Month: July 2018

Summertime Blues

Late summer brings the arrival of the little blue heron

By Susan Campbell

Late summer can be an especially exciting time for those of us who are birders. We need not travel far to find unexpected visitors, especially when tropical weather blows birds off track and they show up as close as our backyards.

Often these strays are here for only hours. Other times, they stick around in response to environmental conditions that bring them our way.

One late summer visitor to look for is the little blue heron, only don’t expect it to be blue. That’s because young blue herons, which these inland wanderers almost always are, are covered with white feathers — except for the very tips of their wings. And for those with really sharp eyes, the bill of these small herons is pinkish or grayish and the legs are greenish unlike the bright yellow legs of the great or snowy egret, which also may turn up in the Piedmont or Sandhills at this time of year.

These beautiful white waders are best spotted in shallow wet habitats: streams, small ponds, water hazards, retention areas or other places with standing water. Little blue herons may be seen all by themselves or mixed with other long-legged waders. You may even spot them standing alongside the much larger great blue heron. Little blues can be identified by their more upright foraging posture and slow, deliberate movements. And watch for their downward angled bills as they stalk prey. Unlike other small waders, they will hunt in deeper water, often all the way up to their bellies. Little blues hunt not only small fish but frogs, crawfish and large aquatic insects. It is thought that their coloration allows them to blend in inconspicuously with similar white species, which offers the juveniles protection. Foraging alongside great egrets also seems to afford little blue herons an advantage as these larger birds stir up the water, flushing up a meal for nearby little blues.

It takes little blue herons at least a year to develop adult plumage — not unlike white ibis that can also be found breeding along our coast. (By contrast, great blue herons sport dark plumage their first summer and fall.) Adult little blue herons may have a pied appearance for a time in late winter or early spring. But by April they will turn a slaty, blue-gray all over, with a handsome bluish bill. Unlike other wading birds, they lack showy head or neck plumes. They are also unique in having projections on their middle toes that form a comb, which is used as an aid when grooming.

Unfortunately this species has experienced an alarming drop in population numbers over the past half century across North America. Loss of coastal wetland habitat, continued declines in water quality, as well as being shot as a nuisance in fish hatcheries all are thought to be contributing to the decline. So be sure to stop and appreciate these stately, though smaller birds should you come across one — wherever you happen to be. PS

Susan would love to receive your wildlife sightings and photos. She can be contacted by email at susan@ncaves.com.

A Passion for Palindromes

By William Irvine • Illustrations by Steven Guarnaccia

It all started when I discovered the mysterious connection between TUMS and SMUT. This childhood revelation (and the fact that I can read backward, a talent which I inherited from my mother) has led to a lifelong interest in collecting and inventing palindromes, words and phrases that read the same way forward and backward.

The cult of the palindromes owes its existence to Sotades of Maroneia, a Greek poet and satirist of the third century B.C., who invented palindromic verse and coined the term. The last century has produced J.A. Lindon and Leigh Mercer, British palindromists of rare accomplishment, as well as part-time palindromist and full-time humorist James Thurber. (One of his best: HE GODDAM MAD DOG, EH?)

The secret to constructing a fine palindrome is to start with a promising middle word with well-spaced vowels and consonants (FALAFEL or ASPARAGUS or ARUGULA spring to mind) and build outward, rather than starting with an end word (a mistake common to beginners). Punctuation is suspended; the only poetic license. Only a small number of palindromes make any sense without a frame of reference. So, unless you know you are reading a note from a New Guinean decorator, R.E. PAPUA ETAGERE GATEAU PAPER doesn’t mean much. Or AMARYLLIS SILLYRAMA (a comedy club for flowers?) Or how about SATAN, OSCILLATE MY METALLIC SONATAS?

For some reason, there are many good palindromes that incorporate the names of Republicans and dictators: DRAT SADAM, A MAD DASTARD; WONDER IF SUNUNU’S FIRED NOW; NORIEGA CAN IDLE, HELD IN A CAGE IRON. And consider this fine Sarah Palin-drome: WASILLA’S ALL I SAW.

