The Best of Summer Recipes from Celia Wakefield

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JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Our dear Celia Wakefield is taking a well deserved rest, so I thought I'd share some of her best summer recipes, for you to revisit or to discover for the first time. Why Friday instead of her usual Sunday? Because it's the start of Labor Day weekend, and chances are good you'll either be entertaining or taking a dish to someone else's dinner/ cookout/ pot luck. 

All of Celia's recipes elicit ooos and aaahs and look like you worked for hours in a hot kitchen (but you won't!) And i can personally vouch for how very good everything tastes.

And if you're not part of a crowd? We've got you covered - you can relax, kick your feet up, and enjoy the last lazy days of summer with a Pimms Cup.

 

First up, a simple summer meal of marinated shrimp, green salad and a deconstructed strawberry shortcake, featuring shortbread cookies, strawberries, and - yum! - Grand Marnier. 

 

Not feeling like shellfish? Need a dish that will travel well? Not to worry, you'll be happy with the alliterative Fresh Pea Pesto for Pasta and a Fourth of July mess for pudding (or call it Red-White and Blue dessert.)  

 

If you're overloaded with gorgeous fresh tomatoes, first of all, congratulations, and secondly, the cool and easy Tomato Tonnato is made for you.  

 

Since the tonnato doesn't come pre-loaded with a dessert, why not try some British Summer Pudding, bursting with fruits and berries.  

 

And as promised, the perfect Pimms. If you make one, please raise you glass and toast the founder of all this summery goodness, our own Celia!   

June is Bustin' Out All Over

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING:  Memorial Day weekend is over, we’ve said good-bye to 

May, and this is the start of the first full month in June, or, as I like to call it: summer.

 

We all have different markers for when the season begins - the aforementioned holiday 

weekend, the end of the school year, that blast of cold air as the office’s annual pre-set 

AC comes on whether it’s 50 or 90 F. But without a doubt, June is the start, the first 

month of summer, the month of weddings and graduations and my birthday, which is 

why I know it’s so great.

I have certain rituals that mark the start of the season. First and foremost, I bring the 

warm-weather clothing and the fans down from the attic, and carry the winter things up. 

The parkas and scarves move from the foyer to the less-accessible front hall closet, and 

the boots disappear in favor of sneakers and flip-flops. 

There’s summer-specific beauty rites: a pedicure with bright nail polish and sunless 

tanning lotion after showers (I wear it under my SPF 50 sunscreen.)

 

On the first really hot day, I’ll make myself cold tuna-mac salad, a 1960’s style dish that 

was one of my mom’s staples back before she started replacing gobs of mayo with 

heart-healthy alternatives. I’ll add a few things to my grocery list: lemonade mix, lime 

and strawberry popsicles (which Google tells me I should refer to as frozen fruit bars,)

 Miracle Whip (come at me, haters.)

And of course, as we discussed last week, there’s the joy of finding a horde selection of 

great summer reads.

Reds, what rites and rituals mark the start of summer for you?

HALLIE EPHRON: Ah, summer… Number one is opening the windows. This year I’m 

having the windows washed, a pricey but necessary (at least once every five years) 

endeavor.


Number two, birds! There’s usually several nests in my backyards and then comes the 

fun watching the gawky hatchlings fledge. When you see four cardinals together and 

not killing each other or mating, they’re nest-mates.

And on the watch for lady slippers at the base of trees on my walks. 

And, oh yes, finding someone to help me hoist my a/c from the office floor and into the 

window. It’s the only room I really need it for. Any volunteers??

LUCY BURDETTE: First is a tuna melt on rye when my favorite snack bar opens. 

Deep River potato chips on the side. Pretty soon the farmers market will provide more 

than greens and radishes, though we are enjoying lots of those!

 

RHYS BOWEN: Lucy and I have had a sneak preview of summer at our other homes. 

It reached 95 before I left Arizona. Now I’m back in California with weather in the 70s. 

My first summer task is to take heavy winter clothes downstairs and bring up summer 

ones. Then go through and weed out those I no longer wear. (I wore a white jacket this 

week. It’s after Memorial Day so I’m allowed to.)

 

Things I look forward to: Thursday farmers market with all that organic fresh produce. 

And sitting out on my deck on a balmy evening, glass of Aperol Spritz in hand, enjoying 

watching the sun slip below the hills.

 

JENN McKINLAY: Summer is…less fantastic for me. I’m saying good-bye to my weekly

 farmer’s market outing until October. The AC guy has to come out and
make sure our 

unit is all good. You never want your AC to die when it’s 115. The pool starts getting 

used daily to exercise the dogs - this is actually one of the highlights! 

