Accuweather says the temperature hit 39ºC here yesterday. Our outdoor thermometer, located on the north side of the house, read about 36º. It was about 32º in the house. We closed shutters and shades on the west-facing back of the house (two windows in the loft and 4 on the main level), but we kept the windows on the north and east sides open. I'm not really a fan of living in darkness. We toughed it out, and I was able to sleep when bedtime came.
We had duck legs cooked on the barbecue grill for lunch. I read about cooking them that way on the internet, where a French chef posted his method: put the legs on the grill at very low temperature and cook them for an hour or more. Actually, I cooked them in our countertop oven in a baking dish for about 90 minutes at about 140ºC (285ºF). That way I could "capture" the duck fat they released as they cooked.
Walt then grilled the duck legs to brown them while I opened a jar of the French white beans called mogettes, which are grown and packed in the Vendée region. In other words, we kept indoor cooking to a minimum because it was a hot day. When the duck legs came out of their baking dish and went on the grill, I poured the beans into the dish and stirred them around in the duck fat. I set the dish in the countertop oven until the beans started to bubble slightly. Lunch was then served, with salads (carottes râpées, céleri rémoulade, etc.) following the main course.
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Back to the weird weather: Accuweather and MétéoFrance both predict a high temperature of about 32ºC for Saint-Aignan today. Their forecasts have been on the high side compared to the temperatures our thermometer has been registering. It's breezy and cool this morning, so maybe it will be significantly cooler all day. Actually, MétéoCiel says we should expect a high of 28ºC this afternoon. That would be nice. It's supposed to turn even cooler tomorrow. We have survived.
Oh my, that looks like a meal for cold weather, not hot. You are brave.
ReplyDeleteI don't think brave is the word. Gourmand, oui. How many people in the SW eat cassoulet even when it's hot down there.
DeleteGlad you toughed it out. Glad you have a reprieve. 32 degrees inside is a real shvitz!
ReplyDeleteWell, I grew up in North Carolina without air-conditioning. The humidity was oppressive. This here is a dry heat, relatively speaking. I believe in opening up windows and doors unless they are the ones that are letting full sun and heat in. The worst part is the sleeping, and that's almost more a matter of humidity than heat. Today here it's 80F and very pleasant.
DeleteIt's hard not to be obsessed with the weather when it's so weird. Our house has thick stone walls and stays fairly cool inside, especially with the windows closed. But to get the cool air inside, I leave the windows open at night...and sleep on the sofa because burglars know that during hot nights lots of people leave the windows open. We have roll-up screens, which I count on to wake me up. So far so good.
ReplyDeleteMy husband likes to grill magret de canard. He removes all but a few strips of fat, which are for flavor. Not too many flames that way.
The ground floor of our house, which is made up of an entry hall, a garage, and a utility room (boiler, washing machine, dryer), has windows with bars on them, so we can leave those open with impunity. The upper level has big windows we can also leave open at night, at least partially. We get a lot of moths in the house, some bees and wasps, and, worst of all, once in a while a bat or two! That's always fun. And as for unwanted visitor, we have a dog that barks loudly and shrilly if she detects any movement inside or outside the house.
DeleteYou made good use of that duck fat. We've been watching soccer games in Paris. They had heat time outs there. Our friend Amy H. and her daughter jumped off a bridge into the canal in Paris- look on facebook for photos.
ReplyDeleteIn the U.S., I would flavor beans with some bacon fat. But in France I can use duck fat, which is at least as good.
DeleteYou're surrounded by greenery, yes?, rather than town, so perhaps that's why you're getting temps slightly cooler than the official ones for St. Aignan. Western NC is hot, too, but thankfully it's dry with humidity so far mostly below 50%.
ReplyDeleteThe duck sounds good, but in weather like yours, I'd be making salads only.
In this kind of weather, we live with almost all the doors and windows wide open for most of the day. We do have to close the shutters on the west side (back) of the house when afternoons are really hot, but we still get good air flow, assuming there's a breeze. We also use electric fans. Anyway, the tiny bit of heat coming from our countertop toaster oven set to less than 300ºF is not enough to heat up the house. And Walt cooks the meat on the grill outdoors on the terrace. If we had air-conditioning in the house we might worry more about the extra heat from cooking.
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