A New Year

As a christmas gift for my wife Susannah, I gave her a book, Life is Meals, A Food Lovers Book of Days by James and Kay Salter. The thought is that we can read each day's entry together and share in its thoughts.

The first entry is quite good:

Meals are Everything

The meal is the essential act of life. It is the habitual ceremony, the long record of marriage, the school for behavior, the prelude to love. Among all peoples and in all times, every significant event in life-be it wedding, triumph, or birth-is marked by a meal or the sharing of food or drink. The meal is the emblem of civilization. What would one know of life as it should be lived or nights as they should be spent apart from meals ?"