My daughter Abby, now college-aged, was alone for most of the summer working in Chicago, so when she came home to New York for a very short time before she had to go back to school, I asked her an important question: What do you need to eat while you’re here?

Since she was last home, a new bagel shop in our neighborhood has been causing a stir in the family group chat, so I assumed she wanted to know what all the fuss was about. I also figured she’d head straight to Joe’s for steamed rice rolls or make a pilgrimage to Sal & Carmine’s for her favorite New York staple. But her response—and I swear I didn’t pay her to say this—was, “I want to eat at home.”

As it turned out, what she missed most were home-cooked meals, especially the foods she associated with summer: tomato sandwiches, blueberry pancakes, grilled salmon salad, veggie burgers and Oklahoma-style burgers cooked over sautéed onions.

Tomato slice salad with feta. Potato salad with dill. Corn on the cob with butter. S’mores.

It goes without saying that I could identify with the task of completing the Last Gasp Summer Checklist, and we managed to get quite a few of them completed before sending them off to school earlier this week.

What’s on your last-minute summer checklist? What do you want to get done before Labor Day?

PS: Dinner to go and five things to make with corn, tomatoes, or both.