Happy Father's Day! I'm not a father, but sometimes feel like one, riding herd over 9 cats here at "Ketelsen West"! And since I do most of the cooking around here, I was thinking of doing a traditional Father's Day menu - picnic fare! So when at Safeway this week, I was thinking brat burgers - easy to do and taste great! The bulk sausage is sometimes difficult to find here, so I just slice back the skin and make a burger out of about 1.5 brats and cook them on the grill. And miracle of miracles, Safeway had some great-looking sweet corn! Now where I come from, you don't mess w/sweet corn till it is in season - mid to late July earliest in the Tall Corn State! But the stuff Safeway carried looked freshly picked (believe me, I know fresh-picked!), and I recall reading it was from AZ, not the homogenized California stuff likely picked last month... We sampled some last week and it brought tears to this corn-fed farm boy! So I picked up some more to add to the menu and a can of beans too and that was about all you needed... The pic is the result -stupendous! For those of you wondering condiments, I added a slice of cheddar to the brat burger, along with sliced jalapenos and avocados - and a Mexican Modelo Especial to round it out. A true Father's Day feast!Mostly we celebrated by staying inside. According to the National Weather Service, it set a record temp of 115F today, and since my computer is still down at home, drove in to work to enter this. At 8:30 pm it was still 102, an hour after sunset! At least it is 5% humidity, but still warm. Oh, and by the way - that is another reason not to have daylight savings time - 'round here, you don't want the sun to stay up another hour into the evening! You want it to go down as early as possible, and 7:30 here at solstice is about the latest it stays up. You want it to start cooling down as soon as possible, and you make do with the sun coming up at 5:30 am if you have to, just to avoid having it stay up into the evening!
Anyway, a great day - a feast for Father's Day, the Cubs won again tonight, and someday soon, perhaps late September, it will cool down again!
on the subject of our severe heat warnings in the southwest, I'm often dismayed by so many foreign visitors who are either uninformed or don't get enough information about how truly DRY it is here, and ordinary hydration just won't help during extreme heat. If you are visiting here from somewhere else, just don't go out in the extreme heat of the day. temps that reach 115-123 as in palm grove calif are "oven" temps. there is very little humidity that can hold in those conditions. 115 feels much like 120 or 122 but the real difference is exhaustion and dehydration increases exponentially. you loose moisture from skin and breathing. if you aren't already well hydrated before going into the "oven" temps then you just can't catch up by drinking. if you do anything that increases heart rate and resp rate, this is double jeopardy, and if you have ANY condition where you take daily medication well this is triple jeoparody. Too many tragedies can be averted by just not challenging mother nature. The natives here promote "Siesta Time" for a reason. It isn't for laziness it is for self preservation. Take Heed!
ReplyDelete...and cleveland won too. mr james and I share akron as hometown. go buckeyes!
let me help define "well hydrated" for folks. if you have had ANY coffee, tea, or any kind of alcoholic beverage in the past 36-48 hours you are NOT well hydrated today. these substances are natural diuretics, they act to lower your overall water volume.
ReplyDeleteGood points all! For those of you who aren't local, 4 (!) out-of-town visitors died on Sunday while hiking when temperatures reached 115F! At those temperatures and low humilities, I don't think it is even possible to stay hydrated, let alone do any strenuous activities in the heat of the day! -Dean
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