These past days in London have been rough. The cold has been relentless and summer seems so far away. To get through it, I have been thinking back on hot days past and today my mind wandered to August 22, 2009. I was in Antakya (Antioch) in southeastern Turkey where the temperature hit 40C in the late afternoon (that is 250F by my calculations). It was Ramadan and the bazaar’s shopkeepers were working sluggishly yet tirelessly to spin wires of kadayıf, a type of pastry used in the city’s most famous dessert, künefe. The heat was oppressive, yet not nearly as unbearable as extreme cold. August and Antakya are a good ways away. Fortunately a good künefe is not.