1. yogurt + cucumbers + pita = cooling yummiliciousness. (or you could just bathe in the yogurt.)

2. check out these solar oven FAQs if you don't want to turn on the oven and recreate the heat of the explosion of Thera in the kitchen.

≡ Click to see image ≡

≡ Click to see image ≡

Although, heat decreases appetite which decreases tonnage. Stay hydrated, & get skinny! A friend of ours just got back from Italy and said the olives there were like butter they were so good. I asked if they were as salty as the ones here in the states (I don't like the salt much) & she said no. That true for Greece, too?

You're a better woman than I, taz. I'd be stocking up on ice cream bars.

[faints dead away at the mere thought of having to cope with 42 degree heat]

Actually... I would go for the ice cream bars at this point, but they would melt before I got them home. Seriously. I might get some bananas, peaches, cherries or whatever, and blend 'em up with some yogurt and honey and make my own treats. But I need to buy honey... which means I need moneys...

And, ugh. I realize all my cunning plans to venture no more than three/four blocks from home for all my needs over the next few days ain't gonna work. I must to go find an ATM machine, and the closest isn't close at all, to any sane person in this weather.

Chewy, olives here generally aren't packed in brine, in my experience, so they're not salty.

oh, and they are awesome!

Taz,
Is yours a dry heat or humid heat? One option during the day if it's a dry heat is to put some damp open-weave cloth over the open windows and use a fan to move the air and take advantage of the slight bit of evaporative cooling. The evenings - use that AC!

I can know how it can be with un-ending days of hot humid weather (Southeastern US) and agree that the worst is when the evenings don't cool down - it's hard to sleep cause you're sticky...(we lived for 10 years in an unconditioned trailer/tin can.) Don't want to go back to those days!

Funny, I spent the first 34 years of my life without air-conditioning but now am totally dependent on it.

I hope you're coping this afternoon. Someone said keep hydrated. . .great advice.

Reading this thread, I have decided to make falafels, with cukes, tomatoes, feta, capers, and kalamatas on the side for dinner.

Well, I made it 'til 6 p.m. here before turning on the AC, and it's maddening that I can't find our thermometers so I can check the actual temperature here in the house, and just outside, to figure out how much of a wimp I am.

Whatever. I know I'm a wimp, because it's supposed to just keep getting hotter for the next few days, and I've already caved.

Mightshould, it's a dry heat, and I'm grateful for that. I lived a lot of years in the U.S. southeast myself - woo-boy!, including New Orleans, where the air had mass and weight. :) In many ways it was a good thing, I guess - but, gah. Gah.

danf, I had a pear for breakfast, and potato, tomato and feta slices drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice for lunch. And I bit the bullet and cooked some black eyed peas for supper, which I'll have cool, over salad greens for supper, with yogurt.

Hope you store up some of the cool AC.... I think it's almost worse when you go from hot to cool sometimes... when we didn't have AC we also worked outside all the time, so there was a good deal of acclimation to the heat - you get used to it as it builds up from springtime.

I think you moved there fairly recently (?) so that would make it even worse!

Now, I would not want to go back to no AC - especially since I'm older, work in AC, and am not in as good shape...

You had a good idea there about feeding yourself lighter, cooler foods with not a lot of fatty foods. Everyone says that the hot spicy foods make them feel "cooler"... I don't know about that one.

Hope the heat goes away soon!

I've been in Greece for a long time now, but only recently moved to Athens, mightshould.

I think the historical temperatures here are quite okay, except for August (like the average temp. for June is supposed to be something like 77F, I think) - but the globe, she be warmin'.

Late day accumulated heat is awful, but with additional oven heat is worse. Trying to think of ovenless food has taken the backburner to ignoring food, but fear not for baking, the repeated risings and refridgerations of dough has resulted in a very tasty dill and cayenne bread and a bread to be named later.
Make fruity jelly treats and ices for when your man returns. Playing with ice and submerging your hands and arms incold water is lovely.

Wash your feet. Not that they're dirty, but washing your feet freshens your whole world, even when the world is burning. It's a habit I picked up when I was living in the levant, dealing with the exact same heat you speak of. Try it out. Guaranteed.

but the globe, she be warmin'.

And yet here in Texas when we're usually bumping against 100 degrees in late June, we're sitting at a cool 77...

Continuing my olive derail...so is it possible to get the non-brine variety here in the US or is that a preservative/import rule?

Get your hair damp before you sit in front of the fan. I've found that really helps.