I just do not trust any salads that you buy that are already mixed. Specially the bags in the grocery store. Now on a Buffet in a good restaurant where can make up your own. I like that.

Jeanne, that is what I'm talking about regarding this restaurant. If you want, they will make up a salad with ingredients of your choosing for you to take home. It's not fast food or a grocery or a buffet for you to make your own. It's a working restaurant with good reviews, that trains, employs, and economically encourage the homeless and other disadvantaged folks.

They have a myriad of menu options such as a fresh green salad for 5.00, chicken, tuna or egg for 5.00, eggsalad for 4.00, chef salad for 8.00 or a cobb salad for 10.00 among others.

And this is with all the regular breakfast, lunch, and dinner offerings.

Angel.  And I am sure it is kept more sanitary . Here anymore the Health are doing much better checking restaurants. Every month you will see which is closed down due to things not been kept right and keeping to the rules.  Usually they open up again in 2 or 3 days but now it has to be shown it the doors or window as to how many stars the place has. they are graded also.  So many Mexican. Chinese etc brought a lot of changes.  I just have my favourite place if going out to dinner. Same place for years. Spotless and run well. 
I think that maybe I have been to funny about my food. Since I was little.  But now all this health things and what they find.  I wasn't to wrong.  I just carry it to far.

Jeanne, it is the same here, published weekly in the newspapers and posted on the doors of the establishments. We are lucky in having so many ethnic restaurants. They are almost always family run and I have never seen any of them on the lists. It is the chains, buffets and fast food that major on those lists here.

We have several fine dining places here that are twenty or more years in business and they also maintain a positive, excellent dining experience, if expensive.

There is a simply run barbeque place, owned and operated by the same family for over fifty years and never raised their prices and another summer-only outdoor  place, so good that it's summer reopening is usually on the front page of the newspaper.

It's the fast food and buffets that seem to be plagued with issues or simply don't have respect for their customers.

We have published Sanitary inspections in our local paper, too, and also a segment on Friday night TV news telling which restaurants have what rating and what the inspectors found.  Some of the stuff is downright frightening!  I don't eat out all that often and we tend to go to a small restaurant near by.  It is a place "where everyone knows your name".  Food is plain but good and well-prepared and their sanitary rating is always a 99 or even a perfect 100.

Those places, Phyllis, are always nice to have around and often the first to go when the chains move in. The one here, the Red Couch, is selling because of illness. There is a place similar if you like diners, which I find too greasy, called Ethel's. It has been around forever and the owner and her customers go back decades. However, she is also older, in her seventies with no family in sight.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/05/05/massive-recall-of-frozen-fruits-and-veggies-expands-after-multi-state-listeria-outbreak/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_rainbow

A full list of the items is here (link from above post).

http://www.fda.gov/Safety/Recalls/ucm498841.htm

I read that it is the biggest alert about contaminated food ever!  I checked my freezer and think I'm all right.  I try to fix fresh veggies and fruit when possible.  And the fruit that is in the freezer is stuff that I have frozen from fresh fruit.  Only have three bags of frozen vegs. that I bought and they don't seem to be on the list.  As an older (more mature    ) person I don't want to take the chance of getting listeria.

what exactly is listeria?  I thought it was some liquid that you rinse your mouth with!

Bubble, Listerine is a mouthwash, listeria is a debilitating illness and especially dangerous to the over 65, pregnant or those with impaired immune systems.

http://www.about-listeria.com/listeria_symptoms_risks/

Thanks Angel.  It sounds scary. especially with my with impaired immune system.

Don't have anything on the list.  We always had a vegetable garden in the past but not up to it anymore at this age.

According to a source about Listeria I read this. "Consumers should always cook frozen vegetables prior to consumption. Thorough cooking will destroy the Listeria which may be on frozen product.  Use boiling water and the stove-top method for cooking frozen vegetables; a microwave may not heat frozen vegetables enough to destroy the pathogen. Don’t be tempted to thaw and add frozen (un-cooked) vegetables to dishes. If you are making the church-favorite potluck disk of macaroni salad with frozen peas, be sure to thoroughly cook the peas and then cool them before adding them to the salad."

Very good advice, Jean! I am one that tends to add frozen vegetables to the crockpot and will rethink that habit.

In the summer, I have a continuing local farm share with Calypso Farm. I know seniors over 60 may get special farm shares from the borough but I don't know the details although it's a good idea to be able to have and use fresh for those with limited incomes.

My microwave died last month from old age and I certainly am learning how easy it was to use for so many foods I used it for.

Last year, Blue Bell's (the holy grail of ice cream in Texas to some people) plants were closed because of  three listeria attributed deaths in some of their commercial packaging to hospitals and nursing homes. They had to shut down all their plants and pull all their products off the shelves.  It took them close to a year to fix machinery, sanitize everything and get back into production. 

California has had several outbreaks of salmonella in their spinach and lettuce fields over the years.  It is almost scary now to eat any food you don't grow yourself anymore .

