I was born in '44, and I never had "fast food" until I dated my husband in the late 60's. My family considered McDonald's food to be trash, though none of us had ever tasted it. While in my late teens I drove to Hartford, CT for my bassoon lesson, and I used to pass a Friendly's and read the sign that said Ice Cream on one line and Sandwiches on the line below. I wondered if they were a sandwich shop or if they sold only ice cream sandwiches. I didn't find out until one was built in Stratford and I finally decided to eat there. Awful Awfuls were incredibly large and think milkshakes at Friendly's. They were awful good and awful big. Eventually, they had to change the name to the Fribble. I think it was due to a another store using the name first. Somehow, when the name changed, Fribbles just weren't as good as Awful Awfuls. Friendly's made the best cheesburgers in the world back then. They were made as a square burger added to a grilled cheese sandwich and were always cut into three pieces. Does anyone recall a canned meat called Veal Loaf? The can was ths same as a Spam (UGH, no matter how poor I may ever be, I will NEVER again eat Spam) can but the meat tasted gteat. The can was opened with a roll-up key. We had a sandwich grill and made the sandwiches on Wonder Bread. Making sandwiches for four people from that one can made for pretty thin sandwiches. I wonder if German hard rolls were what we called water rolls. I never found them outside CT and haven't had one in 40 years. Going back to my parents' distain of fast food, and when we were still very poor, our Sunday night supper was always eggs and potatoes. My father always cooked the potatoes, usually as slices fried in a ton of butter on a two burner long griddle pan. When he was in a good mood he would take the time to make real french fries. A can of Crisco was melted in a deep pot and we peeled REAL potatoes for him to deep fry. Each batch was placed into a clean paper bag and shaken to remove extra grease. Then, they were shaken with salt and we had the best fries I have ever tasted. I recall making real fries once when my kids were little. They shared them with their friends and they sure disappeared fast! Oh, yeah, how about going to the local drug store and getting a good sized Hershy bar with almonds for a nickel???? Another treat was parking near the local airport to watch the planes land and take off. There was a hot dog stand nearby and sometime we got foot long hot dogs. No Belgian Waffle has ever tasted as good ones I had first at the World Fair in New York in the 60's. My family was terribly poor and a special treat was a Sunday ride and a stop at the God Humor truck. I think they cost 15 cents back then. A quick lunch, considered healthful, was a Horlick's Choclate Malted milk with a raw egg beaten into the whole milk!!! God they were good!

Hurricane Sandy Recovery This link has a lot of information Get Help Register for Assistance: Survivors in declared counties in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut can register for assistance. Learn more information and FAQs before you apply for assistance. Business Loans - Your business may be eligible for disaster assistance from the Small Business Administration. Government Contracting - The General Services Administration helps federal, state, and local governments get supplies, equipment, and services needed to support disaster relief. USDA Offers Food Assistance to Those Affected by Hurricane Sandy State of New York, USDA is working with the state, the Food Bank of New York City, and partner agencies to distribute approximately 1.1 million pounds of USDA Foods. Food will be distributed through nearly 1,000 designated emergency feeding outlets to affected households in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester and Rockland counties New Jersey, USDA worked late last week with the State of New Jersey and the Community Food Bank of New Jersey to coordinate the delivery of 39,000 pounds of USDA Foods to support congregate feeding efforts. The food bank will combine USDA Foods with existing food stocks to produce 15,000 meals per day for 5-7 days to be distributed in cooperation with the Red Cross and Salvation Army at shelters. USDA is working closely with states and industry partners in affected states to remind Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) retailers of the procedure for manually processing SNAP transactions during power outages, in order to ensure that SNAP recipients living in areas affected by power outages continue to have access to food. In certain areas in New York, USDA has granted a waiver to allow SNAP recipients to purchase hot foods using SNAP benefits. Under normal circumstances, SNAP benefits cannot be used to purchase hot, ready-to-eat foods. USDA has granted this waiver to accommodate individuals that have lost homes, are affected by power outages, or are otherwise unable to prepare food due to damage caused by the hurricane. USDA has approved requests from the states of Connecticut, Maryland, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia and to issue automatic, mass replacements of benefits to SNAP households in certain areas affected by the hurricane. USDA has also approved requests from the states of USDA has approved requests from the states of Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and West Virginia to extend the time SNAP recipients have to report loss of food purchased using SNAP benefits and to request replacement benefits. *or more information about disaster nutrition assistance, visit direct PDF link. Visit this link for the latest Hurricane Sandy Response information and resources available from government agencies.

For my job I need to take payment from customers (many of these are small businesses). It seems no one in Saskatchewan has a credit card! We have issues all the time because our customers (99.9999 % Canadians) don't have a credit card to make their purchase. They want us to bill them or mostly they want to go into a local office to pay cash. Most of the local offices of the company no longer accept cash payments which really annoys the customers. The lack of credit cards has been really surprising to my colleagues and I. I think checks are popular here (WNY) as many small businesses here don't like to take credit cards due to the high fees. Speaking to Canadians every day from Vancouver to Montreal I thought I could understand the accents. Went to see a band from Vancouver and talked to a band member during a break. Oh my gosh I could barely understand him. Actually much of it I just nodded my head to, no clue what he was saying. Just like the US, Canada is a very diverse population over many different regions. While communication is sometimes hard, overall it makes life more interesting. Recently was told of a "come and go tea" by a person in Windsor, had no idea what she was talking about. It was like a birthday party. Not sure if actual tea was served.

I always find these type of lists fun, fascinating, head-scratching. How they are decided. The LED lighting company that put it together....can't figure out how they came up with the list. Went down the rabbit hole that is 'google trends' for 2020. Tried various key words but 'recipe' gave the best results. I did global, then the US, then by state, county, city, even by week throughout the year. I went to France, the UK, Ireland, Greece, Italy. Must be a 'key word' I'm missing. Did not see corn cakes, grilled cheese, or fried chicken anywhere. -Global on the left, US on the right. Would be interesting to compare 2019 and 2020. Doubt we would see as much bread/sourdough. State-by-state I saw much more pizza, stews, breads. Nice to get a top ten, rather than just one. (the whipped coffee was a tik-tok viral thing.) Sugar, cream, and instant coffee. Ick. We did not change much but did try something new at least once a week. 52 weeks in a year so that was fun. Twice a week at least, a grain/bean or noodle veg bowl. Went through 4 pounds of white miso and gallons of bone/veg broth. Lots of eggs. Seafood, lamb. The ultimate comfort would be the great American burger, and a Salmon, Avocado BLT. Proscuitto bacon. DH would add merquez lamb sausage to the ultimate comfort. Having that tonight in a roasted halved spaghetti squash. New 2020 comforts would be salmon cakes. Now at least once a month. And shrimp-n-grits. If I had to pick just one....three farm eggs, cracked whole, low heat, slow stir so the eggs do not scramble, variegated. Dill and a bit of fluffy parm/romano. DH would say anchovy's, garlic, parm/romano over egg pasta, wide noodles. Comfort together?...the burger. And the BLT....and scrapple, 😂 But we can't get that here. The lighting LED people's conclusion, "...What else makes comfort food even better? When you’re eating it under led lighting that’s designed to make everything under them look better. Our products are designed to deliver superb color quality and complete controllability so not only does your comfort food taste good, it looks good too....