Here's an idea. Sell the cheap for more than we could last year because we call it "new" - that's what we are facing for 2010:

"I was just in New York, and there are two new restaurants just doing mac and cheese," says McCauley, a consultant, food blogger and cookbook author. "One is called the Mac Bar, and the other is called S'Mac, which plays on the word smack, like heroin, and is pretty edgy." This Humble Gourmet trend is reflected in this seasons's blockbuster cookbook, Ad Hoc, by Thomas Keller. The American celebrity chef and owner of several top eateries in the U.S. (including the French Laundry and Per Se) is known for cookbooks with recipes that range from the difficult to the impossible to execute. But Ad Hoc pushes easier, and more comforting favourites like fried chicken (the new hot dish inside and outside of restaurants), beef stroganoff and cherry pie.

This should be an evil not a comfort. We are to be sold our own years of ineptitude. Years before we were married when we thought a freezer pie shell and a can of cherry filling placed together in the oven was cooking. College dorm food. What will it lead to? Used car snobbery? Pride in musty jackets and stained ties? Could there be news that on January 4th could actually make you look back at the last decade with a hint of whistfulness?