It's kind of like Black Friday and it's getting worse all the time. Retail stores started Boxing Day Sales several weeks ago, more and more. Whatever happened to Buy Nothing Day? Well, I don't want to drain the economy, or put anyone who still has a job out of a job. Nor do I want to sound very OLD, tutting away at extravagant spending, thoughtless consumption and irresponsible waste, but stop a moment and consider. Years ago now I took my husband's aunt shopping and feared for her as she experienced sticker shock. She sounded positively asthmatic as she gasped and caught her breath at the price of things she remembered as costing much much less. A box of writing paper that used to cost maybe $2.95 was up to 12 dollars. Nowadays, I buy 12 hasti-notes for $17.95, if Im lucky, reduced from $22.95. When I married, a loaf of bread was 7 cents. Designer loaves now cost upwards of 5 dollars. In my first year of cooking I learned about London Broil, a way to cook flank steak, which was very inexpensive, around 70 cents a pound. Now it's priced right up there with other steak, except T-bones and filet mignon which are astronomical. If I don't remember the names correctly, it's because I never buy them. I was given a pressure cooker and despite my fear of it exploding, I cooked cheap cuts of meat in it, oxtails, for example, which cost 8 or 9 cents a pound. Ah, well, nostalgia like this is no comfort. We are compensated with variety, all the vegetables that didn't exist when I began to cook. When did you first hear of edamame? Whatever your age, try making a small list of food you didn't grow up with or never heard of. This could grow into a longer discussion but people have come into the room so we must have coffee by the fire, a great pleasure.

Missed yesterday because I was in transit. Sic transit gloria mundi, that is, Gloria gets sick on the subway every Monday, and I get sick of the obstacle course set by airline and customs officials every day. You have to run a horrible gauntlet before you collapse on a plane with a glass of tomato juice, pretending it's a Bloody Mary, and a draft from the window wall, no blanket. Times like that I wish I were rich and famous and could have my own private Lear jet whisk me away. Normally I don't envy anyone, except writers who have just sold their latest offering while I am searching for a new market. It's Christmas Day now and I am surfeited with consumerism, even before I am surfeited with food, I don't shop much at home, preferring catalogue shopping and delivery, and not taking time to browse and be tempted in the stores. So it's a culture shock for me to encounter the WEALTH of EXTRAVAGANT tschotschkes under my family's tree. I guess that in my Other LIfe we were similarly blessed, for our time, but it's still a shock. I'm not going to dwell on this, bur for all those who have lost someone they loved, let me just say that after 40 years, I still miss my husband. Life, I was warned, would never be the same, and it never has been. We go on, we go on. Bless you all.