Slacking off, I know

Too many late nights and early mornings. And my last post was awfully slapdash, and I was afraid the next wouldn't be any better.

But just to tie in with both Mrs. Jellyby and myself: I think the whole let's-get-Mom-a-job trend of my childhood and ever since was based on the faulty premise that convenience food was healthy and delicious. When that idea was given up, it was too late: most mothers were frequently too tired to cook. So families turned to eating out instead, restaurant food presumably being freshly cooked, and if not, what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them. Of course, restaurant food is much more expensive than at-home convenience food . . . but there was no help for it, it was too late.

I speak in gross generalizations, of course. Still, if the cookbooks and my own memory are any guide, home cooks between about 1965 and 1980 relied heavily, trustingly, and with great savings of time and effort, on packaged mixes and frozen everything. Bland, laden with chemicals, but hey -- quick and easy. And of course it would always be that way, as far as anyone knew . . .