Do the record-high temperatures we've been enjoying of late foretell an extra-hot summer? Climatologists refuse to commit, but don't we all know by now that when the question takes the form of "is something only going to get worse" the answer is pretty much always a resounding yes? So, yes.
Are you having a good Summer? I hope you are, and not just because I am enjoying having an awesome Summer, seriously, and the best part is it ain’t over yet! Arrooo! Yeah, man, it is, like, only August 11 right now, and I am in my castle wearing a bathing suit and as soon as I finish writering-up this Column I’m going upstairs to my Refrigerator to tap out another serving of my New Best Friend, Franzia Chillable Red, yow! It’s like Wine, except it is sweet enough to drink a lot of, you know? Plus it comes in a Carbon Box! Ecology! Bottles are not [...]
Gazpacho is delicious, but sometimes it just involves too many greens, and not enough bread. Luckily, the Spanish already invented a carb-and-oil based version: salmorejo (sal-mo-RAY-ho), an invention from Cordoba, Andalusia. Using day-old bread and hard-boiled eggs, it’s designed to tie up loose ends at the end of the week, when the groceries are running out and no one feels like cooking anything. The best part: it only requires preparation and a refrigerator, no heat. Perfect for a midsummer meal.
Man, can you believe it's been 20 years since Will Smith wondered how the smell from a grill could spark up nostalgia? Me neither. And how about those crazy clothes people are wearing in that video?! They're actually pretty close to coming back in and not looking so strange anymore. This song won the Grammy award for "best rap single" in 1991. And despite everything that has happened since, it does actually still sound pretty great.
It's time for summer cakes! The cakes of summer, much like the boys of summer, aren't that filling but are fruity and they live at your house for a week until you're finally sick of them and then they get chopped up and put in trash bags. So named for the sound of Pacman, the Wocka Wocka Plumcot Yogurt Cake is verrrrryyyy loosely adapted from a plum cake by Nigel Slater. This is my standard summer cake, and it's fantastic, if I do say so myself. I would know, I'm eating it right now. There's just 12 easy steps!
1. Take butter out of fridge so it gets warm. [...]
Look down. Can you see your knees? Today's a Thursday, so then you had better either be south of the 30th parallel north—Shreveport, say!—or "working at home" and totally naked.
Because if you're in the office, and you work anywhere but the International Society for the Advancement of Shorts, you should go home and change.
The question has even been asked: can a man wear shorts at all, ever, anywhere?
As mentioned previously, we have definitely entered the ass-end of August. Even the most measured and serene of observers have expressed their displeasure with the closing of the season. Salon's Rebecca Traister goes so far as to call it "one of the most cheerless on record." But is it really as bad as all that?
SUMMER BAKING? ARE YOU KIDDING? IT'S ONE MILLION DEGREES. So here: get some Kozy Shack chocolate putting LOL, PUDDING and put it in the freezer in molds. BOOM. The end. God it's hot.
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days like today make me miss jell-o pudding popsFri Jul 22 16:57:59 via TweetDeckmaura johnstonmaura
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@maura You can make 'em DIY! Mix up a batch of instant pudding, spoon into popsicle molds, pop in freezer for a few hours… ET VOILA!
Cold cucumbers with scallion sauce from Grand Sichuan
Scottish cheddar & Branston Pickle sandwich from Tea and Sympathy
Cold cereal with milk from Carnegie Deli
Remember how, back at the outset of last summer, you promised yourself that this time you weren't going to let the season go to waste? How you had such ambitious hopes and schemes? And how, seemingly seconds later, Labor Day rolled around and you were all, "Wait! What? I… d'oh!"
Well, that's alright. Summers are meant to be wasted. They are the disposable months of the year during which expectations are low and performance follows accordingly. You're sweaty, you're listless, you're not trying very hard… and it's okay. It's summer! Relax! And you know what? If you're going to waste your summer, you might as well spend your [...]
After recently being told about a stand of peach trees in a remote corner of Queens, I was invited to visit-under the conditions that I not disclose the neighborhood in question or the identity of my source. I was informed that I would have to drive: many parts of New York City are not accessible by public transportation, and this was one of them. As for directions, you may or may not be relieved to learn that Google Maps was not up to the task, and, had I followed its instructions, I would have been led into (and under) a reed-filled swamp on the southwestern shores of Brooklyn. Undeterred [...]
