Recipe

Summers in Paris are relatively mild - no highs above mid-80s (fahrenheit) and frequent rain showers. Rationally, such weather should be easy to tolerate. However, several inconveniences combine to make these 80-degree days simply unbearable. Among them: a wholesale lack of air-conditioning in the entire country of France, a top-floor loft which absorbs sun from above and rising heat from below, two fur-clad portable heaters who insist on burrowing into your lap/stomach/head at every moment, the inordinate numbers of Blood-Sucking Godless Monsters (mosquitos) that prowl said 4th-floor quarters late at night. During the day, the above annoyances can be avoided by taking your laptop to Starbucks or the closest movie theater showing the new Harry Potter movie. But when night falls, the forces of evil are unleashed upon your world, and you have nowhere to run. A sole sentry - a determined but feeble rotating fan - stands between you and Mordor. As blotchy red mosquito bites and massive, pulsing spider welts cover your body, you start to slowly lose your mind. Your skin has grown intolerant of the cortisone cream, after multiple applications a day. Either that, or the insect enemy has evolved. Their saliva is stronger than your steroid. As every combat soldier knows, sleep is not possible in the face of this onslaught. But sleep must be had.

So, after exhausting the military handbook, desperation drove me to dust off an old home-made recipe for summertime sleep I concocted in Los Angeles, modified for ingredients readily available in France. The instructions are as follows:

Dormir d'Été á la Français

Ingredients:
- half a loaf of pain aux cereales (whole grain bread)
- 250g frozen broccoli florets

Freeze a half-loaf of sliced whole grain bread. Reserve the other half for eating with chevre and honey the day of purchase. Between midnight and 1am on a hot summer night, remove the frozen half loaf of bread from the freezer. Remove any abrasive aluminum foil. Wrap loaf in paper towels (using as few as possible so as to maximize radiating cold and minimize death of trees). Wearing a fitted T-shirt, place loaf of bread under shirt and situate between breasts. (A half loaf fits snugly for me, but experiment with quarter and full loaves depending on your bust size.) Go to bed. Sleep for 7-8 hours, depending on the time it takes you to get ready for work in the morning. After 7-8 hours, awake from sleep and remove now defrosted bread from chest. Toast bread and spread with salted butter and confiture for a filling and refreshing breakfast.

The following evening, assuming the heat wave lingers, repeat the same procedure with a bag of frozen broccoli florets (or other vegetable of your choice). PLEASE NOTE: the frozen vegetables are water-based, so it is essential to wrap the bag of vegetables in a second ziplock or tightly-sealed plastic bag. Otherwise, you may awake to a broccoli water-soaked bed, which both looks and smells like a piss-soaked bed.

Both versions of this recipe should be accompanied by a rotating fan placed approximately 3 feet (or one meter) from your body, aimed directly at your head, and also a flat sheet draped over your entire body, leaving only a small hole open for breathing purposes.

If instructions are followed as stated above, then sleep is not only possible, but somewhat tasty.

Bon appetit!