How To Eat In A Heatwave
New York looooves to freak out over a storm. Regardless of whether or not it will actually occur. Prior to 2.5 inches of snow lightly dusting our vicinity I can’t find so much as a baby carrot left in my borough. The panic that cold weather storms generate is always overblown. I find that heatwaves are the precise opposite. Everyone is–ironically—chill about this.
Heatwaves are different. They are more certain. They should muster ten times the hysteria of blizzards but they never do because it’s summer and summer’s the best, right? But I find that weather forecasting is much more reliably awful in summer than it ever is in winter. It’s not like they predict a 90-degree day and instead we get a rustling Notting Hill breeze by chance. The heat is coming, it’s going to hurt, and I suggest you prepare immediately.
Food is not fun during a heatwave. First of all, much of it requires more heat to produce, and I’d rather you just take me out back right now and be quick about it. Also the feeling of any kind of post-consumption heaviness is more likely to make me faint than Chris Evans spontaneously entering the room, so things need to be as light as possible, and as cold as possible, for the duration.
This is not about health, or dietary soundness. Get your nutrition in fall. Summer consumption is about survival, and survival only. It’s best that anything you eat be extremely hydrating, even better if it happens to come on a stick.
During this heatwave, I will be consuming one item, and one item only: Spicy Colds. Spicy Colds are popsicles that have been blessed with Trader Joe’s Chili Lime Seasoning Blend, the fairy dust of the gods. I suggest you opt for a pineapple or watermelon flavor, pictured here in overpriced and organic formats, but use whatever you can find. Dust the popsicle, enjoy the popsicle, repeat. You can also place seasoning in a vessel of some kind and dip your popsicle, if you fancy.
Spicy fruit has long held a place in my heart since I used to buy it from carts on the street in LA when I was in law school ruining my financial future. It is what led directly to the epiphanous moment in my brain that inspired me to recreate it in my own home using fruit that’s been blended and frozen and placed on something that gives me splinters. It’s the only way to live, really.
I don’t want you to take this heatwave lightly. I don’t want you to crave frozen treats at precisely the time it will hurt the most to go out and get them. I also want us all to take it very easy on delivery people this weekend. Prepare in advance by visiting your local supermarket prior to 2pm today when Mother Nature’s fiery sacral shakra descends upon us. Stay hydrated, stay satiated, stay indoors. Stick with me.
