We had a barbecue dinner last night on our terrace and our guests today sent me a thank you note with a link to a NY Times article about rooftop dining in the city which quotes a Fire Department spokesman saying that both gas and charcoal grills are illegal to use on roofs. My friends commented: “We’ll ignore the part about using charcoal on rooftops as illegal!”. 
Well, first off, as the article points out “that law is unheeded by many sky-high chefs.” Yes, including these two sky-high chefs here. Secondly, what friends who live in luxury Trump buildings fail to understand is that our building is managed by a Russian and a bunch of Kosovars who consider both grilling and shooting in the building perfectly legitimate, as long as you clean after your mess –remove charcoal debris, dispose of the corpse, etc…
“This is a great building”, my neighbor told me when we first met in the elevator a few days after we moved in. It’s not a great building. It’s a zoo.
In this kolkhoz that is our building, we get daily updates about Kosovo every time we step in or out. The standard conversation with my doorman goes like this:
me “hey, how are you today?”
doorman: “good, Taiwan recognized Kosovo’s independence today”, or, when Putin/Medvedev had a bad hair day and engaged in some Russian shit stirring, my doorman would say “not a good day, Russia is threatening to use force over Kosovo.” And so on. Basically, it’s like having the Pristina Times delivered to your door every morning.
One day, for the first time ever, he had something else to talk about:
me: “hey, how are you today?”
doorman: “ not very well. My uncle died yesterday.”
me: “oh, I’m terribly sorry.”
doorman: “but you know what’s the good thing?”
me: “what?”
doorman: “he died having seen Kosovo independent.”
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