Part 11

Have your butcher skin and clean the rabbit, remove the head and open it from end to end on the under side. Wipe it inside and out with a damp cloth and lay it open on a greased gridiron. Cut gashes across the back that the heat may penetrate to the thickest part. Broil over a clear fire, turning often. It should cook for about twenty minutes. Transfer to a hot dish, rub with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.

Barbecued rabbit

Cook precisely as in the last recipe and keep hot on a platter while you make a sauce of two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, two of melted butter, a dash of salt and a teaspoonful of French mustard. Pour this sauce over the hot rabbit and send to table. This is a delicious and savory dish.

Smothered rabbits

Skin and clean a pair of rabbits; lay in a covered roaster; pour a cup of boiling water over them and cook, covered, until tender. Baste five or six times with a mixture of butter and water mixed with a teaspoonful of onion juice. When the rabbits are done transfer to a platter and keep hot, while you thicken the gravy in the pan with a tablespoonful of browned flour rubbed up with one of butter. Cook one minute, add two teaspoonfuls of vinegar, a saltspoonful of paprika and a generous teaspoonful of made mustard. Boil up once, pour over the rabbits and leave, covered, over hot water five minutes before serving.

Venison steak

Grease your gridiron thoroughly before laying your steak upon it. Broil the steak, turning frequently over the fire of clear coals. As it is better rare, do not cook the venison too long. When done lay the meat upon a hot platter, put upon it several spoonfuls of butter and a little currant jelly, cover and set in the oven long enough to melt the butter and to soften the jelly, then send immediately to the table.

Broiled quails and woodcock

Clean and split down the back. Wash carefully and dry inside and out with a clean cloth. Leave on ice half an hour and broil over a clear hot fire. Dish, pepper and salt, put a piece of butter upon, and lay under each bird a round of delicate toast.

Small birds

Can be cooked in the same way.

Breakfast stew of squirrels

Clean and joint a pair of large gray squirrels; lay in vinegar and water for an hour; wipe dry and brown them slightly in pork fat in which a sliced onion has been fried. Pack the squirrels in a pot, pour over them the fat and onion from the frying-pan and a cup of weak stock. Cover closely and simmer until tender. Season with pepper, celery salt and kitchen bouquet; thicken with browned flour rubbed to a paste with butter, boil up and serve. Stew the squirrels tender overnight, seasoning and thickening the gravy when you warm them up in the morning.

BREAKFAST VEGETABLES

Stewed potatoes

Pare the potatoes and cut into small dice. Cook tender in boiling water, salted. When clear, but not broken, turn off the water and cover with hot milk into which you have stirred a lump of butter rolled in flour. Simmer for ten minutes, add a tablespoonful of finely-minced parsley, boil up once and serve.

Hashed potatoes, browned (No. 1)

Cook as in last recipe, but when ready for the milk turn the stewed potatoes into a buttered pudding dish, cover with the milk, butter and flour and bake, covered, half an hour. Then uncover and brown.

This dish is particularly good if a little onion juice and about a tablespoonful of minced celery be mixed with the potatoes just before they are put into the bake-dish. The dice should be _very_ small.

Hashed potatoes, creamed and browned (No. 2)

Cut a dozen cold boiled potatoes into very small dice. Thicken a cupful of hot milk with a tablespoonful of flour, rubbed into one of butter. Season to taste and stir the potato dice into this sauce. Stir for just a minute; turn into a greased baking-dish and brown in a good oven.

Lyonnaise potatoes

Cut a dozen cold boiled potatoes into dice of uniform size. Shred two onions _very_ thin and put them into a frying-pan with two tablespoonfuls of butter. Fry the onion to a light brown; add the potatoes and fry until delicately colored, stirring frequently. Strew with chopped parsley and serve.

Potato croquettes

Into a pint of hot mashed potatoes stir a tablespoonful of butter, a beaten egg, salt and pepper and enough cream to make the potatoes of the proper consistency to be formed into croquettes. Roll in egg and cracker crumbs and set in the ice-box for an hour before frying in deep cottolene or other fat to a light brown. Drain in a hot colander.

Potato omelet

Beat two cupfuls of mashed potatoes to a cream with milk, salt and pepper and two tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Beat three eggs light and whip them into the potato mixture. Have a buttered frying-pan heated, turn the omelet into this and cook until set; turn out upon a hot platter.

Chopped potatoes sautés

Chop cold boiled potatoes evenly and rather coarsely. Put a tablespoonful of butter or of good dripping into a frying-pan and when hot stir the potato-dice into it, tossing and shaking until they are smoking hot. Pepper and salt and dish.

An equal quantity of sweet potato dice mixed with the white will make the dish still better.

Potatoes fried whole

Boil potatoes of uniform size until just done. Sprinkle with salt. When cold roll in beaten egg and cracker crumbs and set in a cold place for an hour. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, or in dripping to a golden brown.

