We used to be truly in the know on trends, but it isn’t easy to keep up. They seem to come and go faster than ever.

In the case of the meal-assembly trend, it seems it got hot and then cold all without really getting our full attention. According to The New York Times, shops like Dream Dinners and Super Suppers are pretty much on their way out. The paper says 264 meal preparation stores closed during 2007, even as “The number of stores mushroomed from four in 2002 to 1,400 in 2007, almost exclusively by catering to women who wanted to provide home-cooked meals for their families, according to the Easy Meal Preparation Association.” (There really is an association for almost anything, it seems.) And the revenue predictions, once grand, have turned grim.

So why isn’t meal assembly on the upswing in American society? This article would suggest our culture is just too sophisticated, wealthy and progressive to keep supporting it. What’s so great about a freezer full of ready-to-go dinners when one can either go out for a quick dinner, stop at a takeaway place on the way home (it’s already hot and ready to eat) or just fire up something quick and easy that’s already on the pantry shelf?

Americans are busy and hungry and we love to be fickle. If tilapia just doesn’t sound right on Tuesday night, we’ll ditch that plan and go to something more alluring. And the Dream Dinner just sits there, ice-cold and lonely, for another night, and another and another.

What we do definitely seem to like, in urban areas at least, is a wine bar. The Washington Post reports yet another fun-sounding, wine-focused place is here in the District — this time in ghetto-turned-fabulous Logan Circle. It’s the Cork Wine Bar, and Tom Sietsema is sold on it, so get yourselves over there and get a glass or three of wine and some snacks. Unlike some other wine bars that have opened, it sounds like the food is exceptional.

But setting these two trend/death-of-trend stories side by side provokes a befuddling thought: What are people in suburban and semi-rural areas doing if they’re not at a wine bar and they’re not cooking up some Super Suppers? The dinner-assembly joints we know about are not in hip urban areas.

Maybe they are at home eating air-popped popcorn after a lovely meal of home-made soup. The Washington Post gives readers a terrific “36 Quick Soups” article as well as a “Tool Test” column about immersion blenders (they check out 11 different ones; they like the Hamilton Beach best, and it’s just $20; we love that these things are, in some circles, called “dipsticks”), so they are all about staying in and stirring stuff on the stove. The L.A. Times test-drives five different popcorn-poppers just in time for awards shows and a round of new series. Plus, who doesn’t feel these days that they’re growing roots into their couches and computer chairs at night already? Might as well have a good snack handy.

Cool-kid Brooklynites are definitely not doing week-in-advance meal prep, and why would they? They’re bored at home in their teeny apartments in midwinter. They’re walking up to the wine bar and enjoying local New York wine at the Bridge Vineyards Urban Winery and Tasting Room, a “space nudging the Williamsburg Bridge.” This is certainly nothing new for lucky New Yorkers, though, who have a boatload of options for places to get a good glass of wine — most of which are a small walk from their stoop.

Since we are on the topic of options, check out this story out of New York about the You Bar. Go online and order up the Balance Bar of your dreams — pick out all your ingredients — and receive 13 bars along with a printed-out list of the ingredients, all for $40. This is evidence of a hot trend that shows no sign of ebbing: personalization. Everybody loves having something that is theirs alone; will that ever really get old?

If hopefulness counts as a trend, then here’s another item. “Recession cuisine it’s not”: Frank Bruni’s “Critics Notebook” is about how “the New York restaurant scene has entered a curiously exciting period that’s curiously at odds with the times.” Adour Alain Ducasse, Merkato 55 and Eighty-One are just three restaurants opening which show a certain optimism on behalf of their investors despite the dour economic forecast. But “Restaurants opening today reflect calculations made as many as three years ago, in markedly different economic climates,” Bruni explains. Hey, New York has enough pessimists; thank goodness there are at least a handful of upbeat people still living there.

That’s about all, ladies and gents. We leave you with the Eric Asimov column on naughty Chianti, which he thinks has been stepping “out of its straw skirt” of late. This, of course, refers to Chianti’s reputation as a sleazy, easy girl of a wine. This is a really fun wine read by the Times’ Asimov, who can sometimes be a little serious for some of us. He’s in a high mood as he sings the praises of the sangiovese grape, from which Chianti is made, and the vibe is contagious.