Almost everything I cook I have shopped for myself, so maybe I’m more than normally sensitive to how prices are edging up scarily fast these days. I can never have exact change ready when a lemon poppy seed muffin at the corner shop is suddenly a dime more, or stay calm when anything from Eutopia is 30 percent higher, let alone be prepared when the potholders I have always bought for $4.25 are now tagged $4.99 in the same store. But even I was surprised, on buying four movie tickets at Lincoln Square the other day, to be asked for $47 cash (of course the credit card machine was not working). Last time I looked, I don’t think a ticket was $11.75, yet I have not read a peep about it anywhere. I couldn’t even imagine what would account for the increase in this strong economy, but it did put me off my popcorn. Which turned out to be a good thing, because the same theater determinedly gouging at the box office had exactly three attendants at the concession stand while a good 40 people were lined up with money in hand. All I have ever read since the hysterical days of nutrition nuttiness and movie-popcorn-is-a-heart-attack-in-a-box has been that theaters make all their profit on food and soda. And here was one staffed like FEMA.