Some of the best palindromes are remarkable in their brevity and simplicity: EVIL OLIVE, for example. Or the exquisite GOLDENROD-ADORNED LOG. But these pale in sophistication when compared with one of my all-time favorites, composed by the British author Alastair Reid:

T. ELIOT, TOP BARD, NOTES PUTRID TANG EMANATING, IS SAD. “I’D ASSIGN IT A NAME: GNAT-DIRT UPSET ON DRAB POT TOILET.”

The artist Steven Guarnaccia and I have been palindrome pals for a very long time. (In fact, so far back that when we began collaborating, the internet was something in a galaxy far, far away.) So in response to those youngsters who say, “Can’t you just look all these up on the Internet?” I gently reply that many of my earliest efforts were actually the result of countless hours with pad and paper, thumbing through dictionaries and collecting word lists of likely candidates. It sounds quaint, now, doesn’t it?

The following drawings are from our latest collaboration, DO GEESE SEE GOD? A Palindrome Anthology (available on Amazon). I hope you enjoy these plums of our palindromic plundering! PS

When he is not indulging in logology, William Irvine is the senior editor of Salt.

2018 Feature

Poem

Buttercups

Let loose in the pasture, bays, chestnuts, grays,

and paints graze beneath blue skies, their coats

shining like copper pots. And scattered around

their feet, creeping buttercups, yellow as freshly

grated lemon zest — each petal clustered around

the center, creating a corolla of color so dazzling,

they rival the sun’s golden light. And it is quiet

here, the way a room is quiet but not silent, with

the sporadic whinnies and wickers of contented

horses, the buzzing of bees, the croaking of frogs

in a nearby creek — a low hum of pleasing sounds.

But it is mostly about the light, this idyllic scene,

how bright it shines on a horse’s satiny skin, how

all the flowers cup their yellow palms to catch it.

— Terri Kirby Erickson

2018 Feature Poem

Ashley & Steve Labarre

ASHLEY & STEVE LABARRE

Photographer: Pinehurst Photography Wedding Planner: Vision Events Wedding & Event Planning

If there’s one way to test the mental fortitude of a new lover, it’s plummeting to the Earth from 14,000 feet up — but Ashley’s work commitments forced this adventurous Army couple to settle on a first date option that was a little more grounded. Three years later, Steve revisited the idea of a skydiving date by planning to propose right after parachutes returned them to terra firma — but Ashley found the ring. So while the couple have yet to jump from a perfectly good airplane, they took the plunge in a summer wedding at the Fair Barn. A fun, casual ceremony that incorporated their own children (Kyla, 9, Lucan, 8, and Addyson, 7) was high on their wish list; and a taco dinner, photo booth, bubbles, and a toast of sparkling grape made it memorable for the more than 40 kids in attendance.

2019

Good Natured

Be Optimistic

It’s good for your health

By Karen Frye

Some things are worth working for. Being optimistic may turn out to be one of them. Thinking of your life in the future, always imagine that you have the best of all possible outcomes. Maintaining an upbeat, positive frame of mind may even extend your life. Optimism’s benefits include better mental, emotional and physical health.

Many of us have a friend or loved one suffering from age-related dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. The number of people with this health issue seems to keep increasing even with medications to slow it down. The gene APOEe4 is the risk gene with the greatest known impact, though its presence does not mean that a person will develop Alzheimer’s.

Yale University researchers have discovered that people who carry the gene but hold positive beliefs about aging appear less likely to develop dementia than those with negative aging beliefs. Just by having an optimistic outlook, you can reduce your risk. Feeling good overall about your aging experience can help you deal better with stress. We all recognize the negative effect stress has on our health. Having a positive outlook can help with reductions in stroke, heart disease and pain. It also strengthens the immune system. In a study of more than 2,500 men and women over the age of 65, those who were most optimistic had the lowest blood pressure. The simple fact may be that negativity contributes to deteriorating health and disease. Just by keeping an upbeat attitude you can reduce inflammation, lower cortisol, and lower cholesterol, underlying causes of chronic disease.

Here are a few ideas to get you started on becoming the optimist you want to be.

— Notice how you perceive the world around you; the more you recognize the positive things in your life, the easier it becomes to see them in the future.

— Even in difficulty and uncertainty, there is always a lot to feel positive about.

— Take a few index cards and write helpful reminders, positive messages and put them in places where you see them throughout the day to keep your thoughts on the right track.

As this practice becomes a normal way of life, your health conditions may start to improve and your quality of life will be better. You might find that people want to be around you because you boost their optimism.

See more goodness in life, and your life will be rewarded with a warm heart and a long healthy life.

All the best on your journey. PS

Karen Frye is the owner and founder of Nature’s Own and teaches yoga at the Bikram Yoga Studio.