 

 

And my garden starts to shrivel up and die until late July when it’s time to plant the 

pumpkins and hopefully a robust monsoon season will do the watering. Woo hoo! 

And the highlight of summer is the annual trek to my mom’s summer house in Nova 

Scotia. We count the days until we’re back on the Bay of Fundy, fishing in the trout 

stream, hitting the local farm stands, and running on the beach! Can’t wait! 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The winter clothes migrated back into the attic here back in 

April! But June does really feel like the beginning of summer, especially with all the 

summer produce coming into the market and the frogs singing in the pond.
But every year I indulge in a little beginning of summer ritual–driving through our 

favorite barbecue joint. We have a great multi-awarded barbecue place but somehow 

when it’s cold it drops off my radar. 

 

But that first warm evening with the lengthening twilight, I love to drive 

across town and sit in the drive-through line with the windows down, smelling the huge 

smokers and watching the light fade over the western treetops. And if I get into the fried 

okra before I get home, don’t tell…

 

JULIA: Readers, what starts your summer? 

Images by freepik, gpointstudio, wirestock, freepik, vecstock, and chandlervid85, all on Freepik.com

All Summer in a Day

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Today is arguably the last Monday of summer - next week is Labor Day, which is always bittersweet as it heralds the end of the season (if not, for some of us, the end of suffocating heat!) This week on JRW, our attention is going to turn to the World Mystery Conference, Bouchercon, but before we do, let’s take our traditional accounting of what summer pleasures we did and did not manage to fit in between Memorial Day and now.

What I did: Saw family. I saw SO much of my family, I’ll be happy not to spend any more time together until Thanksgiving. I love you, kids.

Went to a Sea Dogs game in Portland, with much of the aforementioned family. It was a rare perfect sunny day in what’s been a wet, cool summer here in New England, and we had a great time, even though the Sea Dogs went down 7-5.

Celebrated the Fourth of July by watching Independence Day with the Maine Millennial on Monday and had an amazing indoor (that rain again) BBQ at a friend’s house on Tuesday.

Took a mini-writing retreat with Jessica Ellicott and had the great pleasure of spending a whole day writing and talking craft and business under the shade of her gazebo in utterly perfect July weather.

Went to the movies in person, which used to be a summer standard, but has become rare for me since the pandemic. Youngest and I saw MEG 2: THE TRENCH, which was the perfect tongue-in-cheek action flick.  I even bought movie popcorn: I know it’s all oil and chemicals, but it’s so tasty.

I had a whole watermelon to myself!

What I didn’t do: It’s a long list. No trips to the beach, no grilling outdoors, no summer theater (which I managed to do even during the shut downs in ‘20 and ‘21.) No swimming at Celia Wakefield’s Lake House, or in the nearby Saco River - there was so much rain my area was closed to swimming due to bacterial contamination!! No Chamber Music Festival. No hanging out with a book and a glass of chilled rode on the patio. No garden other than what sprung up from last year. 

All I can say is, 1) this fall had better be spectacular, and 2) the next time a family member calls with a crisis, I’m pretending I broke my phone and hiding until it passes.

How about you, Reds?

RHYS BOWEN:  I always have plans for the perfect summer: picnics at the beach, a book beside the pool, an adventure once a week. And then suddenly it’s September! What happened? Our summer in Marin County had not been stellar. A lot of cold foggy mornings. And I have escaped to the beach a couple of times. But still…. Not that perfect lazy, hazy days of summer 

I must confess that five weeks of it were spent in Europe so no whining here! England, Jersey, Brittany. All good. And lots of family encounters. Also good. And a new irrigation system that now has plants covering my bare hillside. I’m off to Bouchercon on Wednesday and hoping to steal away to the beach when no one’s looking!

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I have no idea what I did. Yes, I do, it wrote. And was on book tour. It was great, and wildly successful, and hurray, but yikes, it’s about to be September. We didn’t grill, because it seemed to be raining all the time or SO HOT!

A new house went up next to us, so we were in a constant din–truly one day, there were TEN guys on the roof next door with nail guns. Just imagine. And they started at 7. AM. 7 AM!!

We didn’t sit by the pool, because see above. But we had so many bunnies! BUT I did do some fantastic full-house signings, really amazing, and interviewed Shari Lapena in person, taught at the Writers Digest Convention and saw Hadestown with Hallie–she mentions it below, too! AMAZING, as she says.

AND sold two more books, book 16 and 17 no under contract! So yay. Somehow, even with all the rain, it was still lovely.

JENN McKINLAY: This was not the summer to miss out on a trip to my mom's cottage in Nova Scotia but I did miss it and lived through every day that was over 110+ here in AZ. Blerg.

