It feels like I was just watching spring bloom as the days grew longer, and yet that was months ago. Unintentionally, all of July slipped by without publishing this newsletter, as I was unable to resist the draw of evenings spent by the lake, rather than time spent with my laptop. Now it’s August, days are once again growing shorter, and I find myself looking at family beach week in the rear view mirror of summer.
Consumed by the constant desire to maximize activities in this season of late sunsets, time seems to be passing at an increasingly rapid speed.
Beach week at the Jersey Shore has been a summer family tradition since I was a child. We used to be five (my parents and us two kids plus my cousin, who always joined us as companion and babysitter—an honorary Marold for the week), but now we are ten. My brother Chris and I are all grown up and married, and with him come four children.
On the Saturday start of our rental we arrive in packed cars full of beach chairs, umbrellas, towels, puzzles and other games, and ample snacks and drinks for the next six days. What takes up the most space in my Subaru are the multiple coolers full of local groceries I’ve collected in preparation for feeding our hungry gang. As soon as we load ourselves into the house that will be our home for the week, everyone changes into one of many bathing suits, and collectively, perhaps a bit chaotically, we gather provisions to walk to the beach for an inaugural sip and swim. This process will only get smoother with practice.
The agenda is simple: Beach, eat, sleep, repeat. With each passing day, there is progressively more sand in every crack. Someone is always waiting for a turn in the outdoor shower. We stay up late showing the kids our favorite childhood movies, and in the morning everyone wanders into the kitchen, sleepy-eyed and ready for breakfast. Maybe my mom was the early bird among us and took a walk for fresh bagels, or Uncle Brad has offered to whisk up a bowl of his famous soft scrambled eggs. Once our bellies are full, we suit up and apply sunscreen, ready to do it all over again.
My own best memories as a kid during beach week take place in the ocean. For as long as I can remember, Chris and I would spend all day splashing in the surf, our skin gently roasting to a golden brown from the reflection of the sun off the water. As we grew older and stronger as swimmers, more of our time was spent alternately ducking or riding waves, but we never stopped waiting for the moment when my dad would join us. Together we would always swim farther from shore than we were allowed on our own.
Now I get to be that person for my brother’s kids, who ask nearly every hour if we can go swimming. I’ve watched each one of them get braver summer after summer, growing unafraid of the waves as the tide rises. Only my youngest niece still hangs back, her fear occasionally outweighing the thrill, and yet she is desperate to keep up with her siblings. When we are the last two remaining, standing side by side at the water’s edge, she’ll slip her hand into mine before asking, “Aunt Heather, can we go swimming?”
It was only a year ago that I had to lift her over every wave, often sacrificing myself to the surf in the process. Day after day she worked up the courage to “go under” until the moment she suddenly let go of my hand to swim out to her big brother and sisters. Her exhilaration was palpable. As I watched them all, I remembered everything I used to feel—the combined fear and excitement of deciding to go over or under as each big wave approaches. Getting tossed around and churned up from time to time, maybe swallowing a mouthful of salt water in the process, is a beach week rite of passage.
This summer I sat on the sand, book in hand, my chair squeezed next to my brother’s as we shared the shade of a single umbrella while sipping cold drinks in coozies, watching all four kids swim out into the surf. They’ve already grown to the point where they don’t need us like they used to, but they’ll still ask us to swim every hour.
***
For years I would drive away from Philadelphia for this stolen week of summer, trying to be there with my family while privately worrying about all of the responsibilities of the business I’d left behind. I’d sneak off for scheduled phone calls, and check my email every few hours with bated breath, hoping no problems too big to solve remotely would arise in my absence. I was present in body only, my mind always elsewhere as I fought off rising anxiety in an effort to relax.
Everything changed when I closed my business last summer and walked away from the all-consuming responsibilities I had been carrying. No longer leading a life I needed to escape, I was truly there. I read multiple books, took accidental naps, and felt joyful like those sun-kissed days as a child. I said yes to (almost) every request for a swim, not having to telling the kids each morning, “Go ahead to the beach, I’ll be there later, Aunt Heather just has to do some work first.”
It’s taken practice to rewire the worrisome rituals that became habits in my overburdened life. But after more than a decade of perpetual motion, I’ve slowed down. I can disconnect and ignore my phone, taking off my watch with the excuse of not wanting tan lines, because I don’t care about what time it is. As the sun moves overhead, the sole signal of the passing time, my only worry is what’s for dinner. I always feed my family.
