Hurricane Irene and What We Ate: Observations from NYC

Many folks in New York City weren't exactly sure how to prepare for this weekend's potentially huge hurricane. Since my apartment wasn't in an evacuation zone, I planned on staying inside all weekend and catching up on some projects and cooking. However, when I remembered I have an electric stove, and when I didn't stock up on ingredients in time, I joined the masses stocking up on...well...junk food.

When I ended up going out to dinner with friends on Friday night instead of grocery shopping, I prepared for long lines at my local market Saturday morning. But I didn't prepare for my market, along with Whole Foods and many other food shops, to be closed.

At the stores that were open, my fellow last minute shoppers were armed with food that college freshman would pick: chips, peanut butter, soda, and vodka. I'll admit, I picked up a bag of Snyder's buffalo wing pretzel pieces without much of a fight: Why follow my usual food habits, this was disaster I was preparing for! Sure, I grabbed bananas and apples, too. But after my boyfriend and I finished eating chips, pretzel pieces, and frozen pizza Saturday night I thought: If the power goes out, this food is going to make me feel a whole lot worse than living without power.

I'm sure anyone who has experienced a hurricane before could have told me to start preparing before Saturday (and they did). I filled up my bathtub, prepared flash lights, and stocked up on foods that wouldn't perish quickly. And fortunately for much of the East Coast, the storm fizzled out quite a bit before it even got here. But it's a lesson I'll remember: prepare early and rather than revert to college food habits, use what I've learned in the years since then to come up with creative and nutritious food.

Do you find yourself stocking up on junk food when preparing for bad weather?

(Image: Christopher Robbins/Gothamist.com)

Comments (16)

While being holed up all day yesterday my husband and I ate: frozen pizza, couscous, cookies, coffee cake, macaroni and cheese, Hershey bars, and...celery. I felt after that carb-fest I should at least eat something healthy and light.

I didn't buy anything out of the ordinary. Sat, I polished off some leftovers and went out Sun. I didn't eat that badly but I do feel like I spent more money than I normally do.

I had pb, crackers, and tuna in the pantry. I try to always have those on hand. I also try to buy batteries when they are on sale. That didn't help with the cell phone charger battery thing that I forgot to charge.

I made a bunch of extra ice and put it in ziploc bags and I took an old tupperware container and filled it with water and put it in the freezer. When the power went out, I moved the ice into the fridge and I think they really helped keep things cooler. I filled up almost every container I could find with water so the fridge had lots of cold water in it as well. I think that helped too. When the power came back, I checked the stuff in the fridge and it seemed ok. Some of the ice hadn't even melted.

I'm in Boston and was fortunate not to lose power. I didn't buy much in advance--canned beans and water--but on Sat night I cooked all the veggies from my CSA box, in case I was unable to cook anything on Sun. I made potato-egg salad and a Sudanese eggplant dish with rice that my friend taught me. I also had cereal w/soy milk, which would last quite awhile if necessary. If the power had gone out, I would have eaten the potato salad first, then the eggplant dish, then moved on to the dry goods.

Otherwise, I charged up all my electronic items, got my lantern, flashlight, and hand-crank radio ready, filled my bathtub with water, and moved my bed away from the windows. I moved my car as far away from large trees as I could, turned on the sump pump in the basement, moved garbage cans to an enclosed area to keep it from flying.

As it turned out, it was just a quiet day at home unpacking and installing shelving in my kitchen (I just moved last week), and watching Mad Men online! I'm very thankful that it was not so destructive where I am.

I picked up some chips, some pitas, an avocado and a carton of soup and some zucchini--when we lose power in this particular suburb, it's usually not gone for long. Sat. we cooked a bunch of stuff in the freezer so it wouldn't be lost should we lose power; I figured on Sunday we could eat tomato and avocado sandwiches, pb sandwiches, and by Monday, we could at least grill up some zucchini and eat it with some couscous I already had. But thankfully, we lost power for only a few minutes in the morning, and we're not stuck now with a bunch of pop tarts or anything :) The Annie's snack mix I grabbed for munchies will disappear far faster than the bananas I bought!

I'm in Boston as well, and thankfully my grocery store wasn't very hard hit. I stocked up on the usual things -- I just didn't buy any milk, yogurt, etc that couldn't survive without a fridge in case the power went out.

Saturday I made a batch of marinara that was dinner on Saturday and Sunday. I also made a big bowl of chickpea and quinoa salad to have for lunch Sunday. I had some fruit, some veggies, and I harvested some veggies from the garden in case it got destroyed by the storm. And I bought a bag of goldfish. Yum!

My power has been out for the last 48 hours. I've been eating cans of soup, nutri-grain bars, apples and peaches. And red wine. I stocked up before the storm and I'm really glad I did.

We bought cheese, wine, coffee and bagels. Not very practical, but delicious!

I didn't want to join the crowds at the stores so we didn't stock up. We only bought cheese. Since we have eletric range, I proceeded to cook some of the things we had in the fridge (like eggs and overdue veggies) plus a couple of loaves of bread. So everything was pretty healthy. There was only one problem: I didn't make anything sweet. But we didn't lose power, so it wasn't a big deal. Next time (if we face another situation like this one) I'll bake brownies or cookies to satisfy the brain.

We fled for higher ground, where the hurricane was only bad thunderstorm.

Thankfully, our hosts routinely keep food enough for weeks of capivity!

We ate fillet minion, roast potatoes, adobo shrimp, green beans, brown rice and more!

We cooked up the rest of our CSA veggies - corn on the cob, zucchini, beets and their greens, collards - so that we could have a veggie feast if the power went out. I also baked a loaf of bread and a pan of jalapeno cornbread and we picked up a few cans of soup, a box of cereal, and a shelf-stable carton of soymilk. We made a liter of coffee and stuck it in the fridge so we'd have iced coffee if the power went out. And, of course, we stocked up on whiskey and wine as well as dark rum, ginger beer, and limes for dark and stormys.

But the provisions I was most excited about were heirloom tomatoes and peaches, even if they weren't ideal for a go bag.

I spent Saturday morning baking, trying to use up my produce, eggs, butter, etc. ... I made muffins, bread, and popovers: http://bit.ly/qGIlSx

Of course we didn't even lose power and now I have tons of muffins!

I did make sure we had adequate amounts of chocolate, but apart from that, I mostly just did my usual shopping.

It always blew my mind that no matter how seasoned in hurricanes people are, the one aisle that gets demolished at the grocery is the bread aisle. What is it about "stock up on essentials" that translates to bread to so many people?

I was raised that no matter what, you should have ample amounts of canned goods- doesn't matter what kind. People seemed to prepare for hurricanes like they're preparing for a night of camping. If it's bad (which it always can be) you may well be stuck weeks with no power. Bottled water and canned goods. Don't need much more for food than that and if you do, you're overdoing it. A can opener and those cans of tomatoes, spam, whatever will seem much more appealing than a half moldy loaf of bread.

Yeah, I think the way to do it is to buy a little extra of non-perishable items when they're on sale. I always keep extra canned goods around in case of emergency; we don't have hurricanes here, but we do get snowstorms that can leave you without power for a day or two.

Luckily the farmer's market was up and running Saturday morning. I realized on Saturday that another downside to an electric stove (shaking my fist in its direction) is that it would be worthless in a power outage. I stocked up on canned goods.

I made risotto and chili - things that I could feed to anyone who needed to stay with me during the storm and I wouldn't feel guilty eating all day long if the power went out.