Lisa Q. Mathews

Your New Go-To Summer Recipe: Pre-heat Oven to 4000 Degrees

It’s July, and most of us are baking. No, not whipping up fabulous snacks in our kitchens. Just…in general. Some of us Chicks have had it up to our feathery necks with the soaring summer temps, smoky skies, and endless rains of the New Normal. Grab an ice pack from the freezer and read on…

You know that scene in Total Recall, the 90s action thriller with Arnold Schwarzenegger where the Martians’ giant, life-maintaining fan is shut off and their air supply is totally cut and they’re gasping and flopping like Dali clocks? Many of us are living that right now.

Here in NH, we rarely get sympathy regarding hot weather, but it is literally steeeeeaming here right now. And the weather app on my iPhone doesn’t lie. (Okay, it does, but still.)

Recently, our local weather forecast read: Today: Miserable. Tomorrow: More Miserable. Sunday: Even More Miserable. The weather person’s advice: “Sorry, NH, we’ll just have to suck it up.” Our poor meteorologists are always trying to cheer us up. This past spring/early summer, we literally had 13 straight weekends of rain. They made it a record-breaking game to win (since the Sox were already losing). But once we broke the record there was no joy in Mudville.

Unfortunately, our homes here in the Live Free or Die state were built to keep the heat in, not out. And AC? Forgettaboutit, unless you’re taking your dog for a ride in the car to escape.

Dog days of summer?

When I was a kid, my friend Olivia had a coffee table which her mom told us was a Chinese rain gong. She warned us never to touch it. But one sunny afternoon, bored after an umpteenth board game of Clue! and having to baby-sit my friend’s younger siblings, we snuck into the living room and hit it with a garden tool.

It made a LOT of noise—ominously low and long. It vibrated for days (well, it seemed like it). We were terrified. Before we could make it back to the Bedroom from the Living Room with the Trowel, there was an angry crash of thunder–and the heavens opened. We hid under the bed for awhile.

After that experience–and the continuing threat of bad ju-ju–I no longer try to control the weather. And of course with the current state of the world in general, dealing with extra heat and rain is a much lesser concern. Except for a few weeks ago, when my daughter and her 2 babies were caught in an unexpected flash flood in suburban New Jersey on the way home from daycare. They and others were rescued by first responders, and their SUV made a cameo on the world news.

Forget Total Recall. Now I’m thinking of that scene in Animal House where Kevin Bacon’s character tries to create order during a chaotic stampede at the homecoming parade. “All is well,” he assures everyone, just before he gets trampled. But hey, soon all will be well, weatherwise. We’ll be dealing with THIS up here in my neck of the woods (photo from our driveway last year).

Yup, for the first summer ever I have no objection to the crazy-early promotion of Fall. So grab a book or your manuscript-in-progress and meet me at Starbucks–Pumpkin Spice arrives in 29 days!!

Readers, is the weather crazy where you live? Are you looking forward to Fall–or holding onto those summer rays? (And how do you feel about Pumpkin Spice?)

38 thoughts on “Your New Go-To Summer Recipe: Pre-heat Oven to 4000 Degrees”

  2. Lisa, I’m so glad your daughter and grandbabies are OK. Flash floods are terrifying. Love pumpkin spice. Ha! And I’m so very ready for the fall. Not a fan of summer or winter. (Thank you for that frightening photo from your driveway. I’ll probably have nightmares tonight. LOL!)

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    1. Thank you, Patricia! I feel like Goldilocks every day. If you have snowy nightmares, try bravely humming the “Frozen” soundtrack. Always works for me.

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  3. Lisa, I’m glad your daughter and her kids are okay.

    We’ve had lots of hot and wet weather here in the Laurel Highlands. Two thunderstorms yesterday. The good news is that everything is green and lush, and the water table is healthy. At least we put in central A/C so it’s comfortable inside. But yeah, I’m looking forward to early fall and more moderate temperatures.

    I’m okay with pumpkin spice, but it’s way too early to think about it!

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    1. Liz, the lush is amazing. On super-humid days, our place literally looks like Jurassic Park. They just gave a presentation at our town library on plants that date back to dino days. (Apparently those giant pesky ferns all around our property were here then. I totally believe it.) Pumpkin spice is an awesome dino deterrant.

