For the last of the summer giveaways, myfirepits.com is giving away a $200 gift certificate, so you don’t have to go inside when summer is over (and so you can pick out your favorite from their big selection of fire pits). Here’s to more lingering outdoors as the days gets shorter and chillier. Just wrap up in a cozy blanket and make it a hot toddy instead of a cold drink, and we can keep this outdoor living going strong.

Leave a comment by Monday morning with a way to reach you, and I'll pick a winner at random. Good luck!

The first pick-able zucchini have arrived in our garden – finally! I try to hold out and pick them when they’re a tender 5 or 6 inches long. Any smaller and my husband calls me impatient. Any larger and I’m treading in my late grandfathers territory, who not only tended a huge vegetable garden in his yard each summer, but let his veggies grow to the most enormous sizes.

As little kids, my sister and I would come to his house for a visit. On the backstairs would be a collection of seriously gargantuan produce worthy of a state fair-worthy: baseball bat sized zucchini, beets the diameter of softballs, green beans as long as knitting needles and as fat as a roll of quarters.  I don’t remember my mom taking any of these specimens home with us, and I don’t actually remember eating any of his harvest either. He would just sit on the back stairs, a cold glass of White Rose iced tea in his hand, and revel in our thrill of seeing vegetables so gigantic. 

But today it’s all about micro greens, petit pois, baby carrots, new potatoes; everything young and tender. My guess is that it’s a generational thing. Maybe with my grandfather’s seven brothers and sisters, they needed each plant to feed as many mouths as possible. But in our house – where it’s just two adults, a new baby and a toddler who exists on complex carbs alone, we luckily can be more frivolous.

This is my absolute favorite way to prepare freshly picked, young zucchini. Don’t let the “carpaccio” part fool you: This is no lame, raw zucchini crudites. The salt and vinaigrette help tenderize the zucchini a bit, keeping it crisp and bright, yet tender all at once. Toasted pine nuts and shaved parm bring the richness to balance it all out. The only trick is getting your zucchini sliced to the right thickness. If you have a mandolin (my favorite kitchen gadget) a 1/8 inch setting works perfect here. A vegetable peeler and a light touch work totally fine in a pinch. -Sarah

Ingredients:

2 or 3 zucchini, no longer than 6 inches

3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons toasted pine nuts

Shaved parmigiano reggiano

Using a mandolin (or a vegetable peeler) slice zucchinis lengthwise into 1/8 of an inch slices. Place in a large mixing bowl and set aside.

Combine lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper in a small bowl and whisk to emulsify.  Take a taste and adjust the seasoning to your whim. Pour over zucchini slices and carefully toss to coat. Let sit for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, toss pine nuts in a small sautee pan and toast over medium heat until they are golden brown in spots, about 5-7 minutes. 

To serve, pile the zucchini onto a large platter and drizzle any juices that have collected at the bottom of the bowl over the top.  Scatter pine nuts and freshly shaved parm over the zucchini.  Feel free to give the dish one last hit of good quality sea salt and pepper at the end as well.

You have heard about my mother before. Well, now you can really hear my mom. She’s been a big supporter of this Lazy Summer project, and here she is leaving me a message after a big summer storm in Virginia.

She’s right that the power going out was always one of my favorite things. When we grew up, my family would actually have nights where we turned off all the power and pretended we were living back in pioneer days. And one of the craziest parts of that little tradition is that I didn’t think it was strange until I blurted it out at college once. The looks I got definitely told me that not many other families had self-imposed power outages on a regular basis.

I don’t mean to romanticize hardship. But I am tempted to say that the power has become a little too reliable for my liking. I remember that shiver of excitement when the lights would stutter and then go out. We’d be the littlest bit scared, but candles were nearby and we were used to the dark anyway since we grew up in the country. Your eyes would slowly adjust and really, either option was a good one: stay inside and play a board game, or head out the screen door and sit in the immense quiet.

But wait, this little trip down memory lane actually has a purpose. Because in addition to making up songs on the spot and relishing sitting on the deck at night, my mother also creates these Flip-Flop Heart necklaces. A pair of flip-flops joined at the heel so they make a little heart so you can wear a bit of summertime all year long. She’s giving one away to a lucky reader – just leave a comment before Monday night with a way to reach you and I’ll pick a winner at random.



Listen up, lazyhood. Here’s what Colleen wrote in response to my post-vacation blues the other day. It made me smile so big that I wanted to trot it out front and center and share with everyone:

Oh, how I hate the end of summer funk. I usually have a pity party for a day or two. Then I have an ode to summer weekend that includes lots of swimming, margaritas, and BBQ.

