Passionfruit Butter

It’s gratuitously hot here in New Orleans. So hot, in fact, that when my family and I were lucky enough to be sheltered away in the mild 90s-range temperatures of Grayton Beach, Florida, NOLA’s streets were buckling in what I heard to be 104 degree heat. Wet, sticky, sweltering heat. Heat that enrobes you like a sweater, reducing you to a lethargic mess of languor and apathy. I sweat at the thought.

I wrote a little while back about the chillysweet relief of a nice cup of gelato, but I’m starting to have second thoughts. I’ve been doing street team work downtown for KODA, a kind of hipper, more holistic LinkedIn, and I stopped at the convenience store on Lee Circle to grab an Icee before handing out postcards for three hours outside the Convention Center. My plans for a 20-ounce cup were scrapped when I, out of my heat-induced delirium, sprung for 32 ounces. That, too, was ditched when the man behind the counter informed me that they were all out of tops for that size cup, and that I might as well go the next size up. I sighed, uttered an “if I must,” and reached for the massive behemoth of a size-large cup (so big, in fact, that they make it in reusable plastic as opposed to flimsy cardboard), filling it to the brim with frosty, slushy, delightfully brainfreezey Coke. When it’s this hot, the $1.69 (or $1.49, or $1.59, for 20- and 32-ounce, respectively) is the best you’ll ever spend. You might just want to bathe in it. Do me a favor, though, and resist that urge because it might be traumatic to you and all others involved.