Spike Lee threw a Brooklyn birthday tribute party for Michael Jackson on Saturday and we went as it was right in our neighborhood in Prospect Park. The day was supposed to be a wash with heavy rainfall, but aside from a few sprinkles, it ended up being a great day for an outdoor party, celebrating the music, singing and dancing along to thousands and thousands of other MJ fans. I loved watching everybody – and I mean everybody – from 4 year olds to the police that were there watching over the crowd, sing along. There was a lot of Brooklyn pride that afternoon and August 29th is officially Michael Jackson Day in Brooklyn as declared by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz (yeah, Al Sharpton was there too). And Mia? I can see it now. You know the girl who gets up on a table to dance at a party? I can see that being her in 15 years. She so desperately wanted to be in the middle of any dance circle we came across, especially after seeing another 5 year old girl bust out the Michael moves in a big way. Girl is a ham, what can I say.

We’ve been back in Brooklyn all week, but I think my fondest memory of our week away was the evening we stumbled upon a boat race, quite accidentally, on one of our evening walks. The normally quiet town beach was littered with people, drinks and chairs. It’ll come as no surprise that Mia made friends right away – she has a knack for walking straight up to strangers and striking up a conversation, something that the rest of us in the family aren’t inclined to do. But when the boats started coming into the finish line one after another, 20 or so in a line, we all cheered together. Turns out that this is a weekly event…just because. It was nice to spend some time getting to know the local town people who lived there year round. Lucky folks.

We didn’t do so well in keeping up with our after-dinner evening walks in the city, but it was so much easier to get out of the house at the beach when we didn’t have life and work in the way. There’s something about the ocean air and breeze that motivates you out the door. The light is different and shifts continuously. Many of the houses in the town of New Suffolk are as old as the mid-1800s and many have retained some of the original details like the interior doors and door handles. We got to see the inside of one such house on one of our walks when Mia befriended a little toddler boy who came running out into his front yard with nothing on but underwear over his diapers. Turns out he had a 6 year old sister so we had a little impromptu evening playdate. Mia makes new friends wherever she goes.

Who knew there were lavender fields on Long Island? But I guess if the North Fork is wine country it makes sense. This is my first time on a lavender field and the smell is intoxicating! The minute we stepped out of the car the fragrance enveloped us and the girls were both in flower heaven. After a summer of “don’t pick those flowers!” whenever we are in the city, they can finally pick all the flowers they want. Highly recommended if you’re out in the North Fork. I don’t know how crowded it gets, but we went on a weekday and had the field all to ourselves.

Seems as if Claudine is reacting sensitively to certain things again. One day she was excited and thrilled to go on the carousal in Greenport, a town not too far away from where we were staying, and then 2 days later on a return trip back, I noticed that she was walking sluggishly toward the entrance with her head bowed down. I thought she was just acting goofy as she is prone to doing these days, but I when I asked her if she was excited to go back to the merry-go-round again, she immediately covered her ears with her fingers and started freaking out. Very strange. It’s been happening more often too, when things that are “scary” come on TV or when she randomly hears or is expecting to hear a loud noise. Sometimes she overcomes it – she found Jack Black to be extremely frightening when he guest starred on Yo Gabba Gabba and she’d turn her head away, cover her ears and look elsewhere until he left the screen, but now she finds him funny and is constantly asking us “You know what Jack Black can do?” while doing this one dance move. But like the carousal thing? I don’t get it when one day she is fine with something and the next she is not. It seems to have magnified ever since we tried taking her to the movie theater. Great, looks like we traumatized her from that experience!

Spending a week right in the middle of farm country means that tomatoes and fresh, sweet corn are just about as good as they get right now. After picking up a pound of Peconic bay scallops from the local fish store, I decided they all would make a nice succotash. Succotash usually refers to a dish that includes corn and beans of some kind and occasionally tomatoes. I skipped the beans and added bacon in its place. It was almost the perfect seasonal meal – Long Island scallop season is actually from November to March so the ones I bought were frozen, but they were still almost as delicious as any scallop I’ve ever had. Even Claudine tried a piece, and it must have agreed with her because she wanted a few more.

Bay Scallop Succotash (Serves 4)

1 pound bay scallops
1 clove garlic, minced
zest of one lemon
4 slices of bacon, chopped
1/2 cup flour
3 Tablespoons butter
2 ears corn, kernels removed
1/4 cup white wine
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 large tomato, cut into 1-inch cubes
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons chopped parsley

Mix the scallops, garlic and lemon zest together in a bowl, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook until crisp. Remove the bacon from the skillet, leaving the fat, and set it aside. Mix the scallops and flour, then put them into the pan with the bacon fat, along with the butter. Cook for several minutes until golden, stirring once or twice. Stir in the corn and cook for another minute. Add the lemon juice and wine, stir for another 30 seconds. Finally, stir in the tomato and reserved bacon, season with salt and pepper, then stir in the parsley. Serve immediately.

Jenna: This dish was sooo good! But I think a large part of it had to do with the quality of the scallops and local corn.

I’ve played more monopoly the past few days than I care to count. And I don’t even like monopoly.

I love when Claudine asks for a nap, which she has done every afternoon we are home.

Mia saids she doesn’t want to go back to Brooklyn.

Brooklyn, indeed, does seem far away, but Claudine says she doesn’t want to live here. “I like Brooklyn. I saw a Chihuahua the other day”.

Some of you have asked where we’re staying. We’re at the North Fork of Long Island this week in a town called New Suffolk and it’s beach, farm and wine country around here. Since the early 70s, vineyards have been popping up all around the east end of Long Island and now there are over 50. It’s definitely a slower pace out here and the beaches aren’t crowded unlike some of the other public beaches in central Long Island where every little bit of sand seems occupied, but it’s also more rocky, with more seaweed, shells and marine life. Surpisingly, Claudine has not minded and she is loving every minute in the water.

The North Fork is also farm country and late August is blackberry, corn and peach season. Like any fruit picking trip, we ended up with waaaaay too many peaches. We’ve already made ice cream. Maybe we’ll make a pie. So has this trip been relaxing? Can’t really say with 2 kids. There’s still a lot of fighting and whining. It’s also making me rethink that maybe we should save our trip to Paris for when the kids are a little bit older. I don’t know, I’m still undecided.

I thought bedtimes were going to totally kick us in the ass, being as the kids were sleeping in a new environment and in bunk beds for the first time. We know what happens when they sleep together on the same mattress at my parent’s house, but surprisingly, they’ve gone to bed all 3 nights without a fuss or a peep. This bodes well for when we transition to bunk beds at home.

As hot as it was during these past few days, the beach cools down after 5 and remains my favorite time of day to go swimming. The light softens, the breeze picks up and the sky transforms into a show of colors as the sun goes down.

It’s really hot this week. I don’t do well in the heat. Good thing it’s about 5 degrees cooler out here than in the city, but it’s still feels stifling to me. The good news is that the water is warm enough to swim comfortably, but still cool enough to be refreshing. I forgot how much seaweed and interesting little sea life there is out here. The girls are quite curious about all the different seaweed that is laying around the beach, sometimes carrying around the big clusters like little cheerleading pom poms.