Mary

Hi MaryTX
The Isle of Man has Davisons Ice Cream, bet it will give Blue Bell's as the saying goes, a run for its money in the Ice cream business!

Kelly

Hi Kelly....

Yours might be the winner   I personally don't think Blue Ball is all that great, but I'm not a born and bred Texan . 

Mary

Mary, I think many men would agree with you....

We have a shop here that makes and sells its own ice cream and it is not a chain but a couple of good friends who started the company and everyone raves about their ice cream sold from a trailer similar to those seen at fairs. They recently opened a year around store as well.  It's called Hotlicks and here  is one of the many reviews from Trip Advisor.

"Yummy!!! Big huge creamy scoops of wonderfulness!!! Too bad they don't sell this stuff in the lower 48."

"The best ice-cream in Alaska! The great choice of flavors, both classic and based on local fruit! Surprisingly delicious was Einstein's espresso as well as the blueberry one. Highly recommended!"

"I had read about Hot Licks in my research for our trip to Alaska. I saw that they had "Sugar-free/No Sugar added" ice cream. Since my husband is diabetic and usually has to miss out when the rest of us enjoy dessert, I knew we had to go here. I even emailed them just to see if they might have..."

My family are Texan's and swear by their one Ice cream company. I really liked it when there. Not sold in the Midwest.  I was shocked when it was closed down.
Looking at that list . most everything is everything on it but don't see any names of what sold around here.  I use very little frozen food. Stick with Fresh and wash good. Also see not from Mexico . I have been there to often and watch it growing in the fields. Thousand people picking it but not one Toilet to be seen. Enough for me.
Buy what meat I use from the Butcher area. Never frozen. But yet once in awhile something has gotten to my tummy.  Try to only use couple of restaurants if eating out.

PAT......

Got IT   

Interesting reading here about the recalls of frozen fruit and veggies.    We don't get any of the mentioned brands but it would be smart to follow those directions in preparation.

Angelface,   Our microwave died just a few weeks ago.   I ordered another just the same from Amazon and had it within a week.    My biggest problem now is getting rid of the old one.    The nearest recycling center
is about 20 miles away.   They want $10. to take it in and it isn't too convenient to even get it there.    Al was just reading in the paper this week that there is a problem with this process.    There isn't enough profit in taking care of these items so it is getting harder.     You have to wonder what is going to happen eventually to the amount of electronics that we are discarding.   Meanwhile our old Micro. is sitting on a shelf in the garage.....waiting............

Ice Cream --- mmmm  if it's chocolate it must be OK.

I haven't seen it in the last two or three years, probably because I haven't been out looking, but Ben & Jerry's has made a "Summer Peach Ice Cream". Obviously very seasonal, but the taste is (was) great.

I am lucky enough to live in a disabled senior building. Lucky in that they have wall openings leading to chutes on each floor for regular garbage and a bin for discarded newspapers. But on the first floor is a recycling center for boxes, electronics, and that sort. They also have sturdy carts available to carry these items about. They take these electronics along with the folded cardboard boxes, newspapers, etc. to recycling.

Hi Rammel
There is Ice Cream for diabetics, does not taste the same!

Kelly

Angelface,   That IS a very convenient arrangement for your recycling.   Nice!

Rammel,  You mentioned the Summer Peach ice cream by Ben and Jerry's.    I read in the morning paper that the peach crop in the Northeast has been very critically damaged by the frost both in February and again in April.    It made me wonder about the peaches for this season.    We have quite a large peach crop here in Niagara County but I didn't see our part of the state mentioned.    We'll probably be hearing soon.
Here in Western NY the popular ice cream brand is Perry's.   

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY ONE AND ALL!!

I like Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream.

 

Kelly

I cooked a small roast beef Sat. But we were both so tired i just fixed roast beef sandwiches.  So yesterday we had roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy and green beans, one of my favorite meals.  Today is leftovers.

a new Whole Foods was just opened across the Bay from us.  What a nice store and they carry a lot of prepared foods besides regular.  It isn't far but to get across the Bay is a toll bridge.  Bummer!  $3 each way with a Sun Pass.  Anyway, I enjoyed my visit and got a few things.

I have heard that Whole Foods pretty nice story. We are supposed to be getting one. So many large grocery stores already I am surprised they would open one.
Jean.  $6 to cross a bridge. That is high if you have to go both ways. I go to grocery store about every day. Would not be over to Whole Foods to often.

We have one Whole Foods that has been open for years and 2 more on the way...to be opened within a few months to a year.
I think my town is the grocery store champion of NC.  We have, at last count, twenty-six major chain stores here.  Recently read in the local news that Wegmans, judged the best grocery store in the country, is bargaining with the town to put a store within  about a mile of me.  I'm looking forward to that one.  But, you know what I really miss?  The little neighborhood grocery where you didn't have to walk a mile through a huge store just to get a gal. of milk!