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Now I'm loving cherries, apricots, and nectarines.

As a kid, I also like summer fruit but also ice cream sandwiches, Carvel vanilla soft serve with chocolate sprinkles, and Carvel ice cream cake with pink roses.

Jon Foxx--I hear you!

Corn on the cob is my FAVORITE! I think I liked it as a kid, but then I got braces and it was corn OFF the cob and I don't think I appreciated it nearly as much. But these days? I will run to the store every day if it means I can have some corn for a summer dinner.

I think my favorite childhood food were those push pops--the frozen ice-sugar Popsicles that were in long thin plastic sleeves and you pushed it up as you ate it. Does anybody else remember/still eat these?!

While growing up, definitely shave ice. As a child, I enjoyed rainbow shave ice. Then in high school, I was introduced to shave ice from a Vietnamese shave ice store, and I never looked back. I love my shave ice with lilikoi syrup, taro and condensed milk. Ahh.

I still crave it, but haven't bothered to make it. My awesome shave ice machine broke, and I can't find one that shaves ice as thin as this did. When I visit home, regardless of what time of year actually, I make an effort to get some.

I love watermelon and corn, then and more so now -- not together though.

Corn on the Cob! Can't be beat...Childhood and now.

Can't leave out the summer fruits though. Watermelon, peaches, plums, nectarines...Mmmm. A favorite snack of mine is: slice up a peach put it in a bowl, pour some milk, a little bit of sugar = YUMMY. My mom made it for me as a child and I love it today still. Kinda like peaches and cream.:) But not as bad for you.

Oh yea-soft serve ice cream too. Mmmm

I grew up in northwestern Ohio, where corn on the cob rules. The corn there has meatier kernels and it isn't as sweet as Jersey corn, and I still prefer that. My family would get 20 ears for two dollars and we'd shuck and boil the corn and eat that with a platter of herbed tomatoes and call it dinner. Come August, I'll be doing that here in Manhattan, thanks to the Union Square Greenmarket.

When I was a child - cherries and apricots. Fresh peas, eaten straight from the pod. Also, because we usually spent summers at our grandparents', and my Gran was both a fantastic cook and a brilliant baker - all kinds of baked goods:-). Not your usual summer fare, I know, but still. And ice cream, of course - my favourite favour at the time being coffee/mocha.

Come to think of it, I still love all those things (unfortunately, I have to settle for sweet memories of my Gran's cooking and baking). I'm still quite fond of cherries, apricots and fresh peas, although I definitely favour pistachio ice cream these days:-). Oh, and grilled pretty much anything. My favourite summertime dinner is something grilled - shrimp, sausage, burgers, hot dogs - whatever, with either a simple salad of mixed greens, or an Israeli salad.

Hot dogs on the grill.
Good Humor Ice Cream.
Potato Salad.
Blueberries.

The Ice Cream man! Strawberry Shortcake bar. Push pops Yeah!
Now, fresh fruit and vegetables and salads, anything grilled. Oh yeah
Pistachio Ice Cream a must.

push pops, corn on the cob, and strawberry shortcake.mmmmm

Watermelon with a teensy bit of salt
Jersey corn, I like it cooked directly on the grill...with some charred kernels, YUMM!!!
A jersey tomato and good buffalo mozzarella sandwich
Orange & white custard from Kohr brothers on the Boardwalk
Ditto a big, fat slice of Boardwalk pizza. (Sunburn required)

Ohh...and the smell of sausage and pepper sandwiches at S"l"easide! :)

Ok, so I think corn on the cob is a universal summer treat. We loved OtterPops. The brightly colored, plastic-encased frozen treats. :) I saw a box of 200 at Costco!

so from childhood, my summer food of choice--or at least memory--has gotta be those push-pops you buy by the gross(i think) in supermarkets. i don't know what they're called, but they're sold in liquid form in sealed plastic wraps, and are basically just sugar water that's then frozen. it's wholly unfathomable that there's anyone who's not had them, i think(or maybe this is just a southern thing?)
favorite summer food these days is probably iced coffee. the fact that, as a coffee shop employee, i get it for free doesn't hurt either.

Leaf-lettuce sandwiches. We had a huge garden, and my 3 rows were radishes (nearly instant gratification), carrots, and leaf lettuce. I haunted the lettuce row, and as soon as there was enough, plucked it, washed it (sort of) and produced my favorite early/late summer treat: piles of fresh lettuce leaves & mayo on hard- crusted Italian bread. Slippery and sublime. Best eaten in the garden. That my sister thought them gross enhanced their appeal.

Now-Gazpacho made from all local produce. I make it by the gallon with whatever the farmer's market has available. Love, love, love it.

Then-Blueberries. My mother's family was from the 'Fruit Belt of Michigan' and every summer we'd get a huge box of blueberries delivered to our house sent by one of my aunts. It seemed like a huge extravagance at the time (late 60s) to get blueberries in the mail. My sisters and I would wait for the postman every day and fight over who got to bring the box into the house.

