@Chaim Schulem
I live in small town Connecticut, having been brought up in New Haven which was a large city for CT.
There are no kosher restaurants within a 30 minute drive, no local kosher prepared food or butcher (those days are gone), no local independent kosher bakery, as opposed to the bakeries in the regular supermarkets under KVH supervision,
We buy our kosher provisions in bulk, cook from scratch (our choice). I have eaten in the Dtamford Kosher restaurants only when it is for a meeting. We are 60 minutes from Manhattan, 90 to Queens or Brooklyn. Close enough, but far enough away.
Growing up, New Haven had 12 kosher bakeries and more than 20 kosher butchers, 6 kosher delis and a couple of dairy restaurants. BUT we still cooked at home. We didn’t do takeout and it wasn’t a matter of cost. Just not our style. We have a vegetable patch and a smokehouse. I love to pickle what we grow as well as smoke meats.
This lifestyle is not for everyone, BUT like Amil Zola I have been involved in local government and school boards for a long time. Some of us like living in a mixed community. It didn’t harm my children’s marriage choices, nor my grandchildren….first grandson is getting married IYH soon as=after Shavous and due to COVID 19 it is happening in our gardens.