Sending Off Summer With A Citrus Cake

It’s the last days of summer (though in a far more accurate sense, summer ended this week) and it’s starting to feel like it: The autumn industrial complex is being thrust upon us once again in the form of pumpkin spice cold brews and Bath and Body Works candles. Home Depot has once again made available for purchase its giant, 12-foot-tall skeletons, for some reason.

Children are walking around in school uniforms, recipe authors want us to begin to dip into soups made with root vegetables and immersion blenders. I spent the last week of my unemployment switching over my closet from summer to winter clothes, putting sweaters in my closet that I’m guaranteed to sweat through if I attempt to wear them in the next few weeks. I went to Bob & Betty’s, a nominal grocery store in my neighborhood this week and watched a woman wearing shorts and carrying an iced latte artfully compose a picture of the crate of gourds outside the store. Fall is here, according to the calendar and anyone trying to sell you a sweater or a pumpkin.

I stubbornly cling to these last dregs of summer, unwilling to part with the warmth of mid-afternoon sunshine and the fact that I still need to run my air conditioner in my third-floor walk-up apartment for most of the day. I went to the beach last Sunday, and if it’s nice this weekend I’ll do it again. I had seven weeks of summer break…