Cape Cod Rock Hopper

1975 Heat Wave & Goody Cookies

Over the years the Cape has not been know for its extreme high temperatures in the summer. With the gentle breezes that blow off the Nantucket Sound from the South to an occasion Easterly wind blowing off the Atlantic ocean, or lest we forget that NorthWesterly winds blowing across the Cape Cod Bay, the Cape usually is kept to a very comfortable temperature range in the lower to mid 70s for June and the mid to upper 70s for July and August. Ok so 2009 has been a bust for this theory with damp weather and cool temperatures. So what better time to talk about record heats then when the Cape is Cool and other parts of the country are experiencing the hot and sticky.

Researching this subject was not the easiest, especially for a part of the country that does not normally have heat issues. But what I have uncovered was interesting. Over the past 100 years I can find less then 10 years that temperatures have gone over 100 degrees for SouthEast Massachusetts including Cape Cod. The most recent years that I have remember have been 1975, 1977, 1995, and 1999 with only 1 year actually hitting the 100 degree mark on the Cape and that was near the Cape Cod Canal in 1975. That summer I remember us getting to the Cape as a family. I was 14 years old and was about to start junior high school in the fall. I can remember my mother being up in the middle of the night and going out and sitting on the porch looking for any kind of a breeze. Mothers were out with there little ones in strollers at midnight and after trying to get them calmed down, and Dad and I pretty much after the recognition went back to bed and back to sleep with the fans going full blast. That was one summer that Mom really thought about getting a cottage in the future that had air conditioning. The only problem was they didn't exist back then and still today are scarcely found. For the most part you don't need one if you have a good cottage that has windows that open on all sides. Anyway the heat went on for several days, and is still considered one of the worst heat waves that the Cape and New England has seen. Most of the other years a heat wave on the Cape is temperatures that ride above 90 for a couple days then rescind back into the mid to lower 80s.

Well no one want a heat wave with temperatures near 100, however I don't think there is anyone who would mind at lest a warming trend that would include some mid to upper 70's and a lot more sunshine then have been around this year. Besides the kind of weather that has been happening this June 2009 is more like when I was there the beginning of April, and its now almost July,,, Oh well, I still can not say enough that a bad day on the Cape is better then any other day any other place I can think of. In the meantime, someone keep the light in the lighthouse lit till I can get there, and someone please turn up the heater.  Until then,,, Enjoy the Cape for me, no matter what the temperature is.

Recipe of the week is a nice No Bake recipe that my wife found in her family books of cards and cuttings. As we go into the warmer months of the summer why would we want to heat up the kitchen with our ovens if we do not have to.

So with that in mind...

This weeks recipe: Goody Cookies

•     2  cups white sugar
•     4  Tbsp.  cocoa (heaping)
•     1/4  lb.  butter
•     1/2   cup  milk
•     1  cup peanut butter
•     3  cups  minute oats
•     1  tsp. vanilla (real)

Place peanut butter in one bowl and the minute oats in another and set off to the side. Then in a saucepan combined sugar, cocoa, butter and milk. Bring to full rolling boil stirring constantly. Boil for approx. 1 minute. Pour the syrup mixture over the peanut butter. Add vanilla and stir until the vanilla is dissolved. Next add minute oats, stir quickly.

Drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper, or aluminum foil.

DO NOT BAKE.

Allow to set and firm up.