We've got a short (supposedly/hopefully) heat wave cooking the Bay Area this weekend, and while talking about it with a friend living in a far distant (and currently much cooler) country, I mentioned how odd the weather is here. It's extremes, in terms of summer heat. The
average summertime high here is about 81 for the three hot months (July, August, Sept), and it's sunny and about that warm almost every day. But when we get a heat wave, it's never like, 87, or 90, for a week. It's usually 81 one day, then 102 the next two or three, before one day of cooling as it's 88, and then we're back to 74 for 3 weeks.
It's quite possible that this is just perception/confirmation bias on my part, since I notice when it's 100, but can mostly ignore the discomfort of highs that peak in the upper 80s. But so far this summer, it's been true. There were 2 days of 100+ temps earlier this month (mercifully, they struck and departed while I was in Hawaii), with temps in the 70s for weeks before and after. Since then it's been very nice, mid-70s highs, until suddenly on Saturday it was 102, and still hot today, with a high around 98. It's 86 in my living room right now, almost dark outside as I type this @ 8:49pm.
Tomorrow's forecast? 81, with 70s for the rest of the week.
Shortly after talking to my friend about this phenomena I was surfing some weather sites (which I only do in the summer when driven by heat) and saw this map on weather.com, which I liked since it confirmed my unscientific perception. I live right where that 15 is on the left coast.
Admittedly, that sort of large scale map is fairly useless for the precise forecasts required anywhere within 20 miles of the California coast. The Pacific is large and very cold, and as a result temps change radically as you move away from it. Everyone's heard the famous Mark Twain quote about which summer was the coldest winter of his life. Twain was comedically exaggerating, but he had a point;
one not demonstrated by the daily high/low temperature reports. San Francisco isn't freakishly cold in the summer; it's the rapid changes that make it crazy. It's often 80+ and sunny in the late afternoon, by dark there's a western wind, clouds are scudding overhead, and by dusk it's 55, damp, and the wind makes it feel 10 degrees colder.
We don't get that kind of change in San Rafael in the North Bay, but I could move 5 miles southwest and see my daily highs drop 10-15 degrees, or move 10 miles northeast and swelter in 90+ every day of the summer.
One benefit of the heat other than growth spurts for my already towering front porch tomato plantation; I'm certainly getting my money's worth out of the blender that was a self gift on my b-day. I've had 4 large glasses of blended fruit liquids so far today, had about 6 yesterday, and haven't done fewer than 2 or 3 any day since the blender came home with me on the 20th. (The usual blended batch makes 2 or 3 glasses full.) This consumption rate will likely hold up until the temperature drops, the novelty wears off, or my lower digestive tract rebels.
Sadly, for the analytical, experimenting aspect of my nature, I've got no recipes to report yet. I blender like I stir fry or make stew/soup; I throw a lot of stuff I like in together and hope for the best, with the proportions changing every time. I have tried to be slightly scientific with the blender recipes, but it's not worked out that well. When I try to just do strawberries/yogurt/milk, or just OJ/pineapple/raspberries, I get something tasty, but too distinctive of individual flavors. The best mixtures contain a bit of everything.
Today's was great. A lot of orange juice, a splash of mango/peach juice, 8 ice cubes, a big glass of frozen strawberries (get the 6 pound bag at Costco), several cubes of frozen pineapple, several more of frozen papaya, a shake of blueberries for color, about 2oz. of gin, and a small dish of pineapple sorbet (mostly for the thickening texture it gives). Blended to a slush. It was more liquid than most, since I wanted to drink, not eat it during the hot afternoon. Still, the second and third glasses of it benefited from their time in the freezer while I sipped the first glass.
I suppose I'll have to do some solid food later tonight, once it cools down enough to contemplate eating, much less cooking. Shrimp quesadillas perhaps. I'm going to the gym as soon as I hit post on this one, and 2 hours of cardio + weights should earn me the right to indulge on whatever I wish for dinner.
Labels: cooking, weather
