[jenni-b]

Re Fort Smith: You can definitely get some great Vietnamese food there!

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by hotair2

What I was saying was sad is that they have never tried really good food. If they had tried it and did not like it, then that is another thing entirely. I guess I am not a foodie. I can't afford to be a foodie. I do like really good food, which most of the time is expensive, but not always. I still eat at the Awful House maybe twice a year, and I love the Krystal, although the one in Fayetteville is not that great. I love Varsity hamburgers in Atlanta.

I am trying to quit eating fast food, but not because I feel I am above it, but because most of the fast food that I eat is not good for me. Since coming to Fort Smith I have started cooking more myself because there are not that many good resturaunts. That is probably a good thing. I have found out that I enjoy cooking and I can make things just the way I like them. It is also nice to have people over to the house. It is just a more pleasant experience. I also now have a baby and it is a lot easier. Sweet baby Proud Papa.

Good for you, I think there is nothing like cooking at home and enjoying it. Two of our three kids could easily afford to eat out most of the time (No, I do not mean $100 meal) but they have been lucky in life. Do they? No, they both enjoy cooking and luckily so do their hubbies. I will add, they do eat fast food on occassion like we all do. You are right, cut back, it isn't good for us, but yes, that greasy stuff does taste good once in awhile.

I am not sure it is even sad some do not know what really good food is, cause I do not think most of them would enjoy it, but again, that is just my view. I could be altogether wrong. You and I plus a few others on here do enjoy it even if we only stlurge once in awhile, I know so many that would not enjoy it, if for no other reason the price tag even if they were not paying.

When I was getting married about 200 years ago, my future in laws (country people from word go) didn't have a clue about fancy weddings, what they should do or even knowing it was proper for them to have my parents over sometime before the wedding. So, to make a long story short, my parents took the bull by the horns and decided to invite them out. It was a Sunday afternoon with dinner planned about 4pm if I remember right. Anyway, my parents chose an upscale steak house in Calif but certainly not top of the line. First of all, my future in-laws always ate their main meal on weekends at noon, this Sunday they did the same so they really were not terribly hungry and my father in law ordered a filet, well done mind you. When the waitress explained the chef would have to butterfly it, my future father in law had no idea what that meant. My future mother in law ordered a ground sirloin. Later in life, we would take her out to places that served prime rib and she would be disgusted to think we would eat something like that. Of course the younger generation in the family eventually left the farms, all have college degrees, a few are doctors and they love good food, but we all laugh at Pat's moms family and generation. They were not impressed with our idea of good food, green beans cooked for about 10 minutes or so, are you kidding, what happened to cooking them in bacon for a day or two? My point is, not everyone does enjoy the experiences we love.

By the way, take care of that wonderful baby!! boy or girl and how old?

Nita

[hotair2]

Originally Posted by nmnita

Good for you, I think there is nothing like cooking at home and enjoying it. Two of our three kids could easily afford to eat out most of the time (No, I do not mean $100 meal) but they have been lucky in life. Do they? No, they both enjoy cooking and luckily so do their hubbies. I will add, they do eat fast food on occassion like we all do. You are right, cut back, it isn't good for us, but yes, that greasy stuff does taste good once in awhile.

I am not sure it is even sad some do not know what really good food is, cause I do not think most of them would enjoy it, but again, that is just my view. I could be altogether wrong. You and I plus a few others on here do enjoy it even if we only stlurge once in awhile, I know so many that would not enjoy it, if for no other reason the price tag even if they were not paying.

When I was getting married about 200 years ago, my future in laws (country people from word go) didn't have a clue about fancy weddings, what they should do or even knowing it was proper for them to have my parents over sometime before the wedding. So, to make a long story short, my parents took the bull by the horns and decided to invite them out. It was a Sunday afternoon with dinner planned about 4pm if I remember right. Anyway, my parents chose an upscale steak house in Calif but certainly not top of the line. First of all, my future in-laws always ate their main meal on weekends at noon, this Sunday they did the same so they really were not terribly hungry and my father in law ordered a filet, well done mind you. When the waitress explained the chef would have to butterfly it, my future father in law had no idea what that meant. My future mother in law ordered a ground sirloin. Later in life, we would take her out to places that served prime rib and she would be disgusted to think we would eat something like that. Of course the younger generation in the family eventually left the farms, all have college degrees, a few are doctors and they love good food, but we all laugh at Pat's moms family and generation. They were not impressed with our idea of good food, green beans cooked for about 10 minutes or so, are you kidding, what happened to cooking them in bacon for a day or two? My point is, not everyone does enjoy the experiences we love.

