As we've been reminded repeatedly, and not only by the weather channel, but in nearly every casual conversation we've had over the past week ("man, can you believe how hot it is?" "No, it's incredible. I heard it's going to be 102 by 10am), the Northeast is experiencing a record heat wave. To find out just what kind of heat we're really dealing with, the Social Capital team took to the streets yesterday. At approximately 4 o'clock in the afternoon, a few brave interns conducted a series of experiments to collect some concrete evidence of the recent heat wave.

The first task sought to answer the ever important question, can an egg be fried on the sidewalk? We headed over to the only place in town (located conveniently next door) that would be sure to have a single egg for sale, Café Mozart. The man/boy at the cash register was confused when I asked if they had a spare egg to sell, but handled the situation professionally, asking whether the desired egg was to be raw or cooked, whether we needed a receipt and whether the receipt needed to say "egg" on it.

The loyal employee even consulted his manager to set a price ($.35). We reasoned that the street, while a more dangerous choice, was bound to be a hotter and more promising location for the egg fry. We were all slightly disheartened when the egg hit the street with not so much as a sizzle. "Maybe it's a gradual process?" we tried to convince ourselves. And then, out of nowhere, like a beacon of light in our heat trial nightmare, a lovely British man lent some encouraging advice. "You might try cracking it on a car. A car's much hotter. Go on mate, it works on a car." While we were intrigued by the suggestion and even tried to find a way to involve a car we knew wouldn't object, we ended up just three sweaty, dismayed interns sitting on a curb, watching a dormant egg.




We decided to leave the egg to cook or not cook and check back on it after our next experiment. A risky choice, as cars were not thrilled about the idea of swerving around a raw egg in the street for the sake of our research, but it had to be done. Our spirits were dwindling and we needed a new inquiry to investigate. We walked just a block away to the nearest McDonald's, where we stood searching the menu for the necessary item: the one and only "Cone." I started panicking that they might be out of cone when I saw some empty looking cone dispensers. The heat was clearly making me delusional as there was plenty of cone to go around. Cone was so popular, the employees were lined up at the cone machine to get their orders filled. I'm thinking they probably had to call in some back up cone servers. Everyone received cone with a coffee cup - some employees even flipped cone over and dumped it into the cup for the customer. The entire McDonald's staff was concerned about protecting their customers from sticky melted ice cream hands. Sorry--cone hands (no one really knows why the tasty treat is called cone, but we can only assume it is because calling it ice cream would be false advertising). We rejected the cups and left the restaurant with two unprotected cones. Within one minute of stepping outside, cone was following the hypothesized course. Cone's characteristic beautiful swirls and elegant form, were soon faint memories. Slow trickles of creamlike substance were making their way down our fingers, hands, and, yes, eventually our entire arms.




The rules were as follows: no licking, no wiping, no intentional cone clean up actions of any kind. We had some concerned bystanders who attempted to intervene and warn us of the dangers of melted cone, but for the most part, our display received some friendly fist pumps, warm smiles, and, shockingly, even a few inquiries as to where we had purchased the delicious looking cones. There was cone on our faces, cone on arms, cone on our backs and cone on our toes, a state, we decided, that can only be reached when temperature is high and inhibitions are low.




In conclusion, we found that the city is far too hot to comfortably and confidently enjoy cone. We cannot generalize and apply these results to all varieties of cone-like items or actual ice cream cones, as it is highly likely that cone has ingredients not found in other cold treats, and that these ingredients could possibly even aid in high speed melting. Another important finding was that, while it is too hot to take on cone like a pro, it is not hot enough to fry an egg (in a reasonable amount of time anyway) on the street's pavement. Again, the sample size here was obviously small and the time of day was not the hottest, so I can't say that the sidewalk egg fry is a total pipedream. One thing is for sure, and the pictures will attest--Ali G may have had something with the Ice Cream Glove idea.


Posted by Jill Hawkins