Jake Edmiston, a business reporter for the Toronto Star, thinks highly of his mustard chicken recipe. So when one batch goes over like a lead balloon, he checks his namesake ingredients and finds that his usual glass pot of Maille Dijon Originale is extraordinarily spicy—a fact he confirms, good reporter that he is, by conducting a blind test with a professional taster. In no time, Edmiston is on the floor of one of Canada’s largest mustard mills, trying to stay dry and avoid mustard dust burns(!), and peppering Unilever, Maille’s owner, with questions. This isn’t exactly a case for Benoit Blanc, but Edmiston’s investigation takes a few surprising turns and drops some serious knowledge on glucosinolates on the way. Every ingredient is in harmony here.

“Do a little dollop,” she said, then turned her back so I could do my work in secret.

I spooned the mustard from my jar onto a plate, and some from another jar of Maille I found in the grocery store that morning. She tried the sample from my jar first and sputtered a little. 

“It’s quite spicy,” she said.

I asked her how much spicier it was than the control jar. 

“Like, 10 times,” she said.

Europe is warming more than twice as fast as the global average—a terrifying statistic made all too apparent this summer as heat wave followed heat wave. European cities were never designed for these temperatures, and public health, infrastructure, and tourism are all under strain. Eric Klinenberg arrives in Milan just as “Europe’s third heat wave of the summer entered its fiercest stretch” and sweats his way across the continent to see how trees, shade, water, and other measures are being deployed to adapt urban centers. But with this crisis set to deepen can these experiments really keep pace?

Of all the problems that heat poses for Barcelona, losing some of the hundred and sixty thousand tourists who typically visit each day ranks low on the priority lists of most officials and residents. Some locals have staged protests, chanting “Tourists go home” while targeting visitors with water guns. But tourism employs more than a hundred and sixty thousand people in Barcelona and accounts for around thirteen per cent of its economic output, which explains why, despite concerns that the city gets too many visitors, more than seventy per cent of residents consider tourism beneficial. At midday, when I arrived on La Rambla, the city’s most heavily visited and photographed corridor, the street had little shade and surprisingly few people. At La Boqueria market, normally jam-packed at lunchtime, I found my way to a famously busy bar counter and took one of several open seats.