On many weekdays during the pandemic, for a light lunch, I’ll prepare some version of toast for the both of us. It’s usually one slice of bread each with some type of topping, usually avocado, sardines, kimchi, cheese, peanut butter, jam, or some combination of some of the above. Pre-pandemic, we rarely had bread in the house, but since the pandemic, we’ve been eating a lot more than we usually do. And no, mind you, there’s been no weight gain.

I realized after lunch prep today that we’d run out of bread, so I took a break later this afternoon to go out and see if I could grab some. Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s lines would be insane, so I tried to stop by Levain or Orwashers to see if I could get a whole grain loaf. Welp, no such luck: BOTH shops had sold out of all their loaves by 2pm, and they both shared that this was highly unusual. “This has never happened before,” the worker at Levain said to me. “At this time of the day, we’d always have some of each type of bread we bake, but today, ti was all gone before 2pm! I have no idea what’s going on.”

It’s the sixth day of Hannukah today, and I wondered if that could be a reason for the bread shortage. The other day I had was… oh wait. The weather report says a huge snow storm is going to blanket all of New York City tomorrow. Could that be the reason everyone is buying up all the carbs?

I’m pretty sure it’s the latter. When it snows here, no one wants to go ANYWHERE.