Instead, it was the summer to spend repainting the interior of our house, rebuilding the catio, revising the next romcom, and swimming with the dogs in the pool every single day. I also got to spend a glorious time literally up in the trees with the Hub and the Hooligans in Flagstaff, where we did an extreme obstacle course 30-60 feet up in the air which included jumping from swinging log to swinging log, climbing fishnets hanging in the tops of the pines, and zip lines. Truly, it was like something out of American Ninja Warrior. Hooligan 2 also turned 21 and wanted to visit a casino. Kid won $600 off a slot machine. We told him he could never go again because he’d never be that lucky again. LOL. 

HALLIE EPHRON: Oh, Jenn, you were due for a good summer. Hope you’ll blog about what that obstacle course was like. Sounds terrifying.

My summer began with July 4 on Peaks Island (off the coast of Portland Maine) with family. Fireworks and barbecuing, long walks and swimming.

After that, I taught at a bunch of writing conferences, including an old favorite on mystery writing at Book Passage in Marin. And another favorite, at the Willamette Writers Conference via Zoom.  And I was thrilled to get invited back to the Writers Digest Annual Writers Conference in NYC at the Hilton in Midtown. Great meals, and I got to hang out with Hank(!) and went to see Hadestown which was AMAZING! 

Next week I go back to Peaks for a Labor Day weekend relax-athon and hangout with the spectacular Franny and Jody, my grands.

So all in all a pretty terrific summer. Oh, and I also got named my town’s Writer in Residence for 2023-2024. Which gives me lots of good stuff through to anticipate.

Life is good. A year ago I would not have said that.

 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: The traveling part of the summer was terrific! In early June I flew to LA for the California Crime Writers’ Conference, my first conference in three and a half years, and it was wonderful to see friends, make new friends, and talk writing again! I didn’t mind the “June glooms” a bit. Then a whirlwind week at home, then off for almost a month in London. What a great trip. Mostly nice weather other than a couple of too-warm days, loads of terrific research for the book in progress, and an unexpected side trip to Bath.

Alas, I arrived home mid-July just as the triple-digits-no-rain remainder of the summer set in, and have spent the last six weeks just trying not to melt and to keep the poor plants alive. 

One fun thing–we’ve done a lot of work on our pond and added new fish (after losing all but one of our huge koi last October) and have really enjoyed watching the little swimmers in the few minutes we can stand to be outside!

 

 LUCY: I think you've already heard about our multiple family visits and the lovely food I've been eating, so I won't belabor that. Most unusual and fun event? I played in my first ukulele "gig" last weekend. Remember the band I hired for John's big birthday bash? Turns out one of them runs a ukulele club at the Scranton Library and my pal Steve and I have been attending. Fred the leader encouraged us to play in public at a festival on the town green. It was very low pressure (read, low attendance) and super fun! Other than that, writing, writing, writing.

JULIA: Hallie definitely wins the award for "Best Spent Summer," with Debs in the No. 2 spot. How about you, dear readers? How was your June, July and August?  

 

Photos courtesy of Rebecca from Pixabay, freepix and Flagstaff Extreme

Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

Breaking news: Becky Sue Epstein is the winner of Leslie Karst's book, A Sense for Murder. Contact Leslie at ljkarst at gmail dot com to claim your prize!

 LUCY BURDETTE: How in the world did we get to the middle of August already? But it’s still summer! So I thought we should talk about the best parts of the season so far…You’ve already heard that we had many visitors, all great, if somewhat tiring:).

But John’s garden is suddenly going great guns. Is there anything better than tomatoes right off the vine, plus beans and cukes, and corn from the farm in town? To top it off, one of the vendors at the farmer’s market sells the most amazing fresh mozzarella…

Wonderful summer books abound, even though I’m reading slowly because of all the other things happening and my own book to finish. (I'm just finishing Leslie Karst's book and will start Mrs. Plansky next.) My friend Steve and I have been attending the ukulele club at the local library. And Lottie and I are doing a refresher class in ‘manners’—it could be that mine are the problem, not hers:). 

What are your favorite parts of the summer so far, and what are you looking forward to?

I Surrender! by Jenn McKinlay

Okay, I give. I can't take it anymore. It is officially TOO HOT here in AZ. 🔥🔥🔥

In fact, it's so hot that our Julia (ME) emailed Debs (TX) and me to see if we were okay. The Jungle Red sisterhood -  love it! I was okay the day she emailed because my deadline kept me indoors chained to my laptop but once I finished and poked my head outside. Mercy, what hellscape is this?

Last night I took the dogs into the pool - this has become our exercise when the temps are over 110 (high) and 93 (low) and walks are not an option. Still, I could not cool any of us down. So, I drove to my local DQ for a sundae for me (Hub was at a gig) and pup cups for the pooches, naturally. 