2018 Department Good Natured

Pleasures of Life

Hail the Tomato

The indispensible veggie/fruit/berry

By Michael Smith

Garden-fresh tomatoes will soon play center stage at Sandhills farmers markets. The things purporting to be tomatoes that we’ve endured all winter look like a picture. But then they also taste like a picture.

You say “tumahtoe,” I say “toomaydo,” the French and Spanish say “tomate,” Dutch say “tomaat,” and Italians say “pomodoro.” Whatever, those luscious little veggies soon will find their way onto our plates and delight our palates. Tomatoes are not just good, nay, they’re good for you. They’re chock-full of vitamins and stuff like lycopene, an antioxidant that is good for the heart and effective against certain cancers.

Americans love tomatoes. According to the USDA, the average American eats 23 pounds of tomatoes each year. And a Google search reveals that 93 percent of American gardeners grow tomatoes in their yards.

Did I say luscious “little veggies?” Should I have said luscious little fruits? Doesn’t matter to me and probably not to you. But back in the day, it did matter to the United States Supreme Court.

On May 10, 1893, the Supreme Court decided that tomatoes are vegetables. Case closed. That, despite the fact that, botanically, fruits — say, tomatoes, for example — surround their seed(s) with fleshy material. Vegetables don’t. (Bet you’re already wondering about seedless grapes, seedless watermelons, and seedless oranges.) The Supremes found that dictionaries did not sufficiently settle the question so, as it’s wont to do, the court decided the issue using the “common language of the people.” Most folks say tomatoes are vegetables.

Phytologists might have a word or two to contribute to that. They study plants and to them, tomatoes are more nearly a berry. New Jersey sides with the Supremes. There, the tomato is the state vegetable. In Ohio it’s the state fruit. Arkansas covers all bases. There the tomato is both the state fruit and state vegetable.

Moving right along, Americans grow tomatoes as annual plants, but they are actually perennials. They still grow wild in the Andes mountains. Actually, you can nurse the plants through the winter and plant them again next spring.

Tomatoes have an interesting history. One source traces them to the early Aztecs, circa 700 A.D. But by the time Spanish explorers began ripping off South America, tomatoes were pervasive and enjoyed by natives there as a food staple. They grew wild and they were also cultivated for food. In addition, they were regarded as an aphrodisiac, which probably had most to do with why tomatoes were sent back to Europe, along with everything else of value.

Once there, the French apparently took the aphrodisiac business to heart. They called the tomato pomme d’ amore or “apple of love.” Tomatoes were also embraced as part of the Spanish diet. Upper-class Brits took a pass on the things while lower-class Brits ate tomatoes with gusto. One theory about that is that the rich folks ate off pewter flatware with a high lead content. Tomato acid caused the lead to mix into the food and lead poisoning led to bad results. Poor people used wooden plates.

A more probable explanation for literate rich Brits eschewing tomatoes is that the tomato plant closely resembles the nightshade plant which is, in fact, poison and can even be fatal. Fast-forward to America’s Colonies. Tomatoes got off to a very slow start. Apparently, the nightshade/poison fiction came over with the Pilgrims. And the apple of love business was definitely not a hit with the Puritans. None of that “hot tomato” stuff.

High-profile dudes like Thomas Jefferson, Col. Robert Gibbon Johnson, and Joseph Campbell popularized tomatoes and ensured their place in our culture. Jefferson grew them in his garden and promoted their use in cooking. Johnson, as late as 1830, had the temerity to eat the things on the steps of a local courthouse, where folks lined up to watch him die. And in 1897, Campbell began marketing condensed tomato soup. Now, would Campbell Soup do you wrong?

Given the popularity of the tomato, a body might think America would be the largest tomato producer. Not so, it’s China. America’s second. In America, Florida grows the most fresh tomatoes, while California processes the most tomatoes used in soups, sauces, salsas, salads, ketchup and multitudes of similar commodities.

Tomatoes are not just garden-variety, either. In fact, there are a whopping 10,000 varieties of the vegetables, uh, fruits, uh, berries. And they come in red, pink, purple, black, yellow and even white. So there’s something for everybody.

Tomatoes are spacey. That’s right, according to NASA.gov, 600,000 tomato seeds traveled to the International Space Station and back. As part of the “Tomatosphere Project,” students in Canadian classrooms are using the seeds to grow plants and compare them with plants from seeds that didn’t get to go to space.