Diving into the cold New Jersey ocean is a feeling I still savor (I am a Water Baby after all), but what I love most about family beach week is being the vacation chef. Planning a menu of family meals that accommodate and entice everyone is a most satisfying form of problem solving. I consider my mom’s dietary restrictions, include nothing “too spicy” for young taste buds, and try to limit, or at least not mix in, whatever any of the four children currently have on their “I don’t like that” list.
At some point every day the kids will ask me, “Aunt Heather, what’s for dinner?” And once the evening’s menu is revealed, their next question will be, “Aunt Heather, can I help you?” The answer is always yes. I’ve made a point to include them in the process of cooking beginning as soon as each of them was old enough to move out of their high chair and join us at the table.
My tiny sous chefs will eagerly pull up to the kitchen counter to pluck herbs. They’re well-practiced at rolling uniformly golf ball-sized meatballs, and the oldest of the girls at age ten can now independently prepare a perfect vinaigrette after many years of helping make “Uncle Brad’s salad dressing”. That guy gets all the credit, but I don’t mind. I’m just happy to have companions in the kitchen.
I’m admittedly frustrated by all four kids’ collective aversion to tomatoes when it is peak season and I am desperate to share a perfect, salted heirloom slice that I am certain will convert them, but remain patient and hopeful this phase will pass. And to be fair, the four Marold children are very willing and interested eaters, with an affinity for fruits and vegetables. They’ll applaud a platter of roasted broccoli with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice, and only half of the green beans they help me snap are cooked to serve because they gobble every other bean fresh out of the bowl.
One summer, I got them all to take a bite of fresh, green seaweed that was washing in with the tide as we played on the shore. And when they responded with interest, we curiously popped the tiniest bits of jellyfish in our mouths. Unfortunately, this culinary exploration was not well-received by the other adults, especially once we had to tell one of my nieces to stop trying to eat things that washed up from the ocean for the rest of the week. But now I know that whenever the kids decide they like mushrooms, they’ll be game to join me foraging in the woods.
I remind myself that like most children, their palates are still evolving, and well-tuned to enjoy sugar. We adults help to feed their sweet cravings, and happily join in the pleasure, with crumb cake from the local bakery and ice cream cones or sundaes for dessert. But we’re also introducing the kids to spice with our annual “Hot Ones” tradition, an evening of grilled chicken wings where we pass bottles of increasingly hot sauces around the table. Ice cubes and chocolate milk are at the ready for relief as we collectively suffer from insane Scoville counts. Thanks to this, it’s actually been a while since anyone has pulled the “too spicy” card on me.

As the week winds down and we prepare to pack and return to our individual homes, there is always a final sunset swim on Friday night, and a family meal where we recount all the favorite things we’ve eaten throughout the week as we feast.
This year Chris grilled clams as I prepared garlic butter and a pasta bathed in a rich ragu. I made the sauce using meaty scraps saved from the week’s previous meals, fortified with a pound of uncased sausage rescued from the depth of my freezer, simmered with tomatoes, onions, and a splash of wine in my instant pot while we enjoyed our last day at the beach. My South Philly butcher shop customers would call this gravy.
A green, leafy salad, as well as heirloom tomatoes accompanied by fresh mozzarella and basil, and Brad’s bread warmed on the grill for dipping and sopping were served on the side. The prize for any kid bravely tasting a grilled clam was an extra piece of fresh mozzarella cheese, plucked from the Caprese salad. Three out of four took the bait, although only my oldest nephew asked for more. That’s still progress. I’ll take it.
Time is fleeting, and one day the kids will all be adults, willing that the ocean to wash their real-life distractions away for just one week to make room for pleasure. I’m not sure they’re mature enough to have caught the message when we crowded together in the living room for a screening of “Ferris Bueller's Day Off”, but it wasn’t lost on me: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
I want to always remember my nieces and nephew in my family’s shared happy place, where I am reminded each day as we face the surf hand-in-hand, and they jockey for positions next to me at the dinner table, how lucky I am to be one of their important people. And as I catch them looking up to me, I want them to always remember me like I am during beach week, free to dance on the deck after dinner, my oldest niece proudly stating “Aunt Heather has all the moves!”, while we all cut loose.
