The Beach War

How cooking saved the family's beach vacations.

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With few exceptions, my family rented a house at the New Jersey shore every year for the last week of August. Dad loved everything about it: The opportunity to fish whenever he wanted and the fish he never caught, the rub of salt on his browning skin, the way the sun melted the year’s burdens away. Mom hated it: Her fair Irish skin blistered and her curly hair kinked; she was afraid of drowning in the ocean. She preferred the cool green of the Pocono Mountains, where she believed in the possibility that, by merely reading all day under the thick shade of old trees, serenity would descend upon her.

I can only remember us going to the mountains once, and the tension between my parents tightened a little more every year. Why she gave into Dad so often when she prevailed in nearly everything else concerning family life remains one of the deep mysteries of their marriage. She was not one to suffer in silence, though, and eventually each year at the shore lengthened the time she spent sitting at the rented house’s kitchen table drinking rather than joining her family at the beach.

My brother and sister and I can tell many fraught stories of these later beach vacations, and yet they’ve never shattered the glory of being by the ocean in late summer. Part of the reason is Dad’s joy and great sense of humor that, even in the later years, would often break through to Mom. An arguably greater part of the ocean’s pull for us is how food assuages so many sorrows in life. Even in her misery she always satisfied her family’s hunger caused by a day of being pummeled by the sea and heat, lips salt crusted, skin sand blasted. We’d drag home from the beach and wash under the outdoor shower. By the time we all gathered around the picnic table, Mom would have brought out her huge pot of spaghetti sauce deeply flavored by a chunk of pork and thick with meatballs, sweet and hot sausages, or a platter of thin pork chops buried under barbeque sauce, or baked potatoes stuffed with onions in a tight aluminum package and grilled alongside corn and steaks. Clams casino, baked bluefish, and crab cakes rounded out the week.

It’s difficult to imagine what Mom’s mountain lineup would have been. Her children were too young, or memories too weak, to recall what we ate during those one or two visits. In any case, my parents’ war resolved itself after their children claimed their independence. They steered clear of the sea and the mountains and, instead, traveled a couple of times across country and once to visit relatives in Ireland. Mom never cooked on those trips. They ate out.

Mom’s Crab Cakes

3/4 cup thick mayonnaise

1/4 cup sour cream

2 tablespoons whole-grain mustard, such as Maille Whole Grain

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 lbs lump crabmeat, picked over to remove cartilage

About 1/4 cup neutral oil

lemon wedges

Whisk together the mayonnaise, sour cream, mustard, and egg in a mixing bowl. Fold in the crabmeat.

Gently form the mixture into four thick cakes. Press down a bit to ensure the thickness is even. Slightly oil a baking sheet. Transfer cakes to the baking sheet and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Take the crab cakes out of the refrigerator and put into the preheated oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Run a spatula under them once or twice to make sure they’re not sticking. When the bottom of the cakes are lightly golden, place them under a broiler for about 2 to 3 minutes, or until the tops are lightly brown. Remove from broiler and let stand for 5 minutes. Serve with lemon wedges.