Er, I mean, what a difference a year makes.

Last year at this time, I was preparing to go on a road trip to Florida where we spent a week with family celebrating the holidays.

You can read about our adventures here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

I’m telling ya, there was lots of good food to be had. Like this . . .

Beef tenderloin tips. Good stuff.

But this year, there will be no road trip. There’s a little thing called a recession going on. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it.

But after saving up for a very long time for last year’s beachside holiday adventure, it seemed out of the question this year. And indeed it is.

We had our food shipped to our door in Florida last year. And what a treat it was to have good, quality food right there at our fingertips. We KNEW the meat would be fabulous. And it was.

I hate playing a guessing game with the meat at the local supermarket in a town I’m not too familiar with. Heck, I don’t like it in towns I AM familiar with. So, we ordered what we wanted and it all came to us when we needed it. Like magic.

The good thing is, I can get that same quality anywhere I am in the country. So now that I’m home for the holidays this year, I’m having it delivered to my house. Um, which is not beachside in Florida. Boo.

We’re going to have a turkey, ham and all the trimmings on Christmas Day — and steaks! on Christmas Eve. And I will not be standing in line at the supermarket with the rest of humanity for it all.

Merry Christmas to me!!!

And happy holidays to you. The countdown at our house has begun . . .

These pork ribs are welcome on my table any day.

They’re St. Louis-style ribs which means they’re pork and they aren’t slathered with BBQ sauce – yet. We took care of that ourselves after we cooked them.

They came to us (we had them delivered) cryo-vac sealed and packed in dry ice. I put them in the refrigerator to thaw overnight and then cooked them the next day. I took them out of the packaging, wrapped them up in foil and placed them in the oven on about 335 degrees F for a little over an hour.

They were already marinated in a mix of spices and the smell of those ribs in the oven was almost too much! My husband and I kept peeking our heads in there to get a bigger whiff.

These puppies were divine. Tender, flavorful and so, so easy.

This was as easy as making a frozen pizza. But I got much bigger props than I do for my $1.89 pepperoni special.

I got these ribs from my fave — KC Steaks. The quality is always unbeatable and they do all the hard work for me.

Seriously, that’s the kind of partner I need in my life.