Illustration by Denis Shifrin

Theater of the absurd on ticket prices

My granddaughter wanted to see a production at the Cameri Theater, and to my surprise I found on enquiring about the price of the tickets that I, as a senior citizen, am entitled to a 50% discount, but my granddaughter who is just 13 has to pay full price. I think that this is a wonderful way to encourage our youngsters to see theater and to get away from the television and their smartphones!

These bra designers have got some front

I am wondering who it was that came up with the bright idea that brassieres have to close at the back - and why women have carried on accepting this over the centuries. In particular, as I advance in years, I find that it gets more difficult to close those hooks and eyes.

About time we had free electricity in Israel

Recently on Sky News I heard the following: "To be economical in the use of electricity, I endeavor to do all my washing on the day that my sun panels give me free electricity." If this is feasible in the United Kingdom, where are we in Israel regarding "free electricity" when almost 100% of hot water used by the general public is supplied by sun panels on the roof?

This is the only way we get stewed with wine today

Nowadays, we are not great drinkers of wine at home, but thirty years ago we used to enjoy a glass of wine more often. Once we found an excellent and reasonably inexpensive red Carmel wine (1982) and I finally bought a dozen and a half bottles of it. However, as time went by, we drank less and less and I found myself with a large quantity of these bottles, which I kept, lying on their sides, in a cool and dark place. A few years back, I found an excellent way to use them. To my taste, the wine was still in good condition; not vinegary and with no sediment at the bottom, but certainly not for serving with a meal. So now I use it when I stew chicken or meat, and I use a large quantity of wine – almost 50% wine to all other liquids. Please, all you wine connoisseurs and cooks, if you have some simple suggestions about how to use up drinkable unused wine, I will be happy to put them in this column.

Cheesed off! How did we manage when food was wrapped in newspaper?

"We are our own destroyers of the atmosphere" is a phrase we hear again and again, and unfortunately this is so true. Just a few simple examples: If you buy chopped meat or other meat, chicken breasts, wings or other chicken parts, sliced yellow cheese, soft white cheese etc., how is this packed for you today? It is packaged mainly in a beautiful white or transparent plastic box with a suitable plastic lid, no matter whether you bought one or two kilos or 200 grams of meats or even only 100 grams of sliced yellow cheese.

I have tried to reuse these boxes for storing all kinds of dried foodstuffs or other goods in my refrigerator, food cupboard and freezer BUT there comes a moment when I just have too many of them. I have tried on many an occasion to ask for the above foodstuffs (apart from the soft white cheeses) to be put in a simple plastic bag, as was the situation many years ago, and I am looked at with horror and have been told, believe it or not, that the shop does not allow them to pack that way. So I ask myself how did we manage to live at the time when my chicken was wrapped in plain newspaper!

Microwaves ideal for cooking

I have a very simple and easy cake recipe that can be prepared for the oven in a saucepan, and not in the mixer. However, it starts with heating the margarine or butter required in a saucepan over the gas. Having put the margarine in the saucepan, I then found that I had forgotten that we did not have any gas, as we could not turn on the spare gas balloon. I then heated the margarine in a deep Pyrex container in the microwave until it almost started to boil, removed it from the microwave and added the balance of the ingredients to the pyrex container as I usually do. The cake came out well! More and more, I find myself using the microwave for cooking, not just heating foods.