Inside My Table #89 | Excerpt
Editor’s Letter—Love In the Time of Recession
By Teresa Byrne-Dodge
It is hereby resolved that this note from My Table’s editor to our readers will not be about the recession. If you’re anything like me, you’re sick of talking about it, worrying about and thinking about it 10 times an hour. Let’s talk instead about Valentine’s Day, a corny over-commercialized fake holiday that mostly moves a lot of greeting cards and not-very-good supermarket chocolates. Still, what does it say about our culture that we have an entire day devoted to romance, love and lust? I think it’s great. But, then, I’m a girl. According to the Greeting Card Association, women purchase about 85 percent of the one billion valentines that are exchanged every year. My mother probably set me on my Valentine-loving way of life. When my brother, sister and I were young, there was always a Valentine Day’s gift next to our bed when we awoke on February 14. I don’t remember what my brother received, but my sister and I often found pretty new underwear and a box of chocolates. During those years, our Catholic elementary school had an annual Valentine’s Day party for the last 30 minutes of the school day. Every child stuffed a cheap little Valentine into every other child’s gaily-decorated bag (actually, just brown lunch bags that we colored), and someone’s mother made cupcakes. It sort of astonishes me now that the nuns, who were so grumpy so much of the time, actually facilitated this. To this day, I still get a Valentine card from my parents every year and one from my friend Anne. My kids and I also exchange small trinkets on Valentine’s Day. I love receiving flowers (though I prefer peonies to red roses) and sharing a bottle of Champagne. Just the idea of settling in front of the TV for a romantic movie on Valentine’s evening warms me up. Casablanca? An Affair to Remember? Love, Actually? When Harry Met Sally? I own them all and I love them all. Before you write me off as a total cheeseball, I just want to say I can be as cynical as anyone. I totally get a kick out of Red Lion Pub’s anti-Valentine party, held every February 14. (You’ll see their ad on page 6 of the magazine.) But, sorry, Craig, I’ll miss it this year. My feeling is that you sometimes can’t have too much love, right? Especially when we’re in the slump of a recession.