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  4. Very glad to hear your daughter and grands are safe. So wish you could send some of that marathon rain our way! While I will not complain about the heat this summer (Phoenix is having a MUCH less hot summer than the past couple – cue the 110+ temps now that I jinxed it!), we are WAAAAYYYY below normal for rain this monsoon season. And while I will not be partaking of pumpkin spice, I will most assuredly be anxiously awaiting fall, it’s my favorite! Hopefully, the weather gods will take pity on everyone and give us an early and extended fall season!!

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    1. We need a name for that (hopeful) extended season…trying to think of one but my brain is mush and it’s only 11 am.

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  5. It’s hot in North Carolina in July! Duh!

    It seems like some people have forgotten where they live. We’ve had some days where the air temps reached 100, but it’s really not that unusual for NC. We’re going to get a break at the end of the week when temps drop into the low 80s for a while. And we did have one of the nicest springs in a while.

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    1. We’re all packing our bags for North Carolina, Tom! But seriously, many of us around the country are dealing with extremes and meterological craziness we never signed up for. Here in NH, much of the thick, scary air is due to Canadian wildfire smoke blowing our way. Or maybe fire-breathing dinos. (Dragons?)

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  6. Yikes about your daughter and grand-babies being rescued from the flash flood! How scary.

    Here in Santa Cruz we have what’s called “moderate weather,” meaning it rarely gets lower than 40 or higher than 80. Which is why so many people love coastal California. But when it’s drizzly and foggy for ten days running in the summer I start to really jones for the sun.

    But today it was sunny when I awoke–huzzah! But we shall see if the marine layer rolls in later on.

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    1. Leslie, I knew you’d entice us with gentle. breezy tropical or SoCal dreams…After our writer retreat in NC with Tom, we’re all headed your and Robin’s way!

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  7. I feel for everyone in the heat dome! When I read how hot it is in NY, my OG hometown, I had recovered memories of those days – and waiting on the subway platform, an flat-out rung of hell in summer.

    Don’t kill us here in SoCal, but so far aside from like, 2 days, our weather has been Cali-lovely, like in the old days when it was regularly in the low eighties in the day and 60s at night. It’s downright chilly then. But our time is coming, I know it. My husband keeps muttering, “Ooooh, it’s gonna be a bad August.” Heat here can stretch on for months. It can be a hundred degrees on Halloween here.

    Until then, good luck to the rest of you!

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  8. The weather down here is wacko weird…first it is nice, then it is extremely hot, then it is wicked where one can’t breathe. I’ll be happy when Fall arrives.

    WOW, I didn’t know your daughter was caught up in that flash flood. Glad she and the kids are okay.

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    1. Wicked! That’s the perfect description, Dru Ann! (And a fave adjective here in New England.) And yes, that flash flood was freaky. My daughter said it was brightly sunny as she headed out the door. Her videos from the car were terrifying.

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  9. The weather in 2025 has been weird and extreme in many ways in Ottawa. First, we complained about the extended cool gray weather in May and early June. So odd that I did not install & turn on my portable A/C until June 16th.

    But ever since then, we have had several extreme heat waves,. We already surpassed the # of days over 30C/86F that we had during the summer 2024 . But it’s the heat +humidity that really gets to me. Today’s high is 31C/88F but feeling like 42C/108F.

    As for PSL, I never tried it! That’s because I don’t like any flavoured coffee. Strong, unadulterated dark roast coffee is what I drink. ;=)

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    1. Ooo, that Ottawa weather sounds freaky! Same here, the temps are like 88 also but that ain’t the “feels like.” And I’m with you on flavored coffee–I take tons of milk in mine.

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  10. I like pumpkin spice lattes. But I prefer to wait until September for them. This is way too early! Ì am glad to hear that your daughter and grandkids are okay. Flash flooding can happen so quickly and is terrifying.

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    1. Our neighbors in VT have really had trouble with flooding lately as well. Growing up on the Southern New England coast, I still truly had no idea how powerful water really is. Yikes. It’s pulled up the whole infrastructure here, which admittedly is ancient, but…pretty and (until now) still functional.

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  11. We’re in the Pacific Northwest right now, escaping the Texas heat, so your post is a timely reminder of what awaits us when we get home! Luckily, everyone in Texas has air conditioning, which means I’ll just try to stay indoors for the next six weeks, kind of like when you get snowed in except the opposite. Glad your family is safe and sound!

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  12. It’s been in the 90’s off the charts humidity for weeks here in Indy. We’re supposed to get some milder weather by the end of the week. I’m too old for these conditions.

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