It helped, but the forecast is looking rather grim for the foreseeable future. 😭😭😭

So, chime in Reds and Readers, how are the temperatures where you are? How do you stay cool when the summer turns mean?

I Know What You Did Last Summer...Okay, Not Really.

 JENN McKINLAY: With a nod to Lois Duncan, let's revisit the summers of our youth. I'll got first. Summer of 1985. I wore a blue and white checked POLYESTER above the knee dress with a ruffled collar and sleeves and a dark blue apron. My job? Ice cream scooper at Friendly’s on Main Street in Niantic, CT. Best summer job ever! 

Why did I love it? Because every break I made myself a tall sundae with three scoops of coffee ice cream, hot fudge (Friendly’s has the BEST bar none – fight me!), marshmallow sauce, two Resee’s peanut butter cups, topped with a mountain of whipped cream and a cherry. Oh, I also  had a basket of fried clam strips and fries on the side because it’s all about balance. It was glorious. I worked with my friends MaryBeth and Matt (I have no idea what happened to them) but we had an absolute blast back in the day!

The iconic uniform in the Museum of Springfield, Massachusetts

How about you, Reds? What was your favorite summer job? 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: The summer between my sophomore and junior years at Ithaca I got a job as a waitress at an iconic NY resort, Scott’s Oquaga Lake House. In the southern tier, at the edge of the Catskills, it was like working in a real-life version of Dirty Dancing, except the guests were largely Quebecois instead of Jewish New Yorkers. (My French, at that time, was very good, and the guests loved when I spoke “Parisian” to them.

We lived in girls and boys dorms, and when we weren’t working, we had the run of the grounds and the lake. Some nights we would canoe across the lake to a local bar, and yes, as an adult, I realize that canoeing while drunk is a terrible idea. There were torrid hook-ups, dramatic break-ups, personal crises and skinny-dipping.

Oh, the actual work? Three meals a day. I got really good at fully loaded tray service. I wore a kind of diner waitress dress for breakfast and dinner and a dirndl - complete with scooped blouse that showed off the Alps - for dinner. The pay was good, too, despite the fact tipping was forbidden. Honestly, it was more like being at summer camp than a job.

LUCY BURDETTE: I’d have to say mine was a waitress job as well–at the Alchemist and Barrister restaurant in Princeton NJ. I was organized and efficient, but the best part was the friends I worked with. We all sat at the bar after our shifts were finished and drank way too much and had a blast. We learned that better tips came with high heels and slinky black outfits. No wonder my feet have hurt ever since! We also raided the walk-in refrigerator and ate piles of shrimp and other delicious goods until the owners figured out why their profits were evaporating…

RHYS BOWEN: The only summer job I had during my school days was working in a plant nursery. Incredibly boring work, scraping moss off pots etc, but livened up because my best friend worked with me and we created a murder mystery, assigning other workers to roles as victim, murderer etc. The owner’s son was the murderer and once we’d decided that we were rather afraid to be alone in a greenhouse with him.

No summer jobs in college. I traveled every summer, around Greece one year, summer semester in Germany twice.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, I had a knock down drag out battle (sort of) with the proprietor of the Dairy Queen in Zionsville, Indiana, site of my first summer job. She told us we had to wear white uniforms, polyester, exactly, Jenn, and  I absolutely refused. And I showed up in a white oxford button-down shirt and a white canvas mini-skirt. She was outraged, and wanted to send me home. I said–you told us WHITE,  and this is WHITE and I am not going home. She finally relented. And Lucy, they SO watched the supplies. We were allowed 50 cents of ice cream a day, which meant we could fill a medium cup. We got really good at filling those cups.

But my BEST summer job was at the Lyric Record Store. It was in downtown Indianapolis, and I got to choose which records were played on the store’s speaker system. (I bet I sold dozens and hundreds  of copies of Harry Nilsson’s Pandemonium Shadow Show and The Beatles’ Revolver.)  They had little listening booths where customers could try our records privately.  Remember those? I loved that job. I adored  sending people home with a new record they’d enjoy..

HALLIE EPHRON: My favorite summer job was assistant to the woman (a female Lieutenant Colonel) who ran Butler Hall, a large apartment house at 119th St and Morningside Drive. It was owned by Columbia University. I spent the summer living with Jerry and my job was just up the block and around the corner from the apartment I managed to illegally sublet (from the same landlord that ran Butler Hall). I typed leases and filed and showed vacant apartments. I’m sure  another life I’d have been a very happy secretary. Go figure.

Your turn, Readers, how did you make some scratch during the summers of your youth?