But then after that I start my fall preparation ritual. I make oatmeal raisin cookies and start thinking about camping trips (cuz it is too dang hot in TX to camp in the summer), smores, tall brown boots, football, pumpkins, cinnamon, and sippin' hot chocolate. Works like a charm every time.

It made me wonder, what end-of-summer or welcome-to-fall rituals do you have?

image by SFGirlByBay, via Poppytalk Handmade

A weekend recipe from Sarah, who just had a gorgeous baby boy named George!

I probably shouldn’t blurt this out on a blog about the pleasures of summer, but...I like my corn best off the cob (oh no she didn't!). Maybe it’s getting corn between my teeth, maybe it’s the butter that’s never evenly distributed along the cob, I don’t know.  But one of my more vivid culinary memories of summers as a kid was my mom sawing the leftover kernels off the cobs after dinner. I would reach up to the butcher block and grab the big platelets of corn, risking my fingers being hacked off by my mom’s dull cutlery. Corn shrapnel would fling everywhere – and surely I took a kernel or two in the eye – but no matter. It was worth the risk and better than any dessert.

Grill it, boil it, steam it in holy water - if the corn is local and super fresh, it’s going taste delicious. I personally like the toasted, caramelized taste of grilled corn best, so in this summer of laziness, I just make a few extra ears when sparking up the hardwood coals out back. When it’s time to clean up, I simply zip the kernels off the cobs, pop them in the fridge and use over the next couple of days in salads, salsas or pasta dishes like this one below. 

This is one of my favorite summer meals.  It puts my leftover corn kernels to work while also incorporating an all-star ingredient: brown butter.  Just when I thought butter couldn’t get any better, someone came along and browned it. Browning butter gives it a whole new dimension of nutty, salty deliciousness, so even thought this recipe seems like it calls for a ton, for sure don’t skimp! It’s what pulls the smokey sweet corn, the huge handful of fresh fragrant herbs, and the tender wide noodles together in complete lazy summer harmony. -Sarah

Ingredients:

2-3 ears grilled corn-off-the-cob

10 tablespoons of butter

8 ounces pappardelle, or any wide pasta you prefer

1/2 cup roughly chopped fresh herbs (sage, parsley, oregano, thyme, etc.)

kosher salt and pepper to taste

Bring a large stock pot of salted water to a boil.  Add pasta and cook until just al dente. Drain and set aside.

In a large saute pan, melt butter over medium-low heat.  Once the foam subsides, the milk solids in the butter will begin to brown on the bottom of the pan. Being careful not to let the butter burn, shake the pan from time to time, allowing the solids to toast to a deep golden brown. 

Add corn to the pan and saute in the browned butter until heated through, about 3 minutes.  Add pasta, herbs and toss well to combine. 

Take a little bite to check for seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed.  This makes a great side dish for four or main dish for two. Feel free to finish it off with a tiny squeeze of fresh lemon juice for a little added citrus bite!

While I am soaking up every last moment of my East Coast summer stint – every swim in the ocean and backstroke through a pond, every lazy magazine read in a hammock, and every dropping off to sleep with the sound of frogs and crickets outside the window – here is a terrific giveaway.

This relates to what I have been eating a lot of lately. Whether on the beach when the happy bell of the ice cream truck rings, or after a barbeque chicken dinner, ice cream features regularly in this summer vacation. And no surprise, really. Ice cream knows no season in my family. Sure, it shines the brightest when eaten on summer porches or while wearing flip-flops. But I grew up in family of ice cream zealots. So much so that my sister packed her ice cream maker to meet us here on the Cape for a few days, where we’ve ice-creamed (notice the invented verb) blackberries, peaches, even Japanese plum wine this week.

When we were little, my parents had a wooden ice cream maker that required rock salt and lots of cranking. So much cranking, in fact, that we didn’t make many batches after the novelty wore off. But Cusinart's Pure Indulgence Ice Cream Maker is a dead-simple affair. And they're giving one to a lucky winner who will be chosen at random after the giveaway closes at midnight PST on Friday. Please include a way to reach you, and good luck! I’ll be back later this week with more tales of the waning lazy summer days.

Every week this summer, someone I love or know or admire (or all of the above) will share their idea of a perfect summer day, real or imagined. Here’s New York Times food contributor Amanda Hesser:

My idea of a perfect summer day is to be out in Wainscott, Long Island, with my husband's family. We go there every August. I'd get up early (again, this is allowed to be my fantasy right?), do yoga with my husband, and eat breakfast out on the porch with our kids, looking out over a pond and the ocean. We'd go to the farmstand and fish shop, then bake a tart with my kids while the sun is at its hottest and it's better to be inside (just like the rabbits on the property do during the day).

