Escape to the Beach....the Ritsy Beach (IV)

New Yorkers have quite a few options when choosing a beach. I’ve only been to a few, but my understanding is that Coney Island is the cheapest option, as you can get there with your Metro Card. Long Beach takes the same amount of time, but comes with the added cost of a train ticket. If you want to hang out with the rich and famous however, you go to the Hamptons.

I was invited to the Hamptons by a friend who had a random invitation from a high school classmate whose parent’s owned a house there. I didn’t know any of them very well, but an invitation to the Hamptons for the weekend is not something one takes lightly around these parts. I wanted to experience the glitz and glamour, so I enthusiastically agreed to go.

Summer weekends in New York City are pretty darn quiet. It’s easy to catch a cab and you can get from the upper west side to downtown in less than 20 minutes. There’s no need to make dinner reservations and concerts, shows, and other events rarely sell out. This is because summer weekends invoke a mass exodus of New Yorkers out of the city. Consequently, when the four of us were making our way out of Manhattan on Friday, we were faced with an unending line of bumper to bumper traffic.

The company was delightful however, and the conversation flowed from the proposed masque near Ground Zero to online dating to what kind of pie we were going to have for dessert the following night. Our hosts were a young married couple who met on J-Date. They were both as sweet and warm as the peach and blueberry pie we devoured Saturday night.

We got to East Hampton in just over three hours. Their house was close to town and had four large bedrooms plus a mother-in-law house and a sprawling backyard. It was a lovely piece of property, but it was hard to appreciate because every surface was overrun with clutter. Open bags of pretzels greeted us in the kitchen. There were bags of snack mix, chips, cereal, and a piece of aluminum with cooked chicken on the counter next to the sink. All of this was even more discerning because Victoria’s parents weren’t expected until later that night. This mess had been in this condition for an entire week. Ugh.

If the clutter wasn’t enough, there was a film of dirt over the every surface in the house. The counters and floors were simply dirty. The toilet looked like it had never been cleaned and in the mother-in-law house, where I stayed, it looked like there was a spill in the kitchen that simply never got cleaned up.

Remarkably, I didn’t see a single bug in my weekend there. Well, at least a live bug. There were some dead bugs lining my shower in the basement, but I just pretended I was camping. The water was hot, I kept telling myself. It could be worse.

The first night there, we went into town for dinner. We ate lobster, steamed clams with lemon and butter, swordfish, and fried mussels. We took our seafood feast to a local park and gazed out on the boats as we ate. It was delicious. We topped off the meal at a local ice cream shop where they made their waffle cones fresh out of real waffles! With a waffle iron! The smell was heavenly.

The following day, after stops to over-priced yuppie grocery stores and what will affectionately be called the “country pie store” (they had real chickens and rabbits out back!); we made our way to the beach. The beach was private and lovely. There were none of the Long Beach crowds and the water was crystal clear. I spent the day swimming, going for long walks, reading my book, and listening to the occasional podcast. It was very relaxing and almost seemed to make the trip worthwhile. We had packed a bunch of food, but by 6:00, were getting hungry, and reluctantly made our way back to the dirty house.

We stopped off at a local farm to grab some veggies for dinner – heirloom tomatoes, fresh corn and zucchini that had been picked that morning. A quick shower with the bugs and we all cooked an amazing dinner together. The food was truly remarkable, and it was almost possible to forget about the filth as we sipped silky wine and popped the occasional sweet tomato into our mouths. As we were finishing up preparations, Victoria’s parents returned from their day and joined us for dinner.

Dinner was a little chaotic with Victoria and her mother arguing about the messy house and people talking over each other around the circular table. The food, as it had been all weekend, was fantastic and we topped off the evening with a rousing game of Taboo. Nothing seems too bad when you’re playing board games….

I had to leave early the next day to get back to the city, and as I rode the Jitney through the grey drizzle of the morning, I reflected on the notoriety of the Hamptons. While the Hamptons are known for lovely beaches, beautiful, yet pretentious people, and high end shopping that rivals Rodeo Drive, my Hampton experience was the polar opposite. I will remember my Hampton experience as one with fresh, farm-grown food and warm, unassuming company. And I will remember being anxious to leave the Hamptons and return to the relative cleanliness…of New York City.