What Are You Buying For The Blizzard?

At about 4:30 in the afternoon, I stood outside my Brooklyn neighborhood’s Key Foods, as well as its fancy yuppie grocery store, and asked people what they bought to prepare for Winter Storm Juno. This is what they told me.

Gabriel, 35

Just staple items, you know, milk, eggs, well not milk, but eggs, bread. Just stuff to make us warm, not even like survival stuff. Just stuff to make hot food, you know, chili, soup, nothing fancy.

John, 64

I’m just buying regular groceries because I already stocked up. I’m just getting like extra stuff, like I ran out of tissues, and, what else do I got, I got some ground beef, beer, orange juice, lettuce, ice cream.

Jeannette, 30, and Afa, 39

Well, we did buy a bottle of water. But mostly vegetables, and salmon, something to make a nice meal. Mainly staples.

Sarah, 43

Just a lot of junk. That’s the funness of the storm, because you get to be inside, so I got like chips and salsa, fun stuff. Total junk that I wouldn’t normally buy.

Doug, 29, and Liz, 31

We bought stuff to make chili and tacos. And then we got some eggs, for breakfast. Snacks, popcorn, chips, salsa, but nothing crazy. Like we didn’t buy water. We’re not freaking out. Cider, to drink and be warm, and wine, but not from here.

Rich, 28, and Flora-Lynn, 30

Oooh, we were very unprepared. Some Bloody Mary mix, we thought that’d be good. Some meat. Essentials, lots of meat, lots of snacks, some juice. I don’t know why we didn’t prepare for this. The Bloody Mary mix is a new thing.

Udoka, 37

I bought snow bibs, for my kids, so we can go sledding tomorrow. I got some cherries, I got some strawberries, I got some other fruits, and that’s it.

Unknown, ?

I actually work in a press office, so I can’t speak to any specific brands.

Parrish, 44

Fruity Pebbles, pasta, Diet Coke, Haagen-Dazs ice cream bars, and, uh, pasta sauce. Now I’m gonna go get a bottle of scotch.

Sushma, 25

I just bought water, bread, eggs.

Megan, 23

Toilet paper, bread, eggs, sugar cubes, cereal. That’s pretty much it. Pretty much normal stuff that I should have done over the weekend and I just didn’t, but, you know. It’s nice to have just in case.

Lisa, 49

Bread, milk, eggs, juice. Just the essentials.

Bridget, 36

I’m not really preparing for the storm as much as for my two-year-old. Just like eggs and stuff. But there’s a whole line of people in there that are pretty frenzied. Looks like a lot of alcohol and, you know, canned goods.

Chris, 23, and Andrea, 24

Chris: “Wine. Two bottles of wine. She got a six-pack of beer. I am responsible and I got groceries. [Andrea chimes in “I bought groceries too, but more for after the storm.”] Gonna go across the street and get some Pop-Tarts. Pop-Tarts are for storm time. But besides that, no. Storm time was mostly alcohol.”

Andrea: “We didn’t get non-perishable food or anything.” [I say, “So, no water then?”] “Oh, should we have gotten water? We have wine.”

Photo by MTSOfan