This summer the corn has been especially yummy – worth waiting for. As I write those words, I realize that I have written a fair amount about our favorite golden vegetable in the last 21 years. Let’s just say I’m biased about the buttery, yummy stuff.

My mother loved corn on the cob and she taught me how to eat it – old-fashioned typewriter style: Bite into 3 or 4 rows, work that stripe to the end, before returning to the beginning and another 4-row stripping of the luscious niblets. We joked about waiting for the bell to ring at the end of the cob before going back to the beginning – like an old-fashioned typewriter.

When I grew up and watched other people take a bite and work it around the cob, I just stared. Don’t they know that is ethically wrong? Corn eating is not an amateur sport. There is only one way to eat those golden ears! I was taught by an expert.

Dear Richard does not eat his corn in an orderly fashion. That discovery was very unsettling. He leaves enough on the cob to feed a small family. My leavings would starve a midnight raccoon. He never took typing lessons, so I guess it’s a lost cause. Come to think of it, neither did I, but I was taught by the expert author of “Eating ears in the land of Milk and Honey.”

A thousand years ago, when I was a first-time homeowner, I tried to grow corn. Well, I tried every important vegetable all at once. If I was going to dig up my back yard for a garden space, I might as well make it worthwhile. Right?

Wrong. I planted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, cucumbers, carrots and corn – one entire row of corn. Did my corn-expert mother tell me that I couldn’t grow corn that way? No. She was only an expert at shucking, cooking, buttering and chomping. Growing wasn’t in her textbook. I learned the hard way that one needs two rows of cornstalks – minimum – to assure a reaping of the ears. It’s one of those boy/girl/sex crops that is required to produce babies. I had beautiful, tall, very green stalks. Cob-less. But I wasn’t really surprised.

My carrots were only 3 to 4 inches long – and fat. The peppers were skinny and crooked while the cukes were fat and crooked. I didn’t master perfect veggie anything, although I always had enough cherry tomatoes to snack on while weeding … or checking for corn growth. Not one baby red ever made it to our table, but it was a 1000% success story compared to my corn crop. I’m an eater not a grower. I know my limits.

I now treasure decades of summer suppers on the deck – almost always with corn on the cob on the menu. The memories are from the prepping of the corn just as much as the eating. The first evening that I ran out of time for corn shucking before dinner guests arrived, I threw in the towel. After Richard made everyone a drink, I brought out the brown paper bag heavy with fresh-picked local corn. Everyone was required to peel an ear or two and I discovered the world’s best ice-breaker. Guests laughed and told family stories while stripping the ears with varying degrees of ability. Occasionally, the project produced extra kidding for those who handed in ears still bearing enough hair to sport a mullet. More laughter.

Last night we had friends for dinner on the deck. Because the weatherman announced a cool evening when the sun disappeared, I opted out of corn shucking and butter slathering. I recently tried a recipe for corn salad – and loved it. A product new to me called hot honey was the star ingredient in the dressing. It is honey infused with chili. Add some lime juice, olive oil and salt. Yum. Our unsuspecting guests enjoyed it and maybe they appreciated their niblets without the butter bath. More room for the blueberry pie.

But that was just a temporary change. We had what a good summer supper often is: fabulous local corn, baby back ribs, and potato or pasta salad – all followed by blueberry pie. With ice cream.

Oh, summer. Please don’t leave just yet. We have weeks of luscious sweet corn still ripening on the stalks. I’ll happily clean it out of my teeth each night while waiting for the longer corn season, from October to June. The popcorn and flannel pajamas season. Fuggedaboudit.

I’d much rather shuck, butter, chomp. And slurp. Sigh.

Marcy O’Brien can be contacted at Moby.32@hotmail.com.