Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I can't think of anything in that precise category, but I can claim to have done equally extreme things involving food, e.g. the 'prosciutto run' (aka summer holidays) wherein we go to Italy from Denmark on a motorcycle, for 2 to 3 weeks, with three tops and one pair of pants a piece (yes, yes and socks and underthings), saving all the 'extra' luggage space for the cryo-packed prosciutto [and, possibly, bresaola] that we triumphantly bear home.

Sort of similar?

Sometimes there are late-night m&m trips. I justify this by telling myself that the 6 block round trip walk makes it ok to eat the candy.

If there's a snowstorm coming, I always make sure I have enough pasta and ingredients for sauce.

I had enough of these items before last night's storm, and my second-string necessities included tortilla chips, hot sauce, canned pears and cottage cheese.

Well, ice storms, blizzards, and the like are not something I ever have to brave here in So Calif. But I've been known to make market runs at ungodly early morning hours, or very late at night. The vast majority of the time, it's because I forgot to buy coffee (my recreational drug of choice). Sometimes it's no bread or sandwich fillings for kids' lunches (they're either spoiled or smart, but they adamantly refuse to eat school food). Once in a while it's because I didn't realize I'd used the last of the eggs or milk.

Most things that I *must* have on hand have fairly long lives, so I avoid emergencies by re-stocking when I reach a "critical" low on inventory. If I see only one bottle of mustard, hot sauce, mayo, etc. in the pantry, I buy another (or two, or three) on the very next shopping excursion. I also hate to be out of canned tuna, cheese, pasta, brown rice, dried pinto beans... there are definitely things that you'll find stocked in my pantry or freezer 99.9% of the time... things I almost never run out of completely!

I live in Florida so this might seem foreign to anyone in New York but when my bottled water supply gets low, I truly panic. If you've ever been to Florida you know about the raw sewage that passes for tap water here and you can probably at least sympathize. On a recent trip to NY, my BF said, "We forgot to buy bottled water" to bring into the hotel. I got him a glass of tap water, handed it to him and said, "Here, have some champagne."

For food - I guess that's seasonal. At this time I need lots of low-fat snacks and nibbles. When I get low on apples and carrots, I get antsy because I know when I have to quell the beast between meals, I can undo my whole day with a small but high fat snack. The only exception to that is peanut butter.

I don't like running out of pasta because it's good for quick meals.

Last time I "ran out" for something, it was milk for my coffee and boy, was I a sight. Thankfully, there was no one else around at the 7 11 to see me dash in wearing PJ bottoms, a jacket, my glasses and my hair looking like a bird's nest.

Muenster cheese and bagels. Two of the staples in my house. There is a 24-hour bagel bakery a few blocks away. Now if I could only find a 24-hour dairy store!!

I have a strange obsession with avocadoes. I buy them in bulk at costco ( I make weekely trips) but when I run out, I will definitely make a run. Also I second the bagel entry and I am a freshness snob when it comes to bagels. The people in the bage store know me by name.