The even hotter part of the summer

In the continuing saga of the broken AC, first the AC guy came Monday morning. It was astonishingly fast after I had called them, but he couldn’t fix it – he said it’s an electrical problem (cost: $125). The electrician came Tuesday morning – I had a moment of being in a Firesign Theatre album, Waiting for the Electrician. The electrician fixed what he could, and then it was an AC problem again. They came back Thursday and the verdict was they need to order a part that won’t be here till Monday, when the heat is supposed to be over and the high will in the 70s and down to the 50s at night. Of course.

The house is a two-flat and we live in the whole thing, and the upstairs apartment has AC, thank goodness. We’ve been keeping the downstairs all closed up, and running the circulating fan, and little fans like the one I have pointed at me right now, and it’s surprisingly not terrible. Mark says he thinks his AC from upstairs is helping us out downstairs, because cold sinks. Of course.

Foodwise, there’s been limits on cooking due to the heat. Of course. Monday I went to see the Mekons at High Noon, and I’m trying to remember what I ate before – probably leftovers from the weekend. It was a fun show, all the aging punkers from the ’80s (who are still alive) turned out to see the punk folk rock masters, who started out as a bunch of art students from Leeds. They’re mostly all my baby brother’s age, Jon Langford is a few month’s younger than David, Tom Greenhalgh is kind of between me and my brother, and the woman singer and violin player are born in ’59 and ’60.

I made a setlist, but I’m not so good on the all their titles – it was the ’80s, man:

Lawrence of California
Been to heaven & back
Tina
Diamonds
I love a millionaire
Harar 1883
Simone de Beauvoir Hideout – Freakons
Thee old trip to Jerusalem
Fear and whiskey / Chivalry
Fantastic voyage
Orpheus
Fall in love with me
Ghosts of American astronauts
One two – fake start
Hard to be human again
How many stars out tonight

Encore
Weimar vending machine
Come back in 7 years?
Rock & roll
Prince of darkness
Lunatics?

Rock and roll with Wekons – a local tribute band.

Tuesday I made an egg sandwich for dinner with scrambled eggs leftover from Sunday brunch. And had an online meeting with my class. And speaking of leftovers, Maida Heatter is truly a genius; the topping on leftovers of her blueberry crumb cake that I took in my lunch twice last week stayed crunchy even in the heat, and under refrigeration.

Wednesday for dinner I made my first Diane’s Dad’s Summer Sandwich of the summer; Saturday I had my second one for lunch.

Thursday it rained and wasn’t as hot as they said it was going to be … until afternoon. Everybody was home for dinner and because I biked over in the heat to pick up my third CSA box in a row (because of moving stuff for ALA & Williamsburg), I thought I better use up the veggies from the past weeks, so I made a big stirfry.

I made the stirfy plain, no onions or hot spices, and made a batch of spicy tofu crumbles to go on top. Rach felt too hot to eat, and just had watermelon; Mark and I took our bowls of rice and veggies upstairs into the AC to eat.

Friday was the hottest day of all. I went for a little early walk on my own, then did my first work phone call from home, and got into the office by about 10:30. I took some of the veggies and the spicy tofu for lunch and it was just what I wanted to eat – cold spicy food, with watermelon for dessert. We couldn’t decide what we wanted for dinner, and in the end everybody just grazed. Mark made a sandwich, I had more veggies & tofu, and Rach had fruit.

It didn’t cool off overnight really at all. Rach and I were going to walk early because she was getting picked up to go to breakfast at 8:30, but it was too hot, so I biked to the farmers market. I bought eggs and cherries and blueberries. And a bunch of basil from Henry Morren, who I got the blueberries from, that I really don’t need but it smelled so good and was only $2.

I came home and baked tres leches cake for the Eat Smart Peru dinner at Vom Fass. It was kind of a comedy of worries: I was worried about the meringue weeping, so I was either going to do it there, or right before I left here. I ended up doing it there, which was great because they had a torch. Then I started worrying about serving it – 2 9×13 pans, and I didn’t line them with parchment, and meringue can be hard to cut. When I got there I cut each cake in quarters, lifted it onto parchment lined sheets, cut into servings, and THEN meringue-d. Then torched. It was perfect for serving.

Sunday Susan and I biked for about two hours. Mark and I had waffles for breakfast made with the new waffler. I made a batch of yeasted Belgian waffle batter, and then also made some batter from Krusteaz mix, so that I’d have enough batter to throw the first waffle away – new waffler, who knows what’s off-gassing outta there. It’s giant – it makes 4 waffles at a time. Even the ones from the mix were tasty.

After, I cleaned up and I went car shopping and got kitty litter and toilet paper and bananas and stuff like that. When I came back I was supposed to work, but I didn’t do any grading, only answered a few emails, and washed all the sheets. And made refrigerator pickles, zucchini with purple onion and dill, and bell peppers. And parfaits made with pastry cream, using up all the egg yolks I’d separated to have the whites for the tres leches meringue, and strawberry sauce and rhubarb sauce and blueberries. And I cooked down the fresh tomato sauce from last week’s brunch with a carton of diced tomatoes that I’d thawed to go into collards with peanut sauce that I never made, and a jar of leftover canned tomato sauce. It messed up the stove, but will be really good for home made pizza, it’s thick and spicy. I’ll put mozzarella on my grocery list.

I guess it was a pretty OK week despite the heat, tho Rach & I sure didn’t get many walks, and an OK weekend, but I haven’t even opened the NYT yet, and there’re still dishes in the sink to wash and it’s 10:06 PM.