They Couldn’t Stand Heat in, out of Kitchen

The second sweltering afternoon in a row, Cecelia Rinehardt looked inside the burning pit at Burrell’s Rib Cage and was reminded of the one place that might be even hotter.

“That’s why I’m being good. Extra good,” she said. “I know what it’d be like.”

Outside in Santa Ana, temperatures soared to 108. But the oven outside was cooler than the kitchen of the tiny barbecue takeout in Santa Ana where Rinehardt, 63, cooks ribs, chicken and pork over burning hickory and oak. She also bakes pies and cakes in a huge gas oven.

“Of course, we got the fan going now, but still, honey, it is hot,” she said. “Yesterday, it had to be 130 degrees in here.”

Then, she rolled up her pant legs over her knees, went home and took a bubble bath.

An obvious contender for the hottest place in Orange County Sunday, Burrell’s drew few lunchtime customers to its grassy, outdoor patio.

Scott Walewski and Catherine Crockett, in fact, ate alone outside in the heat--just the way they wanted it. One reason they drove all the way from Long Beach was to escape the crowds who had descended on their town to find relief from the heat inland.

But “you don’t need an excuse to come here,” said Walewski, shaking hot sauce on his barbecued beef, black-eyed peas and collard greens. “The food’s great.”

Other people, such as the basketball players in Fountain Valley’s Mile Square Park, were unfazed by the heat. “The worst thing you can do is stay home, bored and eating cupcakes,” said Gary Spink, 30, of El Toro.

The record-breaking heat took many to the traditional cooling-off spots--the beaches, malls and the movie theaters, where temperatures are kept about 70 degrees.

“It’s not real cool in here,” said Lee Moore of Whittier, sitting by a fountain inside MainPlace shopping mall in Santa Ana. “But it’s cooler than outside.” He said it was 105 degrees in Whittier.

But a few thought of the county’s only ice rink, at 45 degrees, quite possibly the coldest place in the county.

Normally, the Ice Capades Chalet in Costa Mesa draws about 20 on a Sunday afternoon. But this Sunday, 175 skaters--in sweaters, parkas and mittens--were pushing themselves around, dancing and doing the hokey-pokey in the frosty air of the skating rink.

“They know this is the coolest place to cool off,” said Curtis Allen of Irvine, who brought his two children to practice their routines. “You can go to a pool, but you still have the hot sun beating down on you.”

“This is the coolest place in the county,” said Colin Ware, 25, who had come from Garden Grove, where the thermometer in his yard hit 105 degrees.

He said he spent Saturday in the theaters watching movies before he thought of the ice rink. “It’s the only ice rink in Orange County. I’m surprised there aren’t more people here.”

Ware, shirt-sleeve cool in the wintry air, said he felt as if he had almost found heaven on Earth.