Later, we'd ride bikes down the lane to the beach. There, we'd read, play in the sand with our twins, brave the ocean, maybe. We'd come back from the beach just when the sun is beginning to cast long shadows across the lawn, and here we'd play soccer with our kids and their cousins and grandfather. Then we'd shower for dinner, and have drinks on the porch. We'd read to our kids, have dinner with the family (12 or so!) around the 100-year-old table. After washing the dishes, we'd watch the night match of the US Open on television, with the family crowded into the sitting room. Then we'd be in bed by 11, just when you can start hearing the ocean waves in the humid night air.

view from the front porch, photo by Mary FrenchAmanda has been a food columnist and editor at the New York Times for more than a decade, and now writes “Recipe Redux” for the Sunday Magazine. Her writing is so lovely and evocative that I want to make every single thing she writes about. Here’s one of my favorites, from a Recipe Redux article about “Heavenly Hots:”

"Although heavenly hots sound like a late-night cable offering, they’re nothing more salacious than pancakes. Once you make them, you’ll understand the name. They are so feathery, creamy, tangy — so heavenly — that you may find yourself unable to let them cool off before devouring them…

The only problem with heavenly hots is that your first batch is likely to be a wash. The batter is very loose, and it produces pancakes — some might call them blini — that are about as sturdy as wet tissue paper. You need to take deep breaths when it’s time for flipping, and you also need to let the hots know who’s boss. Timid jabs with a spatula will not end well."

Amanda has written two award-winning books, and she played herself in the movie “Julie & Julia.” She is co-founder of the cooking site food52.com.

This week’s cheery giveaway comes from Alice Supply Co. The happy, clever company that believes “the humble dustpan’s days of being shoved away in the closet will soon be over; that a toolbox has feelings too…that beige is not a real color."

Alice Supply Co.’s range of wares lifts the mundane, whether that's a hammer or trash bag or broom.

Enter now for a chance to win a happy bucket, gardening set and spade so you can – as the fine folks at Alice Supply Co say – "dig with dignity." Leave a comment with a way to reach you, and I’ll randomly chose a winner after the giveaway closes at midnight PST Friday. Good luck!

Every week this summer, someone I love or know or admire (or all of the above) will share their idea of a perfect summer day, real or imagined. Here’s Victoria Smith, creator and editor of the interior and design blog, SF Girl By Bay:

A perfect summer day...well that's pretty easy to day dream about, isn't it? I grew up in the suburbs of Los Angeles, in the Valley, just a quick ride over the hills to the beaches of sunny California. My childhood summers started here in the sixties, my dad loading us into his VW Beatle and driving us west every weekend to Santa Monica, to our favorite beach. It was pretty idyllic. Dad would set up the striped umbrella and lay down and snore, my mum would do the Sunday crossword and my brother and I would build sandcastles and ride our surfriders until our fingers turned to prunes and we collapsed exhausted and hungry in the sand.

I loved those days and can almost smell them. The salt air and the smell of sand verbena are the scents of my childhood, and whenever I get a whiff of them my mind travels instantly back to those perfect beach days. I still love the beach and a perfect day would start and end there.

I like to get up early, just as we did as kids, and find my spot on the still empty sand, preferably tucked into a little dune and close to the water. I'd lay out an old white sheet and a beach towel, and set up my vintage transistor radio. There's nothing quite like that tinny sound with golden oldies playing and the sea crashing in the background. I'd have packed a good book, and a light lunch, and a picnic dinner too. Because my favorite time on the beach is again, when it's quiet and everyone has drifted home to go start up their summer barbeque's.

I call it the 'golden hour' -- from about 4 o'clock on until sunset. You lean back in your favorite old beach chair and wrap a warm towel around your sunburned shoulders, waiting for the green flash when the sun hits the water, while enjoying a yummy sandwich and the peace and quiet. Just the crash of the endless waves and the gulls grabbing their seafood supper keeping you company. That is my perfect summer day. Thanks for allowing me to take you back there...I think I need a beach day!

Victoria’s site is a dreamy rabbit hole for me, since I am assured to love everything she finds, with her pitch-perfect eye for interiors and moods. And I adore her Sunday in the City series, because I get to see corners and details of San Francisco through Victoria's talented eye and lens. 

Thanks so much, Victoria, and I hope you get to bask in the golden hour soon!