NEW YORK CITY FOOD VENDORS

After about 10 days of warm sunny weather, the rains and chilly temperature came back. The pouring started late Sunday evening, continued in the mornings on Monday and Tuesday, making driving to work much more painful, on & off in the afternoon, just enough to make my hair wet walking from the building to my car. We did not do food shopping last weekend as we tried to finish up all the lunch meat. Today we did not have bread to make sandwiches and we are also out of fruit. At lunch time, I did not feel like driving in the rain but I was hungry. Mind you, there are many restaurants and grocery stores where I live and work. However, typical suburban planning clearly defines residential and commercial zoning. You have to drive to get to the stores or restaurants and who wants to walk in the rain anyway. There is no such thing as food vendors at the street corner like the one above (photo taken around Wall Street area) or below photo of what seems to be a permanent spot in front of Hunter College. Actually, I just realized that all the years in NYC, I never made a purchase from these food carts. The reason was that I had to eat and study at the same time, so walking while eating a hot dog and reading or writing homework would not be possible. I wonder whether the street vendors are affected by the swine flu scare or the unemployment spilled over, especially around Wall Street area, not too many stock brokers and workers who were regular customers.
I tried to stay away from fast food or expensive lunch. I did not want to eat by myself, even if I brought a book with me, it is 2009, yet for a woman sitting in a restaurant by herself still subjected to a few stares!
So what was the solution? A Chinese take-out lunch menu with more than 20 different dishes that include fried rice, no extra charge for steamed rice, crab rangoon or egg-roll, or soup for only $4.45, all inclusive.