The morning before the storm, zsister-in-law freaked out zwoman, causing zwoman to send me to the grocery store. I live around the corner from a D'Agastino, one of the worst grocery chains on the planet, but I figured it would suffice for milk, frozen food, a bag of apples, pasta, etc. The line was insanely long, much too long to wait for terrible produce, so I went up the street to Food Emporium. If you've never heard of Food Emporium, it was the fanciest supermarket chain in the northeast until Bread and Circus and Whole Foods arrived. It's a step above Harris Teeter but not quite Whole Foods. It was nothing like this:
It was, in fact, like this:
And this:
The photos make the place look big but they don't do it justice. It's massive. It's their flagship location. I suspect that whoever designed the floorplan also runs CVS, because they only have five registers. Five. This is why you only see a few lines of people in the photos. Everyone else is standing in a pool of humanity back by the frozen foods and the yogurt.
Their yogurt selection is daunting. I just get the cheapest fat free stuff they have, which is their store brand and also happens to be organic. But they easily have 25 different brands of yogurt to choose from, based on milk from at least two different species of animal. As I commented that day, all the organic Greek goat's milk yogurt was gone. Shortly after I made that comment, a kid showed up with a bunch of the creamy stuff and restocked the shelf. As soon as he moved away from the counter, hordes of stylish young women with Burberry umbrellas, Torry Burch wellingtons, and eating disorders attacked the display.
I waited on the line for almost an hour, passing by all manner of interesting but expensive and ultimately unnecessary products, like this thing for storing half of an avocado. I saw two different people take one while waiting to pay for my stuff.
I also saw a stylish thirty-something woman frantically scour the display next to the salt display (they have infinite types of salt), and she made an elated face as her arm shot forward into the display and pulled back a bottle. She was only one person ahead of me, so when I got the the display I was able to determine with 100% accuracy that this is what she excitedly grabbed:
She got the second-to-last bottle of black truffle oil. Note that there was plenty of white truffle oil left, but everyone knows that stuff's only useful in a tornado. You need the black junk for a hurricane.
I finally checked out, went home, and made my famous Hungarian pasta: chop half a sopresetta into 1/4 inch cubes and sweat the fat out of them in a sauce pan over medium heat. Once you see a nice layer of oil in the pan, pour in a jar of four cheese pasta sauce -- the brand doesn't matter (in fact, the cheaper the better) but four cheese works the best. Simmer over medium low heat. Boil a box penne (I like the ones with the grooves on the sides to carry the sauce). Pour off the water, put the sauce with the sopresetta in the pot with the noodles, stir, eat. The leftovers will be even better than the original meal, just reheat and enjoy.
Then I cleaned up and met Marls and Marlsette for some drinks. Contrary to rob's fears, we found some absinthe:
I came home and eventually went to bed. When I awoke it was raining. I got some breakfast for zfamily at Hot Jumbo Bagels (which is the shit, anyone who goes to Tal Bagels for actual bagels is either an idiot or from Virginia) it rained until 10:30 am or so, and then it stopped. It was cloudy for the rest of the day.
And that's my story about the time Hurricane Irene hit New York City.
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