My Perfect Summer Day

 RHYS BOWEN: I don’t know about you, but every year, at the beginning of summer, I look forward to those perfect lazy summer days. I’ll take a picnic to my favorite little beach on the Bay. I’ll drive up to wine country and sit in a vineyard, I’ll take the ferry across to San Francisco. And then suddenly it’s September and I realize I haven’t done any of those things I’d wanted to. 

Summer has slipped away from me again, stolen with busyness–that book deadline. Those unexpected guests, the doctor appointments.

This year will be different. This year I will write on my calendar, at least one day a week: RHYS ESCAPE DAY.  And nothing will come in its way. Clare and I had our picnic here yesterday--smelly cheese, crusty bread, olives and chilled white wine. Not bad.

Which makes me think: what would be my perfect summer day? A picnic, definitely. There is something so romantic and old-wordly about sitting on a rug in the shade, eating cold chicken or ripe peaches (if the wasps will kindly keep away. Any recommendations for that?)

Then beautiful scenery: a beach or the mountains or a perfect garden. Then the question: good company or blissful solitude. Should that picnic be alone or shared?

I remember two picnics that stay in my memory: When I was working at the BBC two friends had the same time off one day. We bought a picnic at Selfridges food hall, took the train to Kew Gardens and rented a rowing boat. We drifted down the Thames until we came to a tree overhanging the bank. Then we moored and ate our picnic: cold chicken, crusty bread. Good cheese. Grapes. Cold white wine.  About as perfect as you can get.

Another blissful picnic was when my mother turned 75 in Australia. We sat in the shade on the cliffs over the Pacific. My brother and his wife provided the food. It was every type of seafood: lobster, oysters. Local crab. Prawns. Several salads. A cheese board. Champagne. We ate until we couldn’t eat any more. Then went down the cliff to swim. Came back. Tried another oyster. That was still my most perfect meal.

I can’t duplicate that but I am going to try this summer. I’ll keep you updated.

(This is China Camp, fifteen minutes from me, where I often take my picnic to eat. )

Now it’s your turn, Reds. What is your perfect summer day? Perfect summer meal?

JENN McKINLAY: Oh, Rhys, you’ve made me nostalgic for picnics. My parents were big on Sunday picnics by the lake or the ocean. It really was the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. I really have neglected the Hooligans horribly, no picnics that I can remember unless you include food by the campfire while camping. A perfect summer day for me would be spent with an ice cold lemonade, a cheese board and a box of pastries, sitting on a blanket with pillows under a  shade tree, reading a book. Anyone is welcome to join me, but they have to BYOB - bring your own book!

HALLIE EPHRON: Ah, picnic. I love it when someone else puts it together. Because a perfect summer day definitely has a lovely menu but please, no prep. 

When we lived in Manhattan ages ago the destination would have been Sheeps Meadow in Central Park with food picked up at Zabars. Here in New England my favorite summer place is a cottage on an island in Casco Bay, hanging out with my kids and grands, walking along the shore, dipping my toes in the icy cold water, boiling lobsters and just-picked corn, lining up at the local ice cream store, exhaling and sitting on the porch and watching the sun set. 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: My perfect summer day/meal is a lot like Hallie’s, because it’s on the Maine coast. I’d start with baseball in the afternoon, watching our Portland Sea Dogs at historic Hadlock Field. Then, off to a lobster shack for all the goodies Hallie described, but made by someone else! I’d finish off by sitting under the stars on some friends’ patio, enjoying an icy drink while talking around the firepit. 

I have to tell you all - you don’t know summer until you’ve visited Maine!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, I will happily take your perfect summer day! A little boat on the Thames with a picnic is just too Wind in the Willows perfect.

There will be no picnics here in Texas!! It's too hot, too humid, and too buggy. I would, however, love to sit on my deck in the cool morning with my cup of tea, watching the birds and the hummingbirds at their feeders and enjoying my flowers. Then, lunch on a patio at a nice restaurant. A nap in the afternoon, with a good book, then cooking something easy on the grill in the evening. Bliss!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I wake up. Someone brings me coffee, or I smell the fragrance from downstairs.  Three newspapers, a sesame bagel, and absolutely no responsibilities for the entire day. Oh, I cannot even imagine. Nothing due, no deadlines, and a great idea in the back of my mind.  It doesn't need to be glam or elaborate or planned, I just get to soak up the niceness.

LUCY BURDETTE: All of those sound so lovely! My mother was a beach hound so we spent many a summer day at the Jersey shore with sandwiches and lemonade made from a frozen can of slush. These days, I would skip the sand in the sandwiches part and order a perfect tuna melt with potato chips at the snack bar at the beach club. That would be washed down with an Arnold Palmer, half iced tea and half lemonade. Then I’d go sit in the shade and watch the grandkids frolic in the Sound.

RHYS: What about you Reddies? Your perfect summer day?

Oh and I've just realized its Friday 13th. Drive carefully, watch out for idiots!