For a variety of reasons we’ve been operating without gas since we opened three weeks ago, but now it looks like there’s light at the end of the tunnel and we may have gas sometime before the end of the month. So it seems like a good time to introduce the band, and honor the various cobbled-together pieces of kitchen equipment that have been turning out the food so far. First up, there’s the induction range. This amazing piece of equipment is what we’ll be using instead of gas burners and it operates by generating a very small electromagnetic field that heats any metal that comes into contact with it. Put a metal pot or pan on it and it heats up almost instantly, but it won’t heat up flesh or dish towels, causing them to burst into flames and burn down the restaurant. It’s a miracle of modern science, although it’s a bit finicky: we had to send two of them back before we got ones that wanted to work in our space.

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Next up there’s Senor Fryer, the deep fat fryer we ordered from, if I remember correctly, BedBathandBeyond.com. As strong as an ox, it fries with the strength of a gas fryer but is much smaller.

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There’s Mr. Electric Grill that makes truffle toast like there’s no tomorrow, grills mushrooms and melts grilled cheese croutons.

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Finally, there’s the EZ Bake Oven, courtesy of Amazon.com. It can bake like a maniac but is teeny tiny and can only cook a little bit of food at a time.

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Although Debbie, our pastry chef, chooses to do most of her baking in her tiny apartment, the rest of what you eat is cooked on these mighty countertop appliances, all of which resemble nothing more than particularly expensive childrens’ toys. Until the gas comes on later this month, this is all we got, but so far all of it is working out great and it’s been an adventure to turn out so many covers every night with what are basically home appliances.