And who else practices conga drums to wind down inside her Upper West Side apartment after a day of working on scripts at WINS?

But O.K., let's get back to her story, which Ms. McCann was obviously thrilled to tell. She fumbled a bit nervously through a manila folder of yellowing newspaper clips and skimmed through index cards on which she had scribbled talking points.

The story begins with her grandfather, Alfred W. McCann, who went on WOR in 1927 to expose the unsavory practices of the American food industry, which was doing bad things like putting black shoe polish in chocolate and deodorizing rotten eggs. He also ran a laboratory in Manhattan where foods were tested before they received his approval or disdain. Ms. McCann's father, Alfred W. McCann Jr., continued the tradition when her grandfather died. In "The McCanns at Home," he and his wife, Dora, bantered and joked, and their main theme remained food, especially the romance of food.

Ms. McCann, who was frequently on the air as a child, says she never intended to go into radio. She studied English literature at Manhattanville College in Purchase, N.Y. The radio bug bit her in the mid-1960's, when she filled in for her father at WOR for three months after he had a heart attack. She was soon hired as one of New York's first female D.J.'s. In 1974, she took over the family tradition with "The Patricia McCann Magazine," a daytime talk show that strayed from food into social issues.

WHEN the program was canceled in a move to attract younger listeners, she recalls feeling sad: "People over 50, I thought, they are still people." It prompted her to study aging. She received a master's degree in gerontology from the College of New Rochelle in 1992. She advocated for the rights of older people, organizing a 1993 citywide conference on elder abuse. But after she ended a four-year stint at another radio station, WMCA, she says she missed her audience. "I'm kind of a regular girl now," she said. "I love to sell. I love to tell a story."

For her commercials, which are occasionally broadcast in other parts of the country, she says she samples and researches every product. She has lost eight pounds on the Zone Diet, guzzled Dunkin' Donuts coffee and stopped at an Aamco shop in New Jersey to learn that a car transmission has 700 parts. "How's a girl to know?" she asked.

Ms. McCann, who lives alone and never married, is reluctant to give her age, citing the harsh realities of age discrimination. When she was told she has had quite a life, her cornflower-blue eyes teared up. She said she was grateful for the compliment. "It's the past," she said softly.