Here’s one for the books: The Guinness Book of World Records says between May 2005 and April 2006, a tomato “tree” grown in the Walt Disney World Resort greenhouse produced over 32,000 tomatoes in the first 16 months after it was planted. That scored the record for the most tomatoes in a single year. And here’s another: The heaviest tomato on record was produced in 2013 in Oklahoma. Weight — 7 pounds and 12 ounces. Put that in perspective by considering that the average tomato weighs a mere 4 ounces. Finally, Guinness says the world’s tallest tomato plant was 65 feet, grown in 2000 in Lancashire, United Kingdom.

All right, I promise this is the last one. There’s this little place called Buñol, which is a province of Valencia, Spain. Each year on the last Wednesday of August between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., as many as 50,000 visitors from everywhere on Earth gather in Buñol for the “La Tomatina” food fight festival. On average, those nuts unleash 243,000 pounds of tomatoes at everything that moves and everything that doesn’t move. Hey, whatever rings your bell. PS

Michael Smith lives in Talamore, Southern Pines, with his wife, Judee. They moved here in 2017 and wish they had moved here years earlier.

2018 Department Pleasures of Life

Hometown

Road Game

Putt-Putt: a miniature obsession

By Bill Fields

I’ve gotten to interview some of the greats of golf, stars whose names will resonate as long as the game is played — golfers like Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead and Arnold Palmer. Once, I even got to fly into the Moore County Airport on a jet Palmer was piloting. There might not be any cheering in the press box, but that was cool.

A few years ago, it was a thrill to talk with Rick Baird, John Napoli and Rick Smith.

You probably don’t recognize the latter trio or know why I would have been interested in learning their stories. But for someone who loved Putt-Putt the way I did as a kid — despite not getting to play very often — speaking with those putting legends was as good as it gets, the opposite of the feeling when your colored ball disappeared down the chute on the last hole.

Baird and Napoli are two of only three people to shoot an 18 in a Putt-Putt competition, making a 1 on each of the approximately 30-foot putts. (By comparison, there have been 23 perfect games pitched in Major League Baseball.) Smith was one of the best putters in the heyday of the Professional Putters Association. A teen phenom, he won world titles in 1969 and 1972 and was so skilled with his center-shafted blade that Don Clayton, who opened the first Putt-Putt course in Fayetteville in 1954, nicknamed him “The Ace Machine.”

I’m pretty sure my family believed I got a bit too excited about miniature golf, particularly when I wouldn’t budge from the couch when the Putt-Putt televised series, Parade of Champions, was on Sunday mornings. Smith, Vance Randall, John Connor and the other pros showed that Sam Jones had nothing on them when it came to bank shots. They just made theirs wearing dress loafers.

I was usually in flip-flops while trying to imitate the putting pros — open stance like Smith or closed stance like Randall? — on vacation in Ocean Drive, South Carolina, where I looked forward to the beachside Putt-Putt course more than Hoskins’ flounder or Sno-Cones. One of the other kids going round and round those same 18 holes was none other than Rick Baird. About 40 years later, he shot his “Perfect 18” at a tournament in Richmond, Virginia.

My marathon Putt-Putt days occurred while spending a summer week with my sister in High Point, where there was a 36-hole facility on North Main Street. It was three bucks for as much as you wanted to play on a weekday. Practice didn’t make perfect by any means, but I occasionally broke 30, convinced I would have scored better if I had splurged on an official “steel center” PPA ball. Truer roll, and all that.

Young nerves went a long way on those surfaces. Putt-Putt carpets aren’t as fast now because the specific material isn’t manufactured, but back then they were closer to linoleum than Bermuda overseeded with rye. On a real course, I never played on anything approaching Putt-Putt speed until the mid-1970s on the well-manicured bentgrass surfaces at Quail Ridge in Sanford.

I was not a miniature golf snob, happily going to Jungle Golf or Wacky Golf or whatever other names the places with dinosaurs, rhinos and windmills on Highway 17 in Myrtle Beach were called. My parents and sisters indulged me and played too, although I think they tried to pretend they didn’t know me on the occasions I insisted on using my own putter rather than one of the loaners.

My mother relished her holes-in-one, all the more if I had recently critiqued her grip as better suited for a broom handle than a golf club. She was not a great putter but a very good sport, joining Dad and me at the South of the Border miniature golf course, the round a consolation prize on a desultory ride home from a thwarted trip to the beach. All the motel rooms on the Grand Strand were filled by bikers, which sabotaged our spur-of-the-moment attempt at a long weekend.

