>> I've wanted to open up a fastfood restaurant and name it the Fat Shack for a couple of years now. couldn't be any worse than what is available out there now....

I would start out with only real butter and I would cook with that or good old fashioned LARD only (unless it was eggs or potatoes which I would cook in bacon grease). I would buy only the cheapest hamburger with the highest fat content (that's where the flavor is) and break it down (like barbecue) and fry it with onions, salt and pepper, and lots of grease and sell it as loose meat sandwiches (we grew up on those - we slap a huge pile of it on bread and add mayo and ketchup). Let's see, what else that is terrible for your health could I add?? <<

LOL

I would think living there in Carolina the answer should be obvious ;-) Actually I did see something not long ago about a restaurant dish in which tobacco flakes were an ingredient. (Somebody get Tamar a barf bucket!)

Re lard, I spent lots of time when I was little at my grandmother's farm. She always had both ovens going full blast, cranking out foods that have since been sent to the Unhealthy corner -- doughnuts, biscuits, white bread, gravy, and so on. Lard was one of the staple ingredients and she had it in five gallon drums. And if you think the bacon grease went down the drain, think again. Something always smelled good, even if it wasn't necessarily healthy. I mention only in passing that she lived to age 86....

Now you've got me going down memory lane. Nana spent her last year in a nursing home, I'm sorry, assisted living center. The food there, as you might imagine, was bland. It was an unwritten family rule that when you went to see her you had to bring some of the fatty, unhealthy food she craved. Biscuits and gravy, pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, fried clams, Italian sandwiches, stuff like that. The staff always pretended they hadn't noticed, so it must have been a common desire among the clientele. The last time I saw Nana I brought fried clams with extra tartar sauce, which she ate with relish.

Mike