Fried green peppers

Slice green peppers crosswise and remove the seeds and tough, white membrane. Melt a little butter in the frying-pan and fry the sliced peppers in this. They are an appetizing accompaniment to fried fish.

Stuffed peppers

Mince enough cold chicken to make a cupful and stir into it two tablespoonfuls of minced ham and one of melted butter. Season to taste. Cut the stems from green peppers so that they will stand upright. Cut off the tops of the peppers, remove the seeds and membrane and fill with the minced chicken and ham. Stand the peppers on end in a baking-pan, pour about them a cup of chicken stock and bake half an hour.

German potato pancakes

Six large raw potatoes grated fine; three eggs; a scant teaspoonful of soda; salt to taste. Mix as pancake dough and fry in plenty of cottolene or other fat previously heated gradually to a boil.

Fried eggplant

Cut the eggplant into slices nearly three-quarters of an inch thick, peel these and lay them in a bowl of cold, salted water, putting a plate on them to keep them under the surface of the liquid. At the end of an hour remove the vegetables from the water and wipe dry on a clean cloth. Dip each slice in beaten egg, then in cracker crumbs and lay on a platter. Set in the ice-box for an hour and fry to a golden brown in deep boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain in a colander lined with tissue paper and pile on a folded napkin on a hot platter.

Broiled eggplant

Cut the eggplant in slices half an inch thick, peel and leave for an hour in cold, salted water, as in the preceding recipe. Wipe the slices dry and lay in a bath of five tablespoonfuls of salad oil and two teaspoonfuls of vinegar. At the end of fifteen minutes remove the eggplant, drain in a colander, sprinkle each slice with salt and pepper, lay on a gridiron and broil over a clear fire. Cook for five minutes on one side before turning the broiler. Serve very hot.

Fried ripe tomatoes

Cut firm tomatoes into thick slices, but do not peel them. Sprinkle each slice with salt, dip into a beaten egg and then in fine cracker dust. Set in a cold place for an hour and fry in boiling cottolene or other fat, or in butter.

Broiled ripe tomatoes (No. 1)

Cut large, firm tomatoes into half-inch slices, sprinkle with salt and pepper and dip in fine bread crumbs. Put into a greased broiler and broil over a clear fire until heated thoroughly. Spread with soft butter and serve at once.

Broiled tomatoes (No. 2)

Wash and wipe ripe tomatoes. With a very sharp knife cut them in half and lay, skin side down, upon a buttered broiler. Cook over a clear fire until done; arrange squares of toast on a hot platter and lay the broiled tomatoes on this toast—half a tomato to each slice. Handle carefully that they may not break. Sprinkle with pepper and salt and pour melted butter over all.

Grilled tomatoes

Cut large, firm tomatoes into thick slices. Do not peel. Rub an oyster broiler lightly with butter, lay on it the slices of tomato and broil over a clear fire. Have ready a sauce made by working a teaspoonful, each, of minced parsley and of lemon juice into two tablespoonfuls of butter. Sprinkle the tomatoes with pepper and salt, put the sauce on them, let them stand covered in the open oven or plate-warmer for a couple of minutes, or until the butter is melted, and serve.

Tomatoes and bacon

Prepare tomatoes as in the preceding recipe, omitting the sauce. Keep them hot while you broil or fry thin slices of bacon to a delicate crisp. Arrange the tomatoes on a dish, lay a slice or two of the bacon on each piece of the tomato and serve. This is an excellent breakfast dish.

If for any reason it is not convenient to broil the tomatoes, they may be fried in butter or in olive oil, drained dry and served in the same fashion.

Broiled green tomatoes

Cut the unpeeled tomatoes into half-inch slices and lay in sweet oil for five minutes. Transfer the slices carefully to a fine wire broiler and cook to a delicate brown. When done, sprinkle with salt and pepper, lay on slices of crisp toast and pour a white sauce over and around all.

Fried green tomatoes

Wipe green tomatoes with a damp cloth, cut them into slices half an inch thick, dip in beaten egg and cracker crumbs, set in the ice-chest for half an hour and then fry in butter to a delicate brown. Drain from grease and serve on a hot platter.

Broiled mushrooms

Peel, lay upon a buttered broiler and cook over clear coals, allowing three minutes to each side of the mushrooms. Transfer to thin slices of crustless toast, put a bit of butter and a dash of salt and paprika on each mushroom and set in an oven just long enough to melt the butter.

Fried mushrooms

Melt a great spoonful of butter in an agate frying-pan. Peel the mushrooms and cut off their stems, scraping these last. Lay the mushrooms with their scraped stalks in the frying-pan and cook, turning often, until done. Serve very hot.

Green pepper toast

Slice bread thin, cut off the crusts and toast on both sides to a delicate brown, then butter and keep hot in the oven. Heat a cup of beef stock in the saucepan. Rub together a tablespoonful of butter and the same quantity of browned flour and stir it into the beef stock. When you have a very thick brