Lasata and Fettuccine

Written By: Scarlett Delizia

 

“What is The Most Beautiful Thing In The World?” Jackie asked. “Peace!” answered her little sister. “Nope, Lasata”, said Jackie. Lasata was a Native American name for “place of peace”.

The family life of Jackie Kennedy in the Hamptons was a relatively peaceful time. I mean it was before JFK, before Dr. King’s march and before THE FUNERAL. Her late mom, Janet Lee, declared – like Christopher Columbus, a son of a shoe cobbler, who claimed to be a noble so he could talk to queen Isabella of Spain and other nobles – to be a descended from the glamorous American dynasty “Lees of Maryland”. Actually – to be honest with you – she was “the heiress” of the Irish potato famine and Jackie’s father Black Jack Bouvier III was well known as the “Major gambler”. In short, Jackie was born with the sense that the show must go on. She arrived with no luggage 6 weeks late in Southampton Hospital on July 28, 1929 on a hot “sauna” Sunday. She has cheekbones that she could cut glasses and her wide-set hazel eyes had already her famous wrinkles on the corner. She will become the most famous child born on the Wall Street on Ocean.

East Hampton was founded in 1648 by very strict farmers and fishermen to make their living, and not for freedom from English prisons. They had witches trials and devils coming to the Hamptons to take care of, but farming was the livelihood for most until the 20th century when the Hamptons began to attract the wealthiest families of the USA, in addition to artists, writers as a shelter from the city that never sleeps. Everyone came to buy piece of land but not to plant pumpkins for the Halloween. Sooooo the “Major gambler” in Lasata traced his family back to French aristocracy creating a fake noble coat of arms when they were from a more honorable family crest of hard workers tailors, maids and chimney sweepers.

Lasata, “the beloved house of Jackie” on Further Lane, was strategically situated near the ocean and the Maidstone Club, where the Bouviers had purchased a cabana in 1926. Jackie’s favorite holiday there was Memorial Day. She was singing like a bird: “Oh—to live by the sea is my only wish”. Enhanced by the unexpected breathiness of her voice (almost Marilyn-like).

Can you believe it? Jackie was happy in The Hamptons and Marilyn Monroe was also happy in the Hamptons.
Marilyn often said that the 2 years she spent living in Amagansett on the former potato farming of the relatives of Jackie (?) – that was at one time a working windmill – were the happiest in her life. Marilyn fell in love with playwright Arthur Miller becoming MMM (Marilyn Monroe Miller).
MMM was often seen driving Thunderbird around town with Hugo, their pet Basset Hound, vocalizing against wild turkeys: “Oh, Hugo, shut up!” That’s why we prefer breathy voices like Marilyn Monroe’s and Jackie’s in the Hamptons.

In Long Island, Marilyn walked on the beach and she admired Arthur as the fisherman of her life. She was so proud of him. He joked to go fishing her! She eats fish but she cried and suffered to see them “murdered”. It was this kind of sensitivity that Miller loved in a human being. “You are too sensitive Marilyn,” it was the Summer of 1957. Monroe walked around their mill house with a blue dress and a hot pink flower in feet. It was in this windmill that Marilyn learned how to cook home-made pasta. She used to roll up the pasta, to cut and then to hang fettuccine everywhere all around the house like lamps, or over the backs of chairs, or on the couches and tables and in the closets… drying them with a hairdryer. She was cooking for the first time in her life. For her Man. Nobody’s before was interested if she can cook “the Fettuccine Marilyn Monroe”.