How many people does your fridge need to feed?
Erik: There are four of us, with girlfriends sometimes. And a cat.
What do you usually eat for breakfast?
Jerimee: Egg sandwiches. I also make French toast, or egg tacos. Always egg-something.
Erik: Granola. I pour almond milk into it to soften it up so it’s easier on my teeth—I figure why over-exert them. And then I add chia seeds, yogurt, and some kind of berries, with honey on top.
Andrew: Two eggs and toast every weekday morning; three eggs and a bagel on weekends.
Is there anything you eat every day?
Jerimee: Bread and cheese of some kind. And I cook with butter every day.
Andrew: A glass of bourbon almost every night. And always three meals a day, I never miss meals.
Erik: Some kind of nuts.
Every week?
Jerimee: Cheese sandwiches, pizza. I was eating chorizo tacos every week for a while.
Erik: Black beans and rice. Although I’ve given myself a little break recently.
Andrew: I almost always have salmon, rice, and broccoli in the fridge
What item are you forbidden from purchasing right now?
Erik: I struggle with ice cream. Sometimes I break down. This is what makes Jerimee such an awesome roommate, because he brings things into the house that I really want to eat, like Doritos.
Jerimee: I just eat whatever I want, but I try not to eat fast food. Although I had Popeye’s today. I’d wanted fried chicken for weeks and I’ve never made it myself and wasn’t motivated to do it. It was regrettable.
Erik: There’s this Checkers on the corner that I’ve never once patronized. I don’t want to open the floodgates: it’s open 24-7, it seems too easy. But it does sing a siren song.
Andrew: I’m dairy-free and gluten-free. I’m not Celiac or anything, I just feel better eating this way. And I don’t have a taste for sweets, like candy, cake, or ice cream; I just don’t like sugar. I also don’t have a sense of smell—I don’t know if the two are related.
What’s the most delicious thing in here?
Andrew: The salmon I have waiting for later.
Erik: I’ve got some sweet cheddar in there. “Sweet” as in “dope-ass” cheddar. I got it from the Campbell Cheese shop. I also have ramp butter that I got from The Meat Hook.
Jerimee: The bottle of Coke.
The most disgusting?
Jerimee: There’s some Milk of Magnesia. I’m sure that doesn’t taste very good.
Andrew: Probably something that’s not mine, so I don’t want to say. Whose chicken and rice is that? ‘Cause that’s been in there for a while, and that’s my favorite Tupperware.
Jerimee: Dude, don’t open that, you don’t have a sense of smell!
Erik: Ew, and this one is mine. It smells really bad. It’s from a crockpot experience a long time ago.
Anything you regret buying?
Erik: I will grudgingly eat anything I buy, I can’t waste food. So I regret lots but I force myself to eat it. And I have issues with the almond milk I drink, because I know it uses a lot of water, and there’s a drought in California. But it’s so easy and it tends to be cheaper, so I just keep going back for it.
Andrew: This kombucha. I regret not drinking it right away—I wanted it when I bought it and then I didn’t act on it. I’ll drink it but now I don’t really care about it, and it’s expensive.
Jerimee: There’s some queso in there that wasn’t very good.
What's your guilty pleasure?
Andrew: I eat a lot of rice, it’s excessive.
Erik: I compulsively eat dried fruit. Like today I came home and I knew it would only be 20 minutes before the food that I’d already made was heated but I still went to town on a box of Polynesian fruit mix.
Jerimee: French fries. I don’t actually enjoy eating them because I’ve had them so many times, but they come with everything you get so you have to at least eat a few.
Where do you do most of your food shopping?
Erik: The Downtown Natural Market on Church Avenue. It’s kind of like an organic store but it’s really crummy and the stuff is old and really overpriced. But it’s still better than the other options. And, it’s three blocks closer than a shitty grocery store that would be cheaper but is still shitty.
Jerimee: I go there, too. I get my deli meat from the Meat Palace Supreme. And there’s a Mexican grocery store on the corner where I buy soda, tortillas, and chorizo.
Andrew: Downtown Natural Market for me as well, but I try to do Whole Foods when I can because I can get everything I want there and it’s all fresh. But it requires a trip to Manhattan; I usually only go if I already happen to be there.
How much do you spend on groceries each week?
Jerimee: $60 or $70, maybe?
Andrew: Probably $150, I would guess. Gluten-free bread is so expensive, and I go to Downtown Natural for so many things and there’s practically a surcharge there.
Erik: I feel like that store exists just for us to be trapped by it. I think I probably spend $100. It’s kind of staggering to behold.
How often do you go grocery shopping?
Andrew: Probably twice a week.
Erik: Three or four times, because I’ll just get a few things, especially when I’m traveling by bike.
Jerimee: More than twice, because I never know what I want to eat until the day-of.
What percentage of your meals do you prepare at home?
Jerimee: About 75%.
Andrew: It depends on the week. This week I’ve been pretty good and it’s been 70% or 80%. But it could be down to 30% some weeks, if it’s just breakfast at home.
Erik: 75%. I’d say Jamie, who’s not here, prepares 5% at home. There are days when he’s ordered from the same restaurant multiple times.
Andrew: He’s done that? I’ve always wanted to do that but I don’t have the balls.
Erik: They come back the second time, and they’re pissed!
Is there anything in here that we would have found in your childhood fridge?
Andrew: Broccoli was a staple.
Jerimee: Butter, ketchup, syrup—many of the condiments. And cheese, lunch meat…Pretty much everything I eat I ate when I was a child.
Erik: Maybe the ice packs for icing down injured body parts. I revamped a lot of my eating habits. Like, I used to eat tons and tons of meat. Actually I’ve brought some of the dishes I’ve made back into our home and now my mom and sister cook a lot of those things. I had a vegan roommate in college, that started to change my habits.
Andrew: Me too. I definitely revamped at some point in college. Like I realized you don’t have to eat bread at every meal, or indiscriminate meat; at some point I learned about whole grains. Up until you’re 18 your life is programmed for you in lots of ways, like you’re on a team or you play a sport, and your parents cook all your meals for you. But by sophomore or junior year I realized I was feeling shitty because I hadn’t exercised in a long time, so I started going to the gym, and eating well went along with that. And then I started questioning some of the food choices that had been made for me.
What do you wish you had in here?
Jerimee: Some shrimp.
Erik: There’s this garlic spread that my girlfriend brings from California sometimes. It’s pureed garlic mixed with really good olive oil, and you just slather it on everything. It makes everything you put it on taste like it’s been given healthy steroids.
Erik, 33, is a librarian, and he’s holding some goat cheese. Jerimee, 27, is a copy editor. His glass of bourbon contains an ice cube from the freezer. Andrew, 28, works in health care and he’s holding rotten leftovers in Tupperware—despite not having a sense of smell, he knows the stuff is spoiled because another roommate tells him this is the case. They live in Flatbush, Brooklyn.