July 8, 2019

Smells of Summer

On hot summer afternoons my mother would give me a nickel to get a treat and I would bike across the tracks to our favorite neighborhood ice cream parlor – Homer’s. Even today, whenever I dip my spoon into peach ice cream my mind travels back to that little girl on her bike heading on a delicious adventure.

Just a whiff of coconut oil and I’m a teenager with Coppertone slathered all over my body. My girlfriends and I would spend afternoons creating our own foil reflectors using record album covers, so that we were guaranteed a perfect summer tan.

For my husband, the smell of freshly cut grass or alfalfa, or a fresh from the garden tomato will transport him back to his family farm where as a little boy the vegetable garden seemed as big as a field.

My mother cooked from scratch every single day in the summer. With the exception of a few meals on the road during our annual road trip to Montana, I honestly can’t remember going to a restaurant when I was young. Each afternoon, mom would pour through a cookbook or clip some recipe from the Chicago Tribune. By 4 pm, our kitchen was a beehive of activity and the delicious smell of home cooking was starting to permeate the house.

In the early evening I would bike over to meet my Dad at the train and we would walk home together. He would change out of his suit, fix himself a drink and stroll in our backyard garden enjoying the cooler air after a hot day in the city. On the days my dad got home early he would fill our Weber grill with charcoal and fire it up with a dash of lighter fluid.

With no central air conditioning, we left our dining room doors open to catch the summer breeze.

It’s no wonder that the fifth sense is tied so closely to our emotions and memories. The smells and memories of those beautiful, lazy, summer afternoons intertwine to warm my heart and evoke a feeling of the sweetness of my childhood.

But those are memories of my youth. That is not my life today as a working mom, which brings me to “the story.”

In 2014, with the increasing demands of our burgeoning business, and with three teenagers bouncing in/out of my house to a kaleidoscopic calendar of jobs, sports and social events, I started to feel like I was operating a short order kitchen. Feeling fatigued I decided to, without giving any notice, stop cooking. I made sure the fridge continued to be stocked with food, and was curious if anyone would notice.

The shift in our home was gradual. I started to realize that without the smell of onions or garlic sautéing in the late afternoon there wasn’t a signal to slow down and venture into the kitchen. Without the aroma our home took on a less Zen-like energy and lacked cohesiveness, as we became a family of foragers and grazers.

My boys (husband included) didn’t seem to notice. In fact, they easily adapted to the new routine. On some level I savored the freedom. But there was an outlier in the group – my 16-year-old daughter Lucy. After about four weeks she came into the kitchen, plopped down on a bar stool, leaned on the counter and said “Mom, what’s up? Why aren’t you cooking anymore?”

And with that I smiled (secretly glad that she noticed), pulled out my pots and pans (with a renewed sense of enjoyment) and looked forward to hearing “Mom, what’s for dinner?”

In closing, I think many of us have had a similar experience. Feeling overwhelmed by the demands of work, feeling unappreciated and left wondering if the time and effort we put into the daily mealtime ritual is worthwhile. And for many of us we may simply want to take the summer off.

It’s in that spirit, that we have created a few simple recipes for you to enjoy, so you can bring friends and family together over the delicious smells of summer.

Summer Grilling