Katie Lee - Endless summer cookbook

And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

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The other day, I came across this quote from Henry James:

Summer afternoonsummer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

Its so simple and put so perfectly. When I read it, that feeling of a summer afternoon was instantly evokeda warm breeze, the sun high in the sky, reading a novel under the shade of a wide-brimmed hat and biting into a juicy peach, and the feeling of trying to hold my eyes open but then just giving in to a nap. Or long lunches with a group of friends, wine, laughter, and no attention paid to time whatsoever.

For me, there is no greater place to be in the summer than the Hamptons. The area is special all year long, but summer is my ultimate. I count the days from Labor Day to Memorial Day, anxiously awaiting the summer sun. About six years ago, I started surfing and everything changed for me. I used to be afraid of the ocean; I would only go in the water to my knees. The inspiration hit during a difficult time in my lifeI had gone to the beach to clear my mind (as I so often do), and I watched the surfers riding waves. They looked so free. I wanted to feel that way. I left, went straight to a local surf shop, bought a wetsuit, and signed up for a lesson. It was one of the best moves Ive ever made. Surfing allowed me a deeper connection to nature, a place of peace, and a way to let go. I also found that everything tastes better after surfing. I dream of an endless summer.

Many people hear The Hamptons and a certain image comes to mindthe glitz, glamour, fancy parties, paparazzi, playground of the rich and famouswell, yes, but not exactly. Before I moved here, I didnt know much of the area except from what I had seen on an awful made-for-television documentary called The Hamptons, which followed a group of wealthy, mostly obnoxious people who lived up to all of the stereotypes of the rich and powerful. I thought it looked like a pretty unappealing place to be, to put it mildly. As fate would have it, I ended up falling in love with someone who not only called the Hamptons home, but who also appeared on that very namesake series. As a girl from a small town in West Virginia, I did not know what I was getting myself into when I packed my bags and headed north. I think I half expected to get mowed over by a drunken blonde in a Mercedes SUV or to be mistaken as the staff at one of those swank parties where I no more belonged than I would in a hardcore biker gang. What I found upon my arrival was much more Green Acres than Park Avenue, and though at times I did feel a bit like a Beverly Hillbilly, I quickly became comfortable, like this must be the place where I am meant to be.

Twelve years later, my love for this little sliver of land known as the South Fork only continues to grow. It amazes me that just a mere ninety miles from New York City exists this bucolic community of farmers, artists, writers, and surfers set on farm fields and quite possibly the most beautiful beaches in the world. There is sun, pristine water, and food so fresh it bites you. The rich and fertile soil combined with the salty sea breezes produces the ripest tomatoes, the sweetest corn, and the crispiest lettuce. From the sea, striped bass, fluke, tuna, crab, scallops, oysters, and more. We have chicken farms, dairy farms, and artisanal cheese makers. Vineyards dot the landscape generating impressive, esoteric wines. Though it can feel as if youve taken a step back in time as you cross the Shinnecock Canal, the juxtaposition of country life to modern day affluence certainly exists. Tell me, where else in the world can you see a tractor puttering down an oceanfront road, a potato farm to one side and a multi-million dollar home to the other, while holding up a Ferrari in traffic?

All those over-used buzzwords like seasonal and local are not the latest food fad here, but a way of life, as in my childhood home in West Virginia. I grew up in a tight-knit family that centered our days around our meals, talking about the next days breakfast at dinner, lunch at breakfast, and so on. My grandfather was a true green thumb and had an expansive garden that yielded all of our vegetables, his cousin raised cows, another cousin raised pigs, and everyone made a practice of sharing their crops. I came to the Hamptons expecting to feel like an outsider, and instead I found life to be concurrent with my upbringing. Just like at home, people here were eating farm-to-table well before it was called farm-to-table.

I am all about comfort food but to be truly comforted by food, I need to know where it came from and how it got to my plate. I like knowing the story of my food; it tastes better that way. The area has greatly influenced my cooking style, though not in the traditional sense of adapting foods from a particular region. While we do have the greatest ingredients available, there is not a particular cuisine or even a dish that is indigenous to the Hamptons. Its not like Texas and barbecue, or New Orleans and po boys, or Alabama and biscuits. Maybe this is because of the large WASP population in the early days, people who would rather drink gin and tonics than sit down to a feast. Instead, I think it is those aforementioned parties that are native to this neck of the woods. But at my house, the parties are anything but fancy, much more low-key. I like to keep it casual, comfortable, and chic. I entertain often and I joke that my house practically has a revolving door of guests coming to visit. Friends come by for casual lunches, sunset cocktails, barbecues, and themed dinners. Nothing is better than surfing all day, stopping at the farm stand for food, cooking, and sharing a meal with loved ones.

Some of my favorite meals have been those that I have planned the least. Like the time a fisherman friend dropped off a large striped bass he had just caught as a thank you for a long-forgotten favor. I set off for the farm stand, picked up tomatoes, peppers, corn, and peaches, and made fish tacos with grilled corn and peach salsa for a group of hungry friends who had assembled upon hearing news of said taco dinner. The absolute best is when I pull up to the Green Thumb, run by the same family since the 1600s, and Mrs. Halsey tells me she has fresh eggs. Once you have had one of these eggs, there is no going back to supermarket eggs. The yolk is a deep, dark orange, perfect with just a sprinkling of flaky sea salt and a dash of pepper, sopped up with buttered toast. I will take those eggs home like they are a gift of gold and whip them up for my sleepy houseguests who have just roused from their beds.