Talk about extremes ...

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Cath4420

Senior Cook
Joined
Jan 12, 2008
Messages
177
Location
Mid-North Coast, NSW Australia
Hi All

I haven't posted for quite a while but Bilby and I keep in touch and she keeps me updated and thought I would drop in again.

I know most of you are going through a severe cold snap at the moment but today according to the Weather Channel we are officially the hottest place on the planet ... apparently even hotter than the Sahara Desert! and wouldn't I love to be sitting on a great big mound of snow at the moment....:rolleyes:

In Queensland we have devastating monsoonal cyclones, thunderstorms and rainfall which have flooded two major cities, in Victoria we have 30 bushfires, 9 are burning out of control, which have already killed 30 and they expect this number to raise to 40+, and in NSW where I am we are sweltering in 45 degree heat (110 fahrenheit) with 11 out of control bushfires across the State with 90 km winds expected between 5 and 9 pm tonight. I am sitting inside where the air conditioning has been running since lunch time yesterday. Adelaide and Perth are not much better - Adelaide has not had a day under 40 for the past 7 days and Perth where Bilby is, is now starting to climb back up again after a couple of days of cooler north easterlies.

To go to the beach, you have to run from the car to the water because the sand is too hot even with footwear on.

I have been looking up a lot of salad, cold soup and ice cream recipes as you can imagine.

We are a sunburnt country here but our sweeping plains are either under water, on fire or are that dry at the moment that we can't grow anything.

I would love any recipes or suggestions for for cold foods that you love that could pass the time in the airconditioning!!!

take care
Cath
 
Cath, I am very sorry to hear what is happening in your country. You are right about the extremes. Our part of the world is having more snow that we have for more years than I can remember, but not the devistation. The ice storms and storms in the states recently have been very destructive.

I don't know if you are familiar with cobb salad (you can use any prepared or homemade creamy dressing) or cold poached salmon but I have served them in a camp where it was stifflingly hot and they went over well. I don't know if have all these ingredients but you can always just adlib. These are fairly close to my recipes. Hope it helps!
 
Hi folks. Read an email from Cath tonight and realised how long it is since I posted, so I thought I would just be brief and update you. Here is as good as any!! My mother has been diagnosed now as being terminal and so it has been all go here. She went into the hospital with an infection on Jan 22 and a week later they were planning her demise. We are now arranging to bring her back to her house with oxygen and 24/7 carers (loose term really). Hopefully that will happen mid-next week and will perk her up some. Yesterday's xrays said that she was not improving nor declining, just plateauing. Which is better than decline. As to how long she has is a bit of a moving target - days, weeks, months (unlikely). I am assuming that they are looking a more than a couple of weeks for the effort involved in getting her house set up. I don't ask though as I know that they don't know and that all medicine is is a bunch of statistics based on the law of averages. No reason to my mind why mum can't be at the positive extreme end! I will wait until mum actually tells me she is dying to her own mind before I take it as Gospel. Anyway, so you may not hear from me very much over the next few months/weeks but know that I think of DC often. I don't get to log on the pc at all much so PM's and emails will probably go unanswered. I will try to stay in contact with Cath when I do log on. One day at a time and today, I am fine. And I was fine yesterday. (Saturday sucked severely though.) Take care.
 
I'm so sorry for your difficulties. In answer to easy foods for hot days, I don't know what you have available to you, but Near East brands of taboule and couscous are so easy it is ridiculous. In the morning pour boiling water or stock on them with whatever spice packet comes in the box, and put them in the fridge. Go about your daily routine and when you finally get to sit down long enough to eat, there it is. You can add canned beans for a vegetarian meal, chopped meat, olives, feta cheese, some olive oil, etc and you have a nice cold meal with minimal heat to the house. Very refreshing and a real short cut when your life turns hectic as I'm sure yours is now.
 
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