We only get heat like this for a few weeks a year. You dare not turn on your oven and you open and close the fridge door with lightning speed. Washing the dishes is an exercise in sweat therapy, walking the dogs feels like a death march.

It is so hot that even doing something as mindless as watching TV in your underpants makes you hotter.

Just seeing Olivia Benson bundled up in a jacket  and gloves on a rerun of Law & Order SVU or watching the King of Queens pull a duvet over himself in bed makes you wave your paper fan a little faster and turn up the AC one more notch.

So this is the time of year when you can’t help yourself, you just have to have a salad. The idea of eating anything else; fried chicken, mac and cheese, a big bowl of chili, is nauseating. You want crisp radishes, crunchy cucumber, juicy watermelon, you want fresh and cold and no cooking required. Here is the salad of your dreams:

Smashed Watermelon-Cucumber Salad

watermelon

cucumber

sliced radish

basil, mint, chives, parsley, cilantro

chopped peanuts

fish sauce

sesame oil

drizzle of honey

rice wine vinegar

wedge of lime

naan, crisped up in the toaster

Cut as much watermelon, radish and cucumber as you want then toss it with everything else. Do it to your taste. Serve with a wedge of lime, some chopsticks and an old episode of Baywatch.