Here’s a big print blurb I cut out from the NYT:

THE MORE TIME A NATION DEVOTES TO FOOD PREPARATION AT HOME, THE LOWER ITS RATE OF OBESITY. IN FACT, THE AMOUNT OF TIME SPENT COOKING PREDICTS OBESITY RATES MORE RELIABLY THAN FEMALE PARTICIPATION IN THE LABOUR FORCE OR INCOME.

I remember a comment by a Quaker sociologist, one of my favourite women, Elise Boulden (1920-2010), internationally influential in her peace work, always based on family values. She said once that the family was held together by the tablecloth (read: dinner table), that I translated later in something I wrote, as the place mat. Families that eat together stay together. That, of course, involves cooking, not noshing, not taking out or eating alone or in front of the television, or some other screen. That would include banning the smartphone at the table. I read recently of a restaurant dinner gathering when the participants were required to put their cell phones in the centre of the table. The first person to reach for a phone was required to pay for the meal.

Forgive the tangent.

But the cooking - yes, that’s an important, key part of what occurs at the dining table: pleasure in the food as well as in the company. I love to cook, I always plan my meals, I suppose because I am, as you know, a leftover freak. I hate to throw food away. But it has to be interesting and good-tasting. This morning I had Egg Florentine, one egg. I had leftover spinach and beet greens, part of a fish dinner menu I had the other night. I heated them and poach-fried an egg that I slid on top of the warm veg, sprinkled it liberally with crumbled feta cheese and broiled it briefly till the cheese was melty and browning. Num. I’ll use the leftover fish in a famous taco recipe. I looked it up this morning. I had it last at a restaurant in San Diego on one of my cruises. I’ll add a little rice vinegar to the leftover (roasted) beets for instant pickled beets as a condiment.

I’m still talking about obesity, I think. Those meals I prepared are not loaded with fat or gluten or calories or any of those nasty things the food experts threaten us with. Even though I eat alone most of the time, I still spend time on food planning and preparation. It’s good for the morale and the budget as well as the body.

What are you having for dinner?

Do you remember that song from the musical Miss Saigon? Everyone has a movie in her mind.Maybe he has, too. More than one. Or maybe one puts all the scenes together and they run as one is dying. I have read that one’s entire life flashes by in the moments before death. How do we know? I’m going too far with this; I just want to review a few flashbacks, with sound bites as well, that soar in as Christmas approaches.

Dear little Liz was so polite and precise. When it was her turn to sit on Santa’s, lap, it was clear to her that she shouldn’t ask for too much. I heard her say in her soft little voice, “I really need a lot of Scotch tape - and whatever else you can manage to give.” Santa didn’t understand her, but I did.

I can still hear the jagged sigh that then-four-year-old Kate emitted as I turned out her light at bedtime, about a week before the Big Day. She could hardly contain herself for excitement, didn’t, in fact. The happy tension and tense happiness all streamed out in one long, glorious breath.

I had the politically correct thought that every boy should have a doll. I found a Raggedy Andy that we placed in the seat of a pedal car for John. He never saw the doll at all. He headed for the car, snatched up whatever it was in the seat and tossed it aside as he climbed into his very own vehicle.

Matt lived every moment of his challenged life. On New Year’s Day, we put Christmas away while he had his afternoon nap. When he got up, he looked around the living room and asked, “Where did Christmas go?’

I guess we all ask that, sooner or later.