Beat the Heat

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Jessie: Grateful to be spending the summer writing on the coast of Maine.

I confess, I am not a fan of hot days and warm nights. For me, warm ocean temperatures are in the low to mid 60s. If it gets much higher I start to imagine any number of pathogenic horrors. Besides, I come from a very long line of New Englanders and we seem to be of the mindset that one needs to pay for their pleasures. If the sea is your heart’s desire, the price is numb extremities!

I know that the heat has been effecting people across the country of late and it has turned my thoughts to strategies to feel more comfortable when the mercury rises. Here is a list of some of my favorites:

  • Watermelon Salad: I cut up a melon into bite-sized chunks and place the pieces in a bowl large enough to stir it up in. I add the juice of a lime, two if it was kind of dry, a couple of large spoonfuls of rum or triple sec, and a generous sprinkling of fresh mint leaves. Stick in the fridge until chilled.
  • Cucumber sandwiches on white bread with a bit of mayo and scads of freshly cracked black pepper
  • Reading in a hammock under a tree, bonus points if the book is set in a place that is even hotter than where you are! Dantes Inferno is a winner for most everyone!
  • Clean out the basement, or at least go down there and think about how you would clean it if it weren’t too hot to move around as much as a job like that would require.
  • Make an espresso tonic. This is my favorite summer beverage. Fill a tall glass with ice. Add tonic water, leaving just enough room for a double shot of espresso in the glass. Pull a double shot of espresso and pour it over the tonic. Gently stir it with a swizzle stick if it is slow to mix together on its own.
  • Buy a box of ice cream novelties at the grocer. I love to choose favorites from childhood like strawberry shortcake bars and orange creamsicles. Don’t forget to pick up a box of frozen dog desserts for your favorite pooch!
  • Watch a movie or show set in the cold like Fargo, Groundhog Day or Ice Road Truckers.
  • Or, if at all possible, take a dip in the sea off the coast of New England!

Readers, do you have a favorite way to beat the heat? I’d love to hear it!

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Published by Jessie Crockett

Jessie Crockett wears a lot of hats, both literally and literarily. As Jessie Crockett she is the Daphne Award winning author of Live Free or Die and the nationally bestselling Sugar Grove series. As Jessica Ellicott she has received starred reivews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal for her historical mystery Murder in an English Village. As Jessica Estevao she writes the Agatha Award nominated Change of Fortune Mysteries. She loves the beach, fountain pens, Mini Coopers and throwing parties. She lives in northern New England where she obsessively knits wool socks and enthusiastically speaks Portuguese with a shocking disregard for the rules of grammar.

26 Thoughts

  1. Jessie, I laughed out loud at your Dante’s Inferno recommendation. I beat the heat with two large standing fans, one usually by my desk and the other by the bed. They can be carted around the apartment as needed. When I cook, I move one to the kitchen.

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  2. That watermelon salad sounds divine, Jessie. Running my wrists under cold water helps, and I’m with Kim on the fans. I love going to bed under the ceiling fan, and I have one in my office, too. I like a gin and tonic at the end of the day.

    I guess you don’t have the plague of greenhead flies at OOB? I can’t even go to the beach from now through the end of the month! And our local lake didn’t past the bacteria test, so it’s not swimmable when it’s hot and dry like now, grr.

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  3. Oh, cucumber sandwiches sound divine especially since I just picked a bunch from my garden!

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      1. A favorite of mine too with this variation: hold the mayo. Use unsweetened applesauce. My grandmother’s housekeeper made these to get my cousin and I to eat cucumbers when we about 4 or 5. A happy memory.

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  4. Watermelon isn’t down right delicious, but it also brings back fond memories of picnics at the park when I was a child. Churning homemade ice cream with the fruit that’s in season is a good way to chill out. Especially the old type ice cream churn if you were the one assigned to sit on the blanket on top to keep the churn from moving around while someone else did the hard work. I love reading books set in the winter months in the heat of summer. If it’s a Christmas story, it’s brownie points. And if like this year, we’ve planned a trip to Alaska, which should make our August feel a lot cooler.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

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  5. For me, nothing tastes better after a round of yard work than a tall glass of ice water. Especially when I can drink it in the shade while I cool off.

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  6. I am in Maine too. And though the temperature is predicted to go to 87 today (very hot for Maine) tonight it will go down into the 60s and I can sleep with the windows open. My favorite thing in the summer.

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  7. When I went for my walk this morning the feel-like temp was 87. I came home and had a big glass of water. I keep the shades drawn in whatever rooms the sun is shining in and then progress around the house with the sun all day. I have room-darkening curtains on the sliders that let in the most intense sun.

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  8. When we moved to Arizona in 1996 a friend told us to put a ceiling fan in every room, including bathrooms, in the house we were building. Best advice we received. We actually have two fans in our family room. Our cat likes to lay on the cool tile under a ceiling fan.

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  9. Just cold watermelon is good, although that salad sounds yummy. We fill a wading pool with cold water, stick our feet in, and sip a glass of sangria over ice. The overhead fan in the sunroom does a good job until late in the afternoon when it’s really only moving hot air around.

    And a tall glass of ice water is always good.

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  10. Cucumber sandwiches for me for lunch! Yea. The watermelon sounds tempting, but it might be a bit early in the day. I’m a fan of iced tea and lemonade. Neither with sugar. Yes, the lemonade is tart, but so refreshing.

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  12. There is nothing like renting a house in the Florida Keys, sitting in a chaise on the upstairs covered but open balcony looking out at the sea while you read a book, have a cocktail (it is 5 o’clock somewhere) and enjoy the breeze off of the ocean. We did that for thirteen consecutive years. I miss it. Now, I just stay in the AC, work a jigsaw puzzle, pet my dog, watch old movies on TV or read a book while drinking a Coke until Happy Hour! Then it is a Cuba Libre or a VO and Ginger! I don’t like watermelon, cucumbers (cucumbers killed my husband’s grandmother) or coffee. I know, Un-American and I grew up in the Magic Rio Grande Valley of all kinds of citrus. A hot dog or pastrami sandwich and cold potato salad are good summer eats. And I always have a bottle of cold Dasani water in my hand wherever I go wrapped in a Texas coozie.

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