant, ask them to either put the dressing on the side or to dress the salad very lightly. The salad last night was delicious, but not one bit light, and would have been just as tasty with less dressing.