How many people does your fridge need to feed?
Amira: Four.
What do you usually eat for breakfast?
Ross: Two eggs and white rice or two eggs and toast. Sunny side up, real runny yolk, salt and pepper, with honey on the toast. And orange juice.
Janice: Same thing: little protein, lots of carbs.
Ross: Janice says it’s farmer’s meal in the Philippines.
Amira: If it’s the weekend, I usually have two eggs with cheese and tomato on toast. If it’s a workday, I’ll get a bagel on the way to work.
Sabine: I have my Greek yogurt that I sometimes put Ross’s honey in, and two Fiber Rich with Earth Balance that I take with my vitamins. But sometimes if I have more time I will make eggs with hot sauce and Fiber Rich.
Is there anything you eat every day?
Ross: Eggs. Spaghetti damn near every day. Orange juice.
Janice: I eat rice everyday.
Amira: Coffee.
Sabine: I eat my Fiber Rich every day and I chomp on celery to stop my cravings. Almost every day I have my sugar-free chocolate pops.
Every week?
Ross: A cheeseburger.
Amira: I have to have avocados.
Janice: Something from The Blue Stove.
Sabine: Fruit.
What item are you forbidden from purchasing right now?
Ross: Anything that the FDA won’t allow, I guess.
Janice: Soft cheeses.
Sabine: I break down every once in a while but I’m trying not to go to bodegas to buy straight-up sugary snacks, like Ho Hos or Snickers.
Amira: I try to restrict buying sweets and potato chips. If I bought Pringles all the time, it would be bad.
What’s the most delicious thing in here?
Ross: I usually have some frozen fruit in the freezer. And orange juice. Sometimes I buy three cartons at a time.
Amira: The frosting in there. I just discovered it. It’s controversial.
Sabine: It’s from Ross and Janice’s birthdays. Me and Amira regularly have one scoop with no double-dips. But the most exciting thing is the stupid-expensive ice cream that Janice bought. Janice: During one of my cravings. It’s called Jenny’s. It’s “the buckeye state” flavor.
Sabine: It’s $12.99 for a pint. She got on sale for nine bucks. It’s amazing. It’s mind-blowing.
The most disgusting?
Amira: Sabine’s kombucha.
Ross and Janice: Yea.
Sabine: It’s not disgusting, it’s wonderful. It’s an emblem of self-care.
Ross: She kept it in an old T-shirt in the cupboard for a month and a half and now it’s in the fridge.
Sabine: It was a washed T-shirt.
The oldest?
Ross: Salsa that someone gave me before she moved to Berkley two-and-a-half years ago. I never tasted it.
Sabine: There are two things I’ve always wondered about in there. That salsa, and then a big jar with a “K” on it.
Janice: Oh, it’s our lard!
Ross: No, this isn’t lard—when I make bacon, I pour the fat in this jar.
Janice: That’s how you make lard, dude.
Ross: Oh, okay. This is my self-made lard, then. I curated this lard.
Anything you regret buying?
Ross: Crappy jellies. They’re always too sweet.
Amira: I sometimes buy too much yogurt.
Janice: Oh, this! This thing! It’s pickled mackerel.
Ross: She can’t eat the canned kind because she’s pregnant.
Janice: It’s really fishy.
What's your guilty pleasure?
Amira: Goldfish crackers.
Ross: I don’t have any guilt associated with any of the foods I eat.
Janice: Ice cream, because it makes me feel farty.
Sabine: I like anything sweet. I will totally binge on sugar.
Where do you do most of your food shopping?
Amira: The Key Food on McGuiness.
Sabine: Trader Joe’s. Except that I get my Fiber Rich from a bodega on Lorimer, and I have to go to the Food Emporium at Union Square in order to find my sugar-free chocolate pops. We all go to the fancy bodega.
Ross: C-Town, and Fancy B.
How much do you spend on groceries each week?
Amira: Roughly $50.
Sabine: $50.
Ross: I have no idea. It feels like more than $50. But it’s for two of us.
How often do you go grocery shopping?
Janice: Every day. We don’t buy a lot of things, just what we need.
Ross: Particularly because the fridge is so small.
Sabine: Once a week.
Amira: I try to go once a week, but probably every ten days.
How do you determine whose food is whose and what’s collective and what’s not?
Ross: I don’t like anything Sabine eats and she can’t eat most of the things that I eat, so that’s pretty easy. The only food that we really have in common is eggs. Eggs are pretty much communal.
Sabine: Janice and Ross have pretty high standards. I enjoy good foods but I eat more here for health and nutrition—to keep things low-calorie and avoid indulging. I’m just eating for nutrients. But I’m always happy to eat everyone’s sloppy seconds. I’m like a garbage disposal. Also, when I first moved in here, my roommates didn’t make meat. Over time, more and more people did, and some people in the past cooked and the house smelled like meat for days. Ross and Janice are really conscious about it. 90% of the time when they make meat, Janice makes me a vegetarian option.
Amira: I’ve stolen milk from Ross before. And orange juice.
Ross: Amira and I tend to inform each other when we’ve stolen one another’s drinks.
Amira: I usually don’t mind sneaky eating as long as it’s not the last bite.
Is there anything in here that we would have found in your childhood fridge?
Janice: The Yakult [yogurt drink].
Ross: Janice comes home with Adobo and tons of other food her Filipino patients make for her. Amira: Tahini.
Sabine: There’s probably some vegetable overlap, but my father only likes iceberg lettuce.
Sabine is a photo director and film producer. She’s holding her homemade kombucha and nibbling a sugar-free chocolate ice pop. Amira works in public radio and is holding a bottle of triple sec and a jar of jam. Ross works in the environmental and energy sectors. He’s holding a jar of his self-made lard. Janice is a third-year family medicine resident, and she’s holding a package of Yakult yogurt drinks.