If you’re one of those people who gets irritated by the specter of pumpkin spice — or, gasp, Halloween decor — on an 85-degree week in September; if you understand that there are what will feel like infinite months left to spend shivering and longing for stew, and there’s no reason to beckon them any sooner; if you find yourself gritting out “but there’s another week of summer!” at your screen when confronted with ads for wool coats and other things you simply refuse to acknowledge before you must, come sit down. You’re among friends.

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How do you cook when your kitchen isn’t available for kitchen-ing? On a Sunday last April, I awoke at the crack of dawn jet-lagged from an (excellent) trip to Amsterdam* to an email from my apartment building that ConEd had found a gas leak in the main line to the building and had shut down service for safety. With this, I was indoctrinated into a society of New Yorkers I previously hadn’t known existed, as NYC is apparently riddled with tales of people who lived without gas for (what seemed like the minimum of) 6 months and up to 18 months while their building trudged at a snail’s pace through rounds of repairs and inspections.

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