Home is...

This morning the Philadelphia Inquirer's food section caught my eye: above the fold, a large cross stitch sampler, "Home is Where the Food Is.*" I thought it was an interesting use of our favorite hobby to convey feelings of quaintness and homeyness and old fashionedness. Even though I usually hate when people think those who stitch are quaint and homey** and old-fashioned.

Did I ever tell you I had the opportunity to stitch the cover for this book? I knew an editorial functionary at the publisher. The cross-stitch in this instance was meant to signify the old fashioned idea of "words of wisdom" and offer a contrast to the fact that it was "dirty." But I was being Serious about my dissertation at the time the call went out and the opportunity passed. So this blog is the only place where we can see my cross-stitch in public.

Back to "Home is Where the Food Is." The article tells us that the hot trends for 2009 are eating at home and potlucks. I don't think you need a lot of pseudo-scientific social research to tell you that people aren't going to be spending a lot of money over the next couple of years. Duh.

What is interesting is that sales of canning equipment and baking ingredients are way up locally and nationally. And the sale of flour went up even when the price was rising. I know a lot of us crafty types get busy in the kitchen every now and again. Do you think you'll buy into the craze? (I half plan on it. If I am out of this job soon--and all signs point to yes--then we're going to have to make some cuts somewhere. Since our mortgage is our only debt, it's going to be a colder house and more eating at home.)

I learned a few other interesting things from the article. We'll still eat chocolate. And apparently when people buy salty snacks it means they are entertaining at home more. People, when I buy salty snacks, I'm only having one visitor and she's making me cranky. I'm guessing that some of this increase in snack sales results from people eating salty snacks to comfort them when they think about their job prospects for 2009 or their retirement accounts.

Also, that whole "Peruvian food craze?" So five years ago; Peruvian was huge when we were living in L.A.

*The photo will probably be down tomorrow. That's the ephemeral nature of things in our society.

**Dear English readers, in American English "homely"--which you would use to mean homey or homelike--means ugly, as in "Poor thing, she's such a homely girl." Anglo-American translation: just another service we provide at Stitch Bitch.