Beach Reads
Assigned summer reading lists back in grade school days, to be completed before returning to school each fall, were a gift rather than a homework-like burden to me. I eagerly awaited book fairs as a child, had personal relationships with librarians, picked my college courses by seeing what reading had been assigned at the campus bookstore, and have read myself to sleep most nights of my adult life. I truly love reading books.
While I am a devoted reader of fiction, lately I’ve been on a decidedly non-fiction culinary kick. I was half-way through an excellent recommendation, Eat Like a Fish: My Adventures Farming the Ocean to Fight Climate Change by Bren Smith, when I was interrupted too many times at the start of the week with my family. In need of a story that would swallow me up, I paused from reading about seaweed farming and grabbed The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave from my sister in law. She tore through a borrowed copy on her first few days of beach reading, and I followed suit.
Rife with distractions like swimming and snacking while surrounded by continuous conversation, vacation is always a welcome excuse to abandon any goals for consuming books from my must-read list and opt instead for stories that simply make you want to turn the next page. If you’re looking to fill out your own summer reading list, here are some of my favorite authors (who have all been seen on The New York Times Best Seller list) for great beach reads:
Taylor Jenkins Reid novels, which tend to weave themes of fame and family, appear on every major list for good reason. I can’t ever put them down. You may know her from the Amazon Prime series adaptation of Daisy Jones and the Six (this one’s for you if you’re a fan of good old rock and roll), but I’d recommend Malibu Rising, a surf-filled family drama, to anyone looking for a good story while your toes are in the sand. Her most recent novel, Carrie Soto is Back (on theme if you’re watching the Olympics), had me up way too late night after night rooting for the heroine to make her comeback.
Not for the faint of heart, as every one of her novels will at some point make you cry, but I promise you won’t be able to tear yourself away from any book by Kristin Hannah. My favorites to date are The Nightingale, a story set during the Nazi occupation of France in WW2, and The Four Winds, a heart-wrenching tale of a family trying to survive the Dust Bowl that is an eerie reminder that the threats of climate change are not new. My mom ignored us for hours at a time turning the pages of Firefly Lane, which she brought on vacation. Even the badge checker at our beach entrance was reading Hannah. We all three agreed we couldn’t wait to enjoy her newest title, The Women, which is currently waiting on my nightstand.
I adore Emily Henry for an easy escape, who is perhaps my guiltiest pleasure when it comes to a true Beach Read, the title of one of my favorite novels of hers. I first encountered her when I impulsively picked up and read Book Lovers, and then went on to tear through People We Meet on Vacation. While the titles might sound a bit too on the nose, I promise these contemporary romance novels are smart and fun, with charming female leads that you’re likely to fall in love with.
I’ll note that this may be the most feminine-leaning set of reading recommendations I’ve shared, but in the interest of suggesting something for everyone, if you’re the sci-fi/fantasy type, I can tell you I’ve all but lost Brad to the series of Dungeon Crawler Carl books. And when it comes to thrillers, a genre in which I only dabble, I can whole-heartedly endorse The Island by Adrien McKinty, a story of a true nightmare vacation, as an excellent beach read.
What Are You Reading?
Part of my brain is always tugging me back to my list of books that serve a purpose, but I only need to turn my face to the warm sunshine to remind myself that these relaxed days of deep summer will be gone soon. For a few more weeks, I should probably read for pure joy, and I’d love to get your recommendations to restock my queue.
I hope you all catch a sweet summer moment with your toes in the sand, or the grass if you’re inland, and a good book in your hand. Be sure to wear sunscreen!
Thanks for reading and just being here.
XX,
Heather
PS. Check out my bookshop.org shop, where you’ll find links for my recommended beach reads along with all the books I’ve mentioned in past Hungry Heart newsletters.
Greetings Heather, I came across your Substack after listening to you on The Enlightened Omnivore podcast, great interview!
My readings this summer include “Remembrance Of Things Paris, Sixty Years of Writing From Gourmet” by Ruth Rachael. Also I’m enjoying “The Geography of Bliss” by Eric Weiner.
Thank you
Bernie
I enjoyed reading this so much and I love that the kids will read this one day and know just how much it meant to you / us all. It's precious on so many levels. 😍