Summertime

By Cheryl Katz

Not to sound alarmist, but this is it—the last few moments in which to take full advantage of easy, breezy, sultry summer days. Sure, there are trips to the Cape or the Maine shoreline to be had in September, but there’s something about August that allows for more than a little gloriously lazy self-indulgence. It doesn’t take much, just a few accouterments to insure that it’s, in the immortal words of DuBose Heywood which George Gershwin set to music as an aria for the opera Porgy and Bess, “summertime and the livin’ is easy.”

Indulgence #1: Ice cream in paper cups, and lots of it.

Photos courtesy of Mark Weinberg for Food 52

Indulgence #2: Sweet iced tea, a cool breeze, and a nap in the hammock.

Photo courtesy of Sweet Bella

Photo courtesy of Remodelista

Indulgence #3: A game of badminton at the end of the day (and just before cocktails).

Photo courtesy of Terrain

Indulgence #4: An evening of luminaria and starlight.

Photo courtesy of James Ranson for Food 52