What was going on when I was born?

Housing construction in January jumped 14.9 percent from December, for its biggest rise in 20 months, the Commerce Department said today. Housing was started at an annual rate of 1.83 million units in January, up from the December rate of 1.60 million units. The figures are adjusted for seasonal variation. It was the biggest monthly increase since a 17.7 percent advance in May 1983.

A FEW years ago John Rossi and his wife, Judyann, would stroll around the city's more elegant neighborhoods and imagine owning a glossy restaurant with a fancy address. Instead, they settled on a homey, $1,000-a-month basement at 317 East Fifth Street and wheeled their secondhand Garland stove up from the Bowery themselves. A year ago, the Rossis opened the doors of the Cafe at Pete's Place, where the food has since received good notices from both restaurant reviewers and the officers from the Ninth Precinct next-door. Their initial investment was $20,000. ''We could have borrowed $200,000, but that was a very unnerving proposition,'' said the 31- year-old Mr. Rossi. In New York City, the restaurant business is rife with failure - as many as eight out of 10 restaurants close in their first year, according to an educated estimate - yet it somehow manages to breed new starters weekly. To enter such a high- risk venture, young would-be entrepreneur-chefs often have to seek their opportunities in off-the- beaten-track neighborhoods, where success is predicated on a practical approach, both to the food and the surroundings. Yet according to the owners of five Manhattan restaurants, all of whom have cooked in other kitchens and yearned for places of their own, the chance to put their dreams to the test was more than worth the compromise in location.

The Cabinet Council on Commerce and Trade recommended to President Reagan today that the United States let expire next month the ''voluntary'' quotas on Japanese automobiles exported to this country, Administration officials reported. The recommendation was the clearest sign so far of the Administration's position. It appears more likely now that the quotas will lapse March 31 if the United States continues to raise no objection. Administration officials familiar with the recommendation said it represents the consensus of Mr. Reagan's advisers. But they cautioned that the President would be considering the suggestion not only in the context of how it would affect the domestic automobile industry but also in terms of American and Japanese security and trade issues.

FOR more than three years now, it has been the secret of the home computer industry, seldom whispered aloud: No one has figured out how a computer can be truly useful at home. This, after years of research and more than a billion dollars in losses by toy manufacturers and electronic giants. It should not be a surprise. Writing the occasional letter hardly demands a heavy-duty word processor. Balancing the checkbook, printing out labels for Christmas cards and keeping track of recipes seem to be tasks better suited to pen, calculator and file box than to a $1,000 computer system. ''What the world needs is a home computer that does windows,'' said Esther Dyson, one of the personal computer industry's most influential observers, who was running her annual Personal Computer Forum several weeks ago in Phoenix. But window washing or, for that matter, drying dishes or vacuuming living rooms are the realm of robots, not computers. With the market for home computers - the least expensive machines are selling for $500 or less - virtually dead today, industry executives have begun to speak openly about their oldest, most fundamental problem: Making the computer as compelling an addition to the home as a television set or a dishwasher.

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1985 The Economy Housing construction showed its biggest rise in 20 months in January, climbing 14.9 percent from December to an annual rate of 1.83 million units, the Commerce Department said. Economists welcomed the report as a sign of future economic growth. (Page D1.) Industry operated at 81.9 percent of capacity in January, up from 81.7 percent in December and the third consecutive rise. (D2.)

Chesebrough-Pond's Inc., maker of Vaseline, Q-tips, Ragu spaghetti and other nationally known consumer products, announced yesterday that it would buy the Stauffer Chemical Company for $1.25 billion in cash. The deal, announced jointly by Ralph E. Ward, chairman of Chesebrough, and H. Barclay Morley, chairman of Stauffer, followed the unanimous approval of both boards, and calls for Chesebrough to pay $28 a share in a public tender offer to begin today. Mr. Ward said that Chesebrough was buying Stauffer ''to give us some new products'' through its research capability, but analysts maintained that Chesebrough was protecting itself against a possible takeover. Chesebrough, with headquarters in Greenwich, Conn., reported sales last year of an estimated $1.8 billion. Stauffer, based in Westport, Conn, reported 1984 sales of $1.5 billion.

When Diet Coke became the country's third-best-selling drink only two years after its 1982 nationwide debut, officials of the Coca-Cola Company hailed it as ''the fastest-growing major soft drink in history.'' Now, they hope, history will repeat itself with the company's newest product: Cherry Coke. The Atlanta-based company will begin testing the cherry-flavored cola drink in several cities next month. Analysts predicted that if the product was introduced for mass consumption, the effect would likely be twofold: Cherry Coke would spur competition with the Dr Pepper Company, which makes the top-selling cherry-flavored cola, and, at the same time, expand the soft-drink market over all.

ITALIANS know that nothing takes the chill off winter as well as a steaming bowl of homemade soup, fragrant with herbs and brimming with the bounty of the countryside. Most of these soups, which are regional favorites and bear no resemblance to the ubiquitous minestrone, are easy to prepare and can be made ahead - a decided bonus for many busy home cooks. Of the soups described here, one, the Milanese vegetable soup with rice and saffron, can be served as an appetite-whetting first course followed by roasted or broiled meat and a vegetable. The others - pasta e fagioli (bean soup with noodles), an Adriatic fish soup and the Tuscan bread soup known as ribollita - are a meal in themselves when accompanied by crusty bread and a green salad. Best of all, these soups are flexible. They graciously accept variations and can be decreased or increased to serve whatever number of guests are expected.

RED meat, for decades the centerpiece of the American dinner plate, is increasingly being relegated to side-dish status, if it appears at all, in the meals of millions. For reasons of health, economics, ideology and esthetics, it has become fashionable among a small but growing group of Americans to give up red meat. As Peter Farb and George Armelagos predicted in their 1980 book, ''Consuming Passions,'' ''The chances are that people in North PERSONAL HEALTH America will begin to lose their taste for big steaks just as they have begun to lose their attachment to big cars.'' National consumption patterns reflect this: after reaching a peak in 1976 of 94.4 pounds per person, consumption of beef dropped 16.5 percent, to 78.8 pounds, in 1983. If not for the growth of fast-food restaurants featuring hamburgers, beef might have taken a far greater beating, hamburger being the only ''cut'' of meat to hold its own in recent years.

American bankers yesterday welcomed the appointment of Juan Sourrouille as the new Economics Minister of Argentina. They said he appeared to be less abrasive than his predecessor, Bernardo Grinspun, and more committed to an economic discipline that bankers say is needed in Argentina. But many bankers cautioned that it was too early to tell if the ministerial shuffle, announced Monday night, represented a fundamental change of policy. ''It's too soon to uncork the champagne,'' read one cable from a Buenos Aires bank branch to its New York headquarters.

Chesebrough-Pond's Inc. is one of the few companies that get high marks on Wall Street for exceptional skill in making acquisitions. But not so with its latest maneuver. For decades, Chesebrough-Pond's Inc. manufactured and marketed such stalwart products as Vaseline petroleum jelly, Pond's cold cream and other home-care and cosmetic products. Then, some 15 years ago, the company started to add such disparate items as spaghetti sauce, tennis racquets, shoes and children's clothes.

Aerojet General Corp. , La Jolla, Calif., a manufacturer of aerospace products, has named W.M. Necoechea vice president-finance. * Crutcher Resources Corp., Houston, an oil and gas services company, has elected Jerry E. Goldress chief executive officer and a director.