If you hadn’t heard, Europe has been having a heatwave or a ‘canicule’ as we like to call it over here. France has activated its national heatwave emergency plan and declared orange alert – the second highest of the system, warning of “an enduring heatwave of significant intensity requiring particular vigilance.” I was heeding the advice of the mayor and trying to stay hydrated, so I popped into Pret à Manger to buy and bottle of water and the server helpfully told me that they were “out of stock” – ridiculous – it’s not like they didn’t know this was coming.
We have seen a sharp increase in air pollution, city hall has issued alerts for citizens and tourists, encouraging the use of public transportation, imposing speed limits and taking other measures to curtail automobile traffic. Me? I’m still on my Vélib – I arrive at school looking like a ‘hot mess’ – literally, I’m hot and I’m a mess. A fellow student commented that I was looking a bit “flushed”, I thought that was pretty polite, I looked like I had spent the last hour fighting a bush fire – not pretty!
I’ve checked my weather forecast for the next 10 days and it doesn’t look like it is going to get much cooler. Still, for the next couple of nights, I can sleep in P’s room with my new best friend, his air conditioning unit, as he is off to Madrid for the weekend – yippee. It’s 8:30pm and is still a balmy 36°, it’s a good job P is not here as I am sitting in just my pyjama top and my underwear – what a beautiful sight I make. . .
Wednesday was certainly an interesting day, it was he hottest day of the year so far at a stifling 4o°, and we were making mocha cake. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this cake, it is a genoise sponge layered with coffee buttercream in the centre, on the top and all around the sides. Let me translate what this really means in practice – I had to hand whisk egg whites till they were very stiff (and I was dripping with sweat), I then had to try and pipe melting butter cream onto a cake and make it look good – not an easy task. I felt like I was on that episode of “The Great British Bake Off” when the contestants were trying to work with chocolate inside a sweltering tent – complete nightmare, was sliding about all over the place. Still the final result wasn’t too bad, judge for yourselves.
My sloppy-looking mocha cake
The chef during our practical session was not being particularly helpful that day – he was busy making something, “what is he doing?”, I wondered. Just as we were getting flustered and trying to make our cakes look someway presentable, he presented us with a big bowl of sorbet. That’s what he had been doing, what a sweetheart, it was very welcome I can tell you.
The chef during our practical session was not being particularly helpful that day – he was busy making something, “what is he doing?”, I wondered. Just as we were getting flustered and trying to make our cakes look someway presentable, he presented us with a big bowl of sorbet. That’s what he had been doing, what a sweetheart, it was very welcome I can tell you.
I wasn’t going to bother taking the cake home, but then I remembered that P and I were meeting our friend from San Francisco who was here sorting out the last of her stuff before she finally headed stateside for good. “Wouldn’t it be great to come back to the house for dessert” I thought. So, I packed it up and cycled the 40 minutes home in 4o° heat only to be told that she “doesn’t eat gluten”! At least she tried the frosting . . .
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