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We all have some foods that we might be embarrassed about, but the nostalgia and other factors overrule our general sensibilities around these things. Here are some of mine. Kraft (Dinner) Mac & Cheese, no milk, add mustard. I don't eat this very often (maybe once every 5 years or so) but when I do, I'm instantly satisfied and have good memories of eating this with my childhood best friend and her little sister. I don't know. I love mustard but I'm not a big mac & cheese person, and in theory they shouldn't go together. scrambled eggs with feta - brings me back to college. For added calories, I like to serve this on toast with a slice of gyro meat. So bad for you and yet so good. homemade bread and butter pickles - my family used to eat these at my grandmother's house. I think you have to source the cucumber pickles from a very specific patch of dirt in rural Michigan. Mixed nuts in the shell, reminds me of my family and how we'd all fight over the good nutcracker (not the dolls). What are some of your favorite comfort foods?

How many of us had to suffer through the awful food of the pre-2000s? My family rarely went out to eat, and my mom always had salad and fresh foods around, which saved me from my dad's HORRID concoctions. Here's a list: tuna casserole "shit" on a shingle (i think it's supposed to be called "chipped beef on toast.") "goulash" (not Hungarian Goulash, which is really good. This was some sort of weird tomato sauce + noodles + ground beef) Sloppy Joes (ground beef, tomato sauce, served on hamburger buns) salmon patties (canned salmon, overcooked into a patty that was made with bread crumbs and dried out to the consistency of a hockey puck) "welsh" rarebit (this isn't so bad, other than he didn't add any sort of spices to the cheese sauce) beef stroganoff (egg noodles with ground beef and a can of mushroom soup) meat loaf meat loaf sandwiches meat loaf on noodles hamburger soup (greasy soup with bits of old hamburger and vegetables, overcooked and undersalted) Compared to my mom, who is also a bad cook, but her food was more like: iceberg lettuce with cucumbers and tomatoes (this was served before dinner every single night. sometimes my dad would sprinkle shredded cheese on it which was not my favorite) polish sausage and sauerkraut kielbasa brats liverwurst sandwiches homemade spaghetti sauce on spaghetti noodles meat loaf tacos (american style), fridays only, make your own fondue (my family loves fondues and has for as long as I can remember. One version that is wildly mocked is the one that is just a vat of hot oil sitting on the table with an extension cord, ready for anyone to trip over and cause a disaster, plus the plate of raw meats to be individually cooked in said bowl of hot oil) . This was a "special occasion" meal, so I guess we just really wanted to poison our friends and extended relatives. microwave "chips and cheese" (this was her idea of a "special snack." gag) And of course I had the usual stuff that was always around peanut butter sandwiches grilled cheese and campbell's tomato soup breakfast burritos w/homemade salsa from grandpa's special closet that also held rhubarb wine/moonshine and a seemingly endless supply of picked vegetables brats various soups and casseroles made from leftovers. We always had a side of veggies, which were often cooked in a casserole dish, covered with the old style of saran wrap, and microwaved if they were frozen, or chopped and served raw, or cooked in a pan on the stove if they were fresh. fortunately my grandparents had a lot of garden and we'd hit up roadside stands on the regular. Anyway, so my point is that things have changed so much that I'm really curious about what other people ate growing up! -

Yeah you go with that Chick-fil-A Yeah next time I'll go to a Chick-fil-A is five minutes after hell freezes over.

We missed Hanukkah, but there are still other holidays ahead. Yule, Kwanzaa, Christmas and New Year's, among others. What are people planning to cook? My mom and I will be doing lunch on Christmas eve. Soup and and antipasto-inspired spread of bread, cheese, meats, veggies and fruit. So I'll be making the soup, a lemon chickenn orzo, this week and freezing it, to be transported by car for 8.5 hours to my brother's house. I plan to pick up some meats at a local East European-style deli and some cheese. Doing an herbed white bean dip. My mom will go down earlier, get veggies and fruits based on what looks good there, maybe some smoked salmon (a favorite of my dad's), get the bread and crackers, maybe an artichoke dip, some pickles and olives. Like me, she's cooking soup this week to freeze and bring down. No idea what's being done for Christmas eve or Christmas day. We're a mix of vegetarians and meat eaters, so pasta is a common choice. I'm fine with vegetarian food, provided it's good food. My big New Years plans involve going to bed early, but maybe I'll make something nice and a little fancy just for myself, like a filet mignon or a corish hen.