Three beaches, three generations, and the food that came along.
I love the beach. I have always loved the beach. In fact, I’d be surprised if the blood in my veins wasn’t 50% salt water. Growing up on the south shore of Long Island, I spent many days at Jones Beach. My parents were both public school teachers, which meant, once school was out, we could more or less have the beach to ourselves during the week. Like many Italian-American suburbanites, we had an above-ground pool in our backyard, which served us well on the weekends when the crowds would make beach-going pretty unpleasant. The beach is huge. It runs the entire length of the southern shore of Long Island, though the names of the parks change from location to location. In some parts, the parking lot is more than a half mile to shore line. We frequented parking field 6 because the water was a relatively short distance from the parking lot and we had lots of gear to carry — and by we, I mean my dad.
image courtesy of Jones Beach State Park
We, and by we, I mean my mom, would pack a lunch that would make you weep. Oftentimes, there were leftovers from dinner the night before — meatball subs, chicken parm heroes, her famous tomato-tuna salad, cold zucchini fritters, cantaloupe and honeydew salad, sliced watermelon, a gigantic Coleman thermos of tangy iced tea, and as if that wasn’t enough, there’d be boxes and boxes of Entenmann’s coffee cakes, cookies, or donuts (back when Entenmann’s was the pride of Long Island). We all had pretty stoked metabolisms back then, but in reality, that food would have to last us all day and into the evening. We’d hit the beach at 9:00 am and often wouldn’t leave until dusk, when the parking lots closed. We’d swim, we’d play in the sand, we’d eat, and we’d have to digest so as to avoid “death-cramps” before starting the cycle all over again. We had nowhere to go, nowhere to be other than exactly where we were, and it was bliss — utter and total bliss. More than anything else, though, I think it’s the food — or the idea of the food — that lingers.
Fast forward 20 years, having met my now-husband, to discover that his family had a house right on the beach on Block Island, RI. Talk about heaven! I knew I had to do EVERYTHING I could to make that relationship work. (We’re together, 40 years and counting.) The beaches there were unlike any I’d experienced before. Small, sleepy, sheltered by dunes — in contrast to the vastness of Jones Beach. They felt almost private, though there are no private or even paid-admission beaches on Block Island, and it completely altered the way I appreciated or experienced beach-going. My kids, roughly the same age that I was when Jones Beach was at the epicenter of summer fun, loved spending our summer vacations at the beach on Block Island — Crescent Beach, Mansion Beach, Scotch Beach. Wherever the surf was good and the shore not too rocky. And since we were so close to the beach with no parking fees, we could come and go as we pleased. We didn’t have to stay all day to get our money’s worth.
beach chairs at summer's end
In the same spirit as my mom, albeit greatly scaled-back, we, and by we, I mean I, would pack lunches and snacks for those few hours we spent at the beach. In the cooler, there would usually be tuna or ham-and-cheese wraps, fruit salad, veggies with hummus, and maybe a bag of chips or pretzels. Looking back on it now, that’s the kind of food that would make me weep for an entirely different reason… I suppose priorities and tastes change. But we were never far from home or a surf-side snack shack that could satisfy unmet hunger. And the promise of a trip to the ice cream place (established by my father-in-law in the ‘70s) on our way home went a long way toward quieting complaining kids.
short path through beach roses to the shoreline
Fast forward another 20 years, my kids are grown, the Block Island home is gone, yet the salt water coursing through my veins is still strong. Maine seemed attainable as far as coastal living was concerned, and after many months of searching, my husband and I found a small town that we could settle into. Like the sleepy beaches of Block Island, our little beach is less than 10 minutes away and has an amazing snack bar that rivals any seaside seafood restaurant. Fried fish tacos, steamed clams, lobster rolls… come on!
Because the beach is so nearby, and because summer days are so long, our, and by our, I mean my, new tradition is to pack a cooler for evening cocktails on the beach after work. And because it’s just my husband and me, the food is adult-friendly, wine-appropriate, and seafood-focused. When my oyster-farmer friend, Jean, is around, there may be a bucket of freshly harvested oysters that he ever-so-casually shucks midconversation, lemon wedges close at hand. The cooler might be packed with tuna ceviche, smoked salmon spread, rice paper summer rolls, lobster rolls, tuna crudo, maybe a thermos of summery corn and crab chowder — whatever I can quickly throw together after work — and, of course, a chilled bottle of Albariño or sparkling rosé. And no, there’s no bribe of ice cream in exchange for silence. We hit our local creamerie on our way home…no whining necessary.
Hoping you have warm sand between your toes and a belly full of yummy seafood this summer.
-Grace
Grace Parisi
Culinary Director Grace Parisi is a cook, writer and cookbook author. Formerly the Senior Test Kitchen Editor at Food & Wine Magazine and Executive Food Director at TimeInc Books, her work has appeared in Cooking Light, Health, O Magazine, Epicurious, Fitness, Today, Serious Eats, Martha Stewart, and many more. She’s the author of more than 6 books, among them The Portlandia Cookbook and Get Saucy, which was nominated for a James Beard award for Best Single Subject Cookbook.