On Mom’s 80th birthday trip, a long time since we had done so, we had a game at the beach. I asked a stranger to take a snapshot. We are standing next to a giant plastic flamingo, colored balls in our hands and smiles on our faces. PS

Southern Pines native Bill Fields, who writes about golf and other things, moved north in 1986 but hasn’t lost his accent.

2018 Department Hometown

Almanac

2018 Almanac Feature

Mom, Inc.

Sunnybird

And everything she left behind

By Renee Phile

I woke up thinking about her, and I’m not sure why. Facebook told me today is her birthday, so maybe that’s why. Or maybe it’s because my son had his best friend over last night, and as I watched all the non-verbal communication — their inside jokes, looks, smirks, eye rolls — I couldn’t help but think about Serenity. She was my best friend in fourth grade and the grades after that, and although her name is Serenity, she preferred to be called Sunny for short, so I called her Sunnybird. We met in fourth grade on Mercer Christian Academy’s basketball team. Neither of us was really into it, but we kind of tried. Serenity was home-schooled and there was a chance she was going to join me at MCA the next year, and every day I would call her house to get the status.

“Hello?” her mom answered.

“Is Serenity there?”

“Just a minute. (Pause.) Serenity?”

(Phone going through hands, some stumbling around.)

“Hi, Renee!”

“Are you coming to MCA next year?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“OK. Talk to you later!” I would immediately hang up.

During one of the many sleepovers we had, she told me that she wished I had talked longer on the phone — that it hurt her feelings when I ended our conversations so abruptly. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I tried to explain. “I just had a question and needed an answer.”

She did end up going to MCA for fifth grade. Our teacher was Mr. Smith, an older, soft-spoken gentleman who always wore a different belt buckle and played basketball with us during recess. That year I stayed up one night reading and writing a report about Florence Nightingale. It was the first documented all-nighter of my school career.

Serenity sat in the desk behind me. She ate saltine crackers and cheese during class and passed me notes, folded into unique designs. The designs were way fancier than the words, and it was fun to spend five minutes opening a note to see her splashy cursive: “Hi! Want to swing instead of playing ball today?”

I spent lots of nights and days at her three-story house right off the main street in downtown Princeton, West Virginia. On Saturdays we had to clean her bathroom and vacuum before we could do anything fun. Fun meant walking the mile or so to Jason’s Market to buy Carmelo bars, cotton candy gum, Cow Tails, and peach Nehis. We left the market and walked to the cemetery down the road and made up stories about the names on the gravestones while we chomped on our gum and blew big bubbles. Once we saw a black-haired man sitting cross-legged on one of those above-ground graves. (I didn’t know they were called mausoleums.) We watched him for a few minutes, turning him into a serial killer in our imaginations, and then trudged back to her house. When we turned around, we saw him walking after us. We began running, turning down random streets, but he was still there. He was behind us, running just as hard as we were. We flew into her front door and slammed it hard behind us, sure we were seconds from being kidnapped and killed by the guy with black hair who sat on a grave in the cemetery. We told and retold the story for years, each time adding a new, dramatic detail. He had a knife. He snarled. We nearly died that day.

Once Sunnybird was snowed in at my house for a week. Or maybe her parents had gone out of town and it just happened to be snowing. I can’t remember. She decided to leave her folded notes for my parents all over the house, to thank them for letting her stay. Some in cabinets, some in bookshelves, some behind the TV. Each one was specific: “Thank you for letting me use your toilet.” Or, “Thank you for letting me eat your peanut butter.” We saved the ones we could find. There may be some still hidden in that house in the mountains of West Virginia.

We were pretty innocent creatures, trying to figure out life and love and other stuff, and I felt safe when I was with her. She moved to Oklahoma when we were in high school and I felt like I had lost a body part. We sent letters back and forth and she still folded them into fancy designs before she plopped them in the envelope. There were no cell phones, so if we wanted to call each other, we could only talk a few minutes because it was long distance and long distance costs money.

We lost touch over the years, but I see her sometimes on Facebook, and I’m back at the cemetery in fifth grade with a Carmelo bar and a peach Nehi, being chased by someone with black hair until I am safe again. PS

Renee Phile loves being a mom, even if it doesn’t show at certain moments.

