Fast has now replaced vast. We live in a fast food, fast-lane, fast-buck culture.

Consider how we eat. Our dinners are more likely to come from the drive-thru than the kitchen. Even if we do manage to eat at home, chances are that instead of dining around the table each family member, like big cats, drags their food off to their own private lair to eat their meal. We eat not by candlelight but by the blue glare of the tv screen or computer terminal.

When I was growing up, the word “dinner” was reserved for Sunday after church. You ate breakfast, lunch and supper six days a week. Then on Sunday you had “Sunday dinner” - a weekly “big deal” gathering of family and friends eating good food together, rehashing the events of the past week, preparing to meet the demands of the new week ahead, an…