The reheated TV dinner debate

Regarding Regina Schrambling’s article on TV dinners (“TV’s Longest-Running Hit,” Feb. 5), I think she is slightly out of touch with reality. Ordering in is not always at-your-fingertips easy. It can be expensive and not always available, depending on where you live.

Your TV dinner would take 2 1/2 hours of prep and cooking. This is convenient?

Bea Colgan

Burbank

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Consumers today are presented with a multitude of choices in the frozen-food aisle. A study published in April by NPD Group Inc. showed that while restaurant takeout meals per capita fell in 2001 (for the first time since the early 1980s), the frozen-meal category has continued its steady growth over the past 10 years.

Leslie G. Sarasin

President and CEO

American Frozen Food Institute

McLean, Va.

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I got more than a few chuckles out of Schrambling’s story. She wondered who might eat frozen dinners, “aside from desperate characters” and concluded it must be families with children in which the mother works part- or full-time.

Let me shed some light on the cold, gray underworld of frozen dinners: In my supermarket, there must be many desperate characters because the extensive frozen dinner section often runs out of my favorites.

Larry Kuzela

Laguna Woods

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For years I have had problems with some frozen dinner brands, getting them to cook evenly, with some items cold and others too hot. Now I know I’m not alone. I thought it was my 40-year-old gas oven.

Rick Rofman

Van Nuys