2018 Department Mom Inc.

Food for Thought

Pamlico Perfection

There is no need for fancy cooking at the beach, especially when local shrimp are running

By Jane Lear

There is something freewheeling about beach house cookery. All the familiar props, from tools to staple foods, are gone, and most folks happily make do with whatever they can find in a stranger’s kitchen cabinets and at the grocery store, seafood market and farm stand. Everything will taste delicious, after all, because most people who love the beach spend the entire day outdoors. Even if you do nothing more strenuous than laze under an umbrella with the latest page-turner, you somehow manage to work up an appetite.

That’s why I am only fussy about a couple of things. The first is tomatoes. More often than not, I’ve been disappointed by the selection at coastal Carolina farm stands; typically, the tomatoes are commercial hybrids and not very interesting or flavorful. I always hedge my bets, then, by bringing plenty of good ’uns with me — both backyard beefsteaks and heirlooms in varying shapes, sizes and degrees of ripeness. I bring lots of them, enough for a week’s worth of salads and the best sandwiches in the world. I pack them in low cardboard boxes and nestled in beach towels, stem-side up so their rounded shoulders won’t get bruised.

I’m also uncompromising about finding local wild-caught shrimp, one of my favorite beach eats. The brown shrimp (Farfantepenaeus aztecus) that are running now are sweet and fat. And whether you buy them from a seafood purveyor or roadside cooler, don’t be afraid to ask questions about their source. “Anyone selling shrimp should know who they purchased it from (if they didn’t catch it themselves) and should be able to provide some details (e.g., the name of the boat, the fish house, area of the coast, etc.) if it’s from North Carolina,” writes Scott Baker, fisheries specialist for the NC Sea Grant Extension Program. “The NC Catch organization has a directory for seafood retailers that provide local products.” NC Catch can be found online at nccatch.org.

The last North Carolina shrimp I had were real beauts — just hours out of the hold of a boat working Pamlico Sound. This shallow lagoon separating much of the Outer Banks from the mainland is a remarkable body of water; it’s so broad and long that when explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano reached the coast in 1523, he thought he had reached the Pacific Ocean.

My extended family that gathers at the beach expands or contracts depending on circumstances. What never changes, though, is a love of the surf and a great reluctance to leave the beach in order to go make dinner. That means we all share kitchen duty — and no one ever complains about the fact that peel-your-own boiled shrimp is the default meal. Add corn on the cob and a platter of those tomatoes, and you have easily attainable perfection in no time flat.

When it comes to cooking shrimp, I’m a big believer in protecting the physical integrity — thus the flavor and tender texture — of seafood. Unless I’m stuck with very large shrimp, I never fool with deveining. Why open up that thin, resilient armor and risk coarsening such delicate meat? To my mind, there’s no beating the succulence of heads-on shrimp, but lots of people prefer the convenience that comes with buying them heads-off.

I also cook shrimp in the smallest amount of water I can get away with, covering them by just 2 inches or so. As far as the seasoning is concerned, I add a quartered lemon and enough sea salt to make cold tap water taste like the ocean. If you are a fan of a seafood boil blend such as Old Bay or Zatarain’s, toss some in as well, but use a light hand — you don’t want to overwhelm the clean, briny-sweet flavor of the shellfish.

James Beard famously declared that “the unpardonable fault in preparing shrimp is overcooking,” therefore attention must be paid. After bringing the seasoned water to a boil, add the unpeeled shrimp and start timing from that moment. Depending on the size of the shrimp and how many pounds of them are in the pot, begin checking for doneness at about two minutes. Once the shrimp are a beautiful rosy-pink on the outside, opaque inside, and firm yet tender in texture (cut one open to check), immediately drain them in a colander.

Spread newspapers over the table and eat the shrimp hot out of the shell, with melted butter (add garlic or a spritz of lemon if the spirit moves), or cooled, with a horseradishy cocktail sauce. A New Orleans-style rémoulade would be wonderful too, but I don’t know — all that mincing and measuring sounds like too much work at the beach.

The adults in my crowd can easily put away at least three-quarters of a pound of shrimp per person. Any leftovers are tucked into the fridge for lunchtime shrimp rolls the next day. Peel the shrimp and cut them into chunks. Add some Duke’s mayo, a little Dijon mustard, shredded carrot, chopped scallion, and perhaps some chopped red bell pepper or celery for crunch. Serve in lightly toasted hot dog buns. Then slather on more sunscreen and go outside. The surf is waiting. PS

Jane Lear was the senior articles editor at Gourmet and features director at Martha Stewart Living.

2018 Department Food for Thought