By the way, take care of that wonderful baby!! boy or girl and how old?

Nita

3 month old boy, my first child. That is the reason that I live in Fort Smith. If I lived in Colorado or Georgia, he would never get to see his grandparents, and my in-laws are great people and I could not rob him of the opportunity to be around them. Grandparents are the best. So I am making a lot of adjustments for the baby, but he makes me happy so it is worth it. I still like to complain though.

[jenni-b]

aw, congratulations!

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by hotair2

3 month old boy, my first child. That is the reason that I live in Fort Smith. If I lived in Colorado or Georgia, he would never get to see his grandparents, and my in-laws are great people and I could not rob him of the opportunity to be around them. Grandparents are the best. So I am making a lot of adjustments for the baby, but he makes me happy so it is worth it. I still like to complain though.

and there is nothing like grandkids. We spent 13 years in Dallas, not that we didn't enjoy parts of it, but Dallas was not where we wanted to live forever. Why did we stay? Well jobs played a part but watching our 2 granddaughters grow up was the wonderful experience of my life, I think Pat's as well. It would be hard to be any closer to the girls than we are today: I attribute (spelling) that to living 5 miles from them while they were youngsters. We never missed a swim meet or a piano recital and rarely did we miss anything else they did. Well we missed a few, not so poistive things they did in highschool, luckily for them their mom and dad missed those things as well.

Nita

[RogMar]

Originally Posted by strumpeace

Here are my issues with chain restaurants:

Agreed, but for every one of us, there are three of them.

I had many friends before moving here that particulary would not eat at anything but a chain when traveling because otherwise, "You'll never know what your going to get".

Fears of the Aztec Two Step whilst on the road.

There are the unadventuress out there, and chains are safe.

[Dr. Foosball]

Speaking of the chain mentality of Fort Smith, I was talking to a family traveling from the Northeast and had stopped here for the night. They were looking for a nice gorcery store to get some food to cook for the evening. The mention of buying food at Walmart shocked them. Their shock at the thought of buying food at Walmart shocked me. It seems that 99% of the non-Walmart grocery stores around here are nasty and run-down. Walmart is about the only palce to get food.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by Dr. Foosball

Speaking of the chain mentality of Fort Smith, I was talking to a family traveling from the Northeast and had stopped here for the night. They were looking for a nice gorcery store to get some food to cook for the evening. The mention of buying food at Walmart shocked them. Their shock at the thought of buying food at Walmart shocked me. It seems that 99% of the non-Walmart grocery stores around here are nasty and run-down. Walmart is about the only palce to get food.

That is really sad cause here in Wal-Mart home territory we have several choices: we have 2 grocery stores here in BV, both are clean, offer great produce and one has prices that can always compete with Wal-Mart, in Gravette we have another choice. Yes, it is a little old and worn, but also offers good prices. We do shop at Sams about once every 6 weeks but I rarely use Wal-Mart.

Nita

[Thomas R.]

Well I'm not totally uncritical of fast food. I think people eat too much of it and much of it's crud. I actually don't like McDonald's, Wendy's, Subway, or KFC. (I've ate at a few McD's that were okay though) This is mostly because I just actually don't like the taste of things I've eaten there. I like Long John Silver's, Pizza Hut, Braums, and oddly enough Arby's.

Still I don't think there's anything wrong with it on occasion, particularly if you're in a position where you do need something fast. When I was going to classes every day going exclusively to non-chain restaurants would've been way too expensive, too time consuming (in part because many of them are less conveniently located so it'd be more driving), and I'm not even sure if it'd be healthier. Still after awhile I did realize I was eating too much fast food and tried to just bring stuff, etc.

[Good Ol Kahn]

I can understand having to eat fast food in between classes. I figured the good from getting an education outweighed the bad that came from eating fast food.
The Target really doesn't seem to have as many food choices as Wal-mart. I guess because it is just a regular Target and not a super Target. I'll admit a lot of my food comes from Sam's or Wal-mart, but if you don't like shopping at Wal-mart for whatever reason it really isn't the only place.
There are plenty of places to eat in Fort Smith. You can nitpick and say there is no Indian food or whatever. So what, just go for Thai or Salvadoran food instead. No place has everything.
Ten years ago I remember walking around Garrison and it really was dead, it was almost comical. Nowadays if you can't have fun on Garrison on a Friday night the problem must be with you.