Corn chowder
There are beach days and there are beach days.
I am not sure there has ever been a summer that didn’t include a salt-water vacation.
As a baby, toddler and teenager, there was Belmar, N.J. I had Angrist and Kasdan cousins who lived there full-time, although the two Angrist brothers worked in New York City, one as a librarian at CCNY and the other a pathologist at Albert Einstein medical school.
Charlie’s wife, Claire Kasdan Angrist, was a teacher of French as Asbury High School. Her twin brother had a son, who became a well known movie director. Claire and her sister, Sylvia Angrist, had married brothers. Claire and Sylvia used to play Scrabble in French.
And every day the sun shone, there was the beach.
Today is July 4, 2017. And today was a beach day as glorious as any I can remember.
Today, too, were two beach stories in The Day. On the front page was a story about the Miami Beach Association fencing in Old Lyme to stop a “significant increase in the inappropriate behavior of persons using the beach.” The second story, first page of the second section, was a feature saying Groton’s Eastern Point Beach “concession stand still serving up favorites”
My beach used to be Old Lyme. You needed a beach pass and there were very few parking places, but it wasn’t fenced.
Today, my beach is the one in Groton. As a City of Groton citizen, and an old woman, too, it costs $11 for the season. The beach is gorgeous and huge. And on this gorgeous, sunny Fourth of July, as I left the beach to go home to write this column, there are dozens more parking places available and the $1.75 foot-long hot dog is as good as it ever was, as long as a gull doesn’t get to it first.
Summer doesn’t get much better than this. And just imagine, fresh tomatoes and sweet corn are still to come. I still have packets of the latter in the freezer and I bought some lobster to go with it.
Corn Chowder
Adapted a lot from an 1964 edition of Joy of Cooking
One of the best things about this recipe is there is neither butter nor heavy cream in this recipe. Sure, some salt pork for flavoring, but this is pretty healthy.
Yield: serves 6 to 8 as a main dish with a salad and maybe some good bread
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 to 8 ounces salt pork, diced
One-half cup chopped onions
One-half cup chopped celery
1 green pepper, seeded and chopped
1 and one-half cups peeled diced raw potatoes (with Yukon Gold, you needn’t peel)
2 cups water
One-half teaspoon salt
One-half teaspoon paprika
1 bay leaf
3 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk*
6 to 8 ears of fresh corn, blanched for 2 minutes in boiling water, then drained in iced water
Meat from claws and tail of one and one-half to two-pound cooked lobster, cut into small chunks
3 cups hot milk*
Chopped fresh tarragon, and more for garnish
Salt and pepper to taste
Pour oil into a heated, heavy-bottomed stock pot, add salt pork and sauté until browned.
Add onions, celery and green pepper and sauté until translucent.
Add potatoes, water, salt, paprika and bay leaf and simmer until potatoes are soft, around 15 minutes.
Add flour and 1 cup of milk and stir until mixture is thick.
Local author Richard Conniff discusses his latest book, The Species Seekers: Heroes, Fools, and the Map Pursuit of Life on Earth, at the Florence Griswold Museum from 2 until 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 9. Admission is $5 for members and $7 for non-members.
