Toni Morrison said: "All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was." I can't help but think that there is something in this story from Gisele Perez of Pain Perdu Blog that keeps her heart flowing back to the roots of her childhood home. New Orleans has mythical allure, once its waters flow through your veins–  dams and levees are pointless. Keeping Cool on St. Anthony Street.

Many of my childhood summer vacations were spent in New Orleans- the city my family left when I was 6 years old- visiting my father’s family. All of my mother’s family had already moved to Los Angeles. When I asked her why they left, she responded “I was the last one in my family to go.”

We stayed between the two houses my grandfather built next door to each other almost 100 years ago in the Creole section of the city. My Aunt Leticia and her family lived in one, and my unmarried aunt, Nanny Marion lived in the other.

Aunt Leticia married the boy across the street, my Uncle JuJune, and after their wedding he moved into the house where she had grown up. Uncle JuJune’s sister stayed in his childhood home with her family, so in the evenings, after washing the dishes, Aunt Leticia would sit on the front porch, cooling off with a glass of lemonade and talking across the street with her sister in law and the other neighbors.

Summer doesn't just sneak up on us like spring does. It bounds in like a proud peacock, its profusion in full display. How it knows just when to bestow its gifts is lovingly contemplated by Lana Watkins of the food blog Bibberche, who recalls that summer arrives just as the Strawberry Alarm Clock chimes. Deliciously reminding us that "bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed." Samuel Johnson      GREG

I don't know exactly how it happens, but on a particular night every year, a thousand pale yellow buds burst open on the linden trees lining our quiet street in Serbia, sending the smell of summer on the light breeze, weaving around lacy curtains and squeezing through the window slats until it reaches me, gently tickling my nose until I smile in my sleep. The next morning I jump out of bed, open the windows all the way, and breathe in the sweet scent that promises the end of school and the beginning of another carefree and luxurious summer.

Mother comes home from the market, her pretty face flushed from walking too fast and carrying heavy canvas bags in each hand. She carefully places the produce, still warm from the sun, on the kitchen table, turning the tablecloth back, careful not to get it soiled from the dirt still clinging to the roots and leaves. The color of the Serbian farmers market in spring is lusciously green, ranging from the almost fluorescent hue of crisp fresh peas, to the light tinge of the bibb lettuces, to fresh grassy colored scallions, to darker bunches of spinach, and even darker parsley loosely bound with pink rubber bands.

Maya Angelou said, "Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives".  Endurance and fortitude go hand-in-hand in most every childhood. The lessons we learn as children and the tools we use for finding our way in the world are precious gifts that come wrapped in surprising packages. Gwen Pratesi of Bunky Cooks shows us that thriving with the gifts we are given is what makes us accomplished adults. GREG   

 I am flattered that Greg asked me to do a guest post while he is in Norway (I assume my Smoked Salmon and Jarlsberg are in the mail. ;)).  He asked me to do a guest post about my summers growing up in Pennsylvania instead of writing about food or posting a recipe.  I have to admit that I was a little apprehensive.  My summers were not what you would consider traditional for most children, although I had my fair share of fun playing outdoors with friends, time at the beach and road trips to visit family.

It seems to me that our society has changed dramatically over the past 20 years. There was a time when people kept their personal lives, well... personal. Today, we have opened our lives for everyone to see, especially when we write a blog.  Perhaps we can attribute this to Reality TV, or perhaps Reality TV is a product of these changes in attitude.  With that in mind, let me try to open up a little bit and share some of my childhood experiences from summer "vacations".

There is an Italian saying: "Una bedda jurnata nun fa stati". One beautiful day doesn't make a summer. But if you are Amelia Pane Schaffner a childhood filled with beautiful summers makes for Z Tasty Life. My summer series today takes us to Sorrento, Amalfi coast, Italy…circa 1970s. GREG

My summers were wild, fragrant, filled with adventure, arts and sea…very, very free.

Barefoot was the standard. Skinny dipping at midnight under the shooting stars was what you did in August. Five people –plus a dog– piled-up in a 1960 VW Beatle open convertible (with no seatbelts) singing “yesterday” was how you got to the beach. Dancing in the rain was encouraged. Camping in the garden behind the house was allowed and staying up with the grownups while they danced and sang was how I got to peek into the mysterious world of adulthood.

My parents surrounded themselves with all sorts of artists (dancers, musicians, painters, writers, bon-viveurs and many species of life-lovers) and threw these magical parties that might last for a whole week-end. My sister, my brother and I would sneak under the tables or staircase to observe; our experience knit into a fabric of splendid humanness, vitality, and conversations.

"I been workin' here at The DQ for about, um... eight months? Seven? I don't know, somethin' like that, it's fun. Just do the cones... make sundaes, make Blizzards, 'n... put stuff on 'em, 'n... see a lot of people come in, a lot of people come to The DQ... burgers... ice cream... anything, you know? Cokes... just drive in and get a Coke, if you're thirsty". In WAITING FOR GUFFMAN, the smartest movie ever made, Libbie Mae Brown comes to grips with the disappointments of her life, when she says: "I'll always have a place at the Dairy Queen". Here Adair Seldon from Lentil Breakdown tries in her own savvy way to get back to The DQ with The Lick-Your-Bowl-Clean Plantain Banana Split. GREG

Don’t hate me because I’m white trash. Just ‘cause a young Texas girl liked Dairy Queen banana splits, that doesn’t make her a hick. I don’t even have an accent, y’all. Some people just have humble beginnings.

Back when gas was cheap and skies were blue, my parents would take us three kids on summer vacations in our gold Oldsmobile Delta 88. From Dallas, we’d drive somewhere every year—west to the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone or the Rocky Mountains; east to New Orleans or the Smoky Mountains; or maybe north to Lake of the Ozarks. The USA was our playground, and we valiantly marked our turf. En route, we’d stop at some oases along the highway like Stuckey’s—you know, the place with the big yellow sign with red type that said, Home of the World Famous Pecan Log Roll. I wondered just how world famous it really was. Would a Zulu tribesman know of this cylindrical, nut-encrusted treat? Once in a while we’d venture into a Howard Johnson’s restaurant for some ice cream. My favorite flavor was the apple strudel with pie crust in it. That was a novelty, before the advent of the mix-in. I should have seen it coming. But more often we’d stop at that southern fixture known as Dairy Queen.