Humid and Hot

Yesterday was the monthly bean supper at church. Unfortunately we were still in the midst of the heat wave that had been afflicting the eastern part of the United States. Not a great combination.

I had what I thought was a brilliant idea to manage this combination. I would arrive at church by 6:30 am so I can get the beans started and bake my pies before the temperature rose in the afternoon. Yeah, not such a brilliant idea.

I arrived at 6:30, put the beans on to boil and started cutting bacon and chopping onions. Within minutes I was soaked. Although the temperature wasn’t too high, probably in the upper 70’s, the humidity was incredibly high and it made it insufferable in the kitchen. My brilliant idea failed miserably.

I plugged away at my tasks at hand and the beans were ready and in the electric roasting pans by 8:00 am. About an hour earlier than normal but that only meant that I had to keep an eye on them so they wouldn’t over-cook before the supper at 4:00 pm.

I then proceeded to make my pies. I made an apple, lemon meringue and coconut cream. I tried to rest between each pie by sitting and drinking water so I would stay hydrated. But the heat was still pretty unbearable.

How hot was it? Well, I had separated eight eggs for the lemon meringue and coconut cream pie. I needed four egg yolks for each and four egg whites for the meringue. I decided to make the lemon meringue first since that needed to bake for about 20 minutes once I put the meringue on top and then cool completely. As opposed to the coconut cream which could go right in the fridge when the filling was done.

I set aside the four egg yolks for the coconut cream on the counter while I mixed up the lemon meringue filling. I always use eggs that are at room temperature when baking because I get better volume out of them (something I learned from cooking shows). When I looked at the egg yolks that I had set aside a while later, I noticed that the edges of the egg yolks were cooked! Yes, the heat and humidity in the church kitchen cooked part of the egg yolks. Yikes!!!

I did have three fans going in the kitchen but by mid afternoon it seemed like they were just blowing hot air around. I tried to keep the ovens off as much as possible but in addition to the pies, I had to bake four dozen biscuits. Not to mention the professional dishwasher was running all day and that just blows hot steam into the air. It was basically a losing battle trying to keep the kitchen tolerable.

I’ll have to think about what to do next month. I’m sure it will be just as hot in August (not to mention September and October). It might make sense for me to go down on Friday and bake the pies so I only have to run the ovens on Saturday when I make the biscuits. It’s a thought. Then again, that may only mean I am dealing with a hot and humid kitchen two days in a row. Oh well. One day a month isn’t so bad and it is for a very good cause.