Peaches and strawberries have always been a favorite. Then, as in now, I eat unreasonable amounts of peaches and sometimes get tummyaches. As a kid, my favorite frozen treat was probably frozen yogurt (not this "healthy" yogurt-tasting kind, but the super-sweet soft-serve kind, most likely chocolate, with sprinkles and m&ms and things). I don't do the sweets anymore, but still love fruit - and cherries vie with strawberries as my favorite. I could eat a pound a day. I can't wait 'til they show up at the market!

My grandmother always made ice cream with the fresh peaches. In the old ice-cream maker with the rock salt and the wooden sides that one had to crank until one had an embollism. But there really is no other ice cream that touches Nana's fresh peach ice cream.

Summer meals were often a delicious tomato salad (sliced tomatoes topped with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and salt/pepper) with sweet corn cobs on the side. I still am a huge fan of tomato salad, but now I shell out big bucks to get heirloom tomatoes :-)

We also made tomato sandwiches - slice of american, slice of tomato and mayo - but I don't eat those much at all anymore, since I don't buy processed cheese like that.

As a kid, summer meant hamburgers on the grill with fresh tomatoes from the garden, watermelon, corn on the cob, and Lucky Charms when we went camping. But the absolute best were the cherry tomatoes, plucked right from the vine and rinsed with the hose.

Tomatoes are still pretty high on the summer list as an adult!

When I was a kid, it was all about tomato sandwiches. I loved those things. Watermelon (preferably eaten while swimming at the beach) was a close second.

As an adult, I still love tomato sandwiches and watermelon, but summer has instead become all about the peaches. I love fresh peaches, and try to eat my fill of them every summer. I never even come close.

Cherries, nectarines, all kinds of berries, fresh corn on the cob, tomatoes. Uncle Louie G's Italian ices!

When it was too hot to cook inside, my aunt (originally from Alabama) would put the camp stove out on the picnic table under the big tree and deeo fry the fish that had been caught in May and June, then filleted and frozen. She would make hushpuppies with buttermilk and onions in them that I loved and that I still make to this day.

Also, ice cream floats made with vanilla ice cream and root beer or Vernors Ginger Soda (I think Vernors is regional so those of you not from the midwest may not know what it is.)

Definitely Rita's Water Ice or Vanilla cone from the Mr. Softee truck w/ rainbow jimmies, cherries and of course jumbo Freeze pops! I think I'm going to serve freeze pops at my 4th of July cook-out!

My current fave is "Tomayo" sandwiches. I ate those for every meal two weeks straight last year. But I go through the summer according to what's in season; the loss of one food ending mitigated by the arrival of another. The strawberries are now coming in so I'll be eating those en masse until the blueberries and cherries (I eat both like candy or chips, in a bowl all day long as much as I want), then zucchini, fresh cranberry beans, and tomatoes. One of the things I just discovered and love is Spring Green Garlic. I've been eating the green tops raw with a sprinkle of good salt. I've also been itching for my tomatillo chili (corn, peppers, cranberry beans, toms) but that's not till August (not long now). I also love sticks of cucumber, watermelon, jicama, with a sprinkle of hot chile powder or a diced watermelon salad with mint, lime and onions (I don't know why but it works).

When I was a kid there was a restaurant down the street that made its own ice cream (I so miss that kind of treasure) and had several unique flavors. My choice was always a double scoop of cantaloupe and black licorice (I don't know why but it worked too).

THEN: S'mores and roasted bananas filled with chocolate chips and marshmallows - Girl Scout inspired.

NOW: White corn on the cob, beefsteak tomatoes, peaches and frozen custard (Hank's at Conneaut Lake - YUM!).

My favourite meal that my Gran'mere made for me as a quickie lunch was a cucumber sandwich sprinkled with salt and pepper on buttered wholewheat bread accompanied by a glass of cold (diary not Nestles Quik) chocolate milk. I ate this on the hot back porch steps next to the hollyhocks. This is a memory 'set in crystal' and I relish that meal as I think about it now.

Fresh cherries, watermelon, popsicles...then and now.

Remember those frozen cream pies made by companies like Pet Ritz, etc.? They had a graham crust, a creamy filling and some type of whippy topping? I absolutely loved when my mom would pull one of those out of the freezer on a hot summer day to thaw for dessert. I was happiest when it was still mostly frozen. It's been years since I had a slice and I doubt that I'd still like them, but as a kid, I was in seventh heaven on pie days. It didn't matter if it was lemon, banana, coconut or chocolate. I did not discriminate. :)

From my hot and steamy St. Louis childhood summers:

barbecued ribs, made in the old stone grill in our back yard
watermelon
Corn on the cob
tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes...
"Bomb pops" from the ice cream man

and frozen custard from Ted Drewes! (Preferably a hot fudge sundae, jumbo size!).