Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

There's nothing that reassures me like planned-overs. And if I'm doing bacon, I go ahead and do the package- same amount of dirty, and then you have good precooked bacon, not that store precooked stuff, whith which to make salads and BLTs.

I'd need a buffet style setup, with yellow pear tomatoes from my mom's garden, her sausage supper, and a couple ounces of her tri tip, then my great grandma's pot roast with veg and bacon fat fried potatoes, rum raisin ice cream and dark chocolate for dessert.

In my world, french's onions exist for the sole purpose of green bean casserole, and bottled light italian dressing is used only for godmother sandwiches, while light ranch dressing is for ranch twice baked or mashed potatoes, never salad. The only bottled dressing I find pleasing in actual salad (or dipping veg) is goddess.

Growing up in San Jose in the mid to late eighties (I'm 24) I'm pretty sure looking back the school lunches were big industrial food. They always came in plastic topped black rectangular plastic trays, the food was always wet and soggy, never brown or crisp (I particularly recall their hideous baked chicken drumsticks)- it's pretty obvious it was just heat and serve stuff, I can't recall any kind of kitchen to speak of. Most days I had tuna salad on crackers with fruit or some other lunch from home.
High school was pathetically bad- aquiring lunch took half your lunch period, and the food was pretty much fast food (McD's, some pizza chain, and taco hell) brought in and superprocessed microwave staples- burritos, spongy breaded "chicken" sandwiches and burgers, top ramen, fries, really terrible stuff, all supplemented by contracted soda and candy vending machines. It's fortunate that I have a great fondness for sourdough bagels with swiss cheese and fruit- my mom would just stock the freezer and fridge with bagels and cheese and I would grab and go. I'd come home hungry, but my mom's the queen of planned overs so I'd always have something good before leaving for work.
My college cafeteria is also wretchedly horrible- it's super processed, expensive, and the quality is terrible- the vast majority of the meat used is that disgusting, shaggy, precooked mystery meat, and the food is consistantly completely bland and tasteless- I'm fairly convinced it's all just the cheapest versions of sysco staples. I'd literally rather go hungry than eat cafeteria food.
It irritates me now to think of the utter crap that was and is offered, but at least I can say that it made me realize the value of packing one's own lunch. I shudder to think how many perfectly delicious vegetables and healthy foods were made completely loathsome to thousands of children still forming taste preferences.

When I was a kid I used to think that chicken was way fancier than duck or dove or other game birds. I used to love going hunting with my parents and so a supermarket bird that you paid money for was obviously higher class than something you shot out of the sky, though I liked all of the different kinds of fowl.
Man, I'd sell my soul for some of the elk sausage my mom's friend used to make.

a giant steak

A crockpot roast

Thanksgiving dinner with all the works.

salmon with a pecan-honey mustard topping... looks gorgeous, easy to make and people are usually surprised by it!

Lobster Bisque