Batten down your palates and gird your tastebuds: pumpkin spice season is here. Never mind that we’re still basking in the sweltering depths of summer in tank tops and cutoffs. Or that a global pandemic is upending lives, ravaging the economy, and keeping people indoors. Even now, savvy as we have become about being gaslit…

Jenna Diioro is someone who lives to shop. A 28-year-old car-dealership manager who lives in South Jersey, Diioro used to spend hours cruising stores like Abercrombie & Fitch, Forever 21, H&M, and Hollister, where she’d spend upward of $200 each week, scooping up tops, dresses, jeans, and activewear. Just last month, she was preparing to…

Like most Americans, Mackenzie Fegan grew up eating her weight in Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. But there was a twist, courtesy of her mother, who moved from China as a child. “She would stir an egg into it with chopsticks and make a sort of egg drop soup mashup,” recalls the Brooklyn-based food writer, whose…