Great! I am not the only one doing several mental calculations before deciding to forgo appetizers and dessert while ordering the menu at a business lunch (of course, I was the one paying). I have company in people as illustrious as this.

Christine Peters, a producer of the film “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” was having dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel with a fellow producer and an actress. When she returned from a restroom visit after the dinner , she noticed a thin leather case sitting on the table, with the check inside. “Did anybody get this?” she asked. Both women stared blankly, first at her, then the check. “We didn’t see it,” one finally said.

Peters did what she has found herself doing more and more these days: She fished out her wallet and paid the check (nearly $100) herself. Larry Kirshbaum, the former chief executive of the Time Warner Book Group and now a literary agent says that even top publishers are inviting him for meals at Mcdonald’s instead of New York’s uptown restaurants.

Restaurants in Hollywood and midtown Manhattan no longer see the boisterous cries of “I’ll get it!” or clash of credit cards over lunch bills. Even before ordering dessert, diners are calculating who’s worth paying for and who isn’t. They are passing up extras like bottled water and rarely ordering both an appetizer and a dessert. And reportedly, the number of customers at breakfast – which is about 40 percent cheaper than lunch – has increased.

Who would have thought that troubled times would so badly topple our delicate social rituals that we had carefully cultivated in the bull-market era.

Via IHT