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A Red Hook Itinerary For Papusas and Stoop Sales

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Welcome to Drunk Shopping, our feature celebrating the time-honored tradition of getting totally wasted while the sun's still shining before buying a bunch of debatably useful stuff that the sober you would be too timid or too restrained to take home. Each Friday we'll cobble together a new itinerary starting you off with a boozy Saturday or Sunday brunch before meandering through a few neighboring retailers and happy hours notable for seasonal specials, limited time availability, fantastic deals, recent openings, or new shipments.

Screw the weather—when you're Drunk Shopping you won't even notice if it pours every 90 minutes and only gets steamier after each deluge. This weekend we take the road less traveled—or not, Ikea is right there—to the wilds of Red Hook, Brooklyn. Start out at the Ball Fields at Red Hook Park for the food trucks everyone is always squawking about. Make the rounds for a grand assortment of ultra-cheap Latin American specialties like pupusas, ceviches, tamales, and quesadillas. Try, like, everything—don't you want in on what all those food nerds are always talking about? And plan ahead: Bring a little something something to mix into whatever horchata or cane-sugar Mexican Coke you decide to wash down all that cilantro with. Now, time to spend.

Walk northwest along the water. Lo, Ikea and the legendary Fairway supermarket stand before you. Go in and play! Buy some organic snacks and/or wholesale-sized boxes of soft pretzels and/or a couch—why not? How often are you in this neck of the woods? (Plus they deliver!) Before, after, in-between: Stop into Sunny's Bar for several cheap drinks in an appropriately wharfy-divey-shabby space. Oh, and on Saturday (rain date: the 19th), there is a 28-location neighborhood stoop sale with many participating residences clustered right around the bar (you know, in case you need to run back in for an emergency Bloody Mary).

Then what? Head northeast on Van Brunt Street, the neighborhood's main shopping corridor. Amongst other options, check Baked, obviously a bakery; Chelsea Garden Center Brooklyn for flora and furniture; Erie Basin for antiques and jewelry, Home/Made for artisanally-produced home goods; Metal and Thread for repurposed and locally-inspired textiles and jewelry; and Pier Glass for hand-blown pieces by glass-blowers-in-love Kevin Kutch and Mary Ellen Buxton.

Sidetrip: Head back towards the Ball Fields on Lorraine Street for Beatrice Giovanniello. Packed to the rafters, the shop stocks a vast array of vintage furniture and decorative kitsch at generally friendly prices. They'll even reupholster the couch you just bought at Ikea and already spilled two bottles of red wine on while you were drinking on the street.

While you're down there you can go get a few more pupusas and lay around in the grass just long enough to finish the rum you have in your handbag.

Enjoy! And please do share your Drunk Shopping tips, tales, and war stories in the comments!

· Neighborhood Wide Sidewalk Sale [Official Site]
· Drunk Shopping [Racked NY]

Red Hook Park

Clinton Street and Bay Street, Brooklyn, NY