This weekend is my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary (congratulations mom and dad!), so along with my sister and her family, we’re all meeting up in Cape Cod for a celebratory weekend.    We used to make a pilgrimage there every year — before it became the tourist logjam it is now — so my childhood summer memories are inexorably tied to the Cape.  Our favorite town was Orleans, and I can still taste all the delicious things we used to eat:

1) Chicken fingers and kale soup at Kadee’s

2) Ice cream at Sundae School

3) Onion rings at Nauset Beach (crispy and shoestring thin — the perfect beach grub)

4) French onion soup at Brown Bag (where my parents loved the crockery so much that they mortified my sister and me by asking the restaurant to sell us a few soup bowls.)

5) Crabs from Skaket Beach.  (The beach used to be full of crabs — big ones — and you could scoop ‘em right into a bucket.   We would cook them up right away and eat them with vinegar.  Sometimes the simplest of dishes taste the best.)

That’s the Cape I remember:  Beaches, sand dunes, saltwater taffy, drive-in movies and great food.

What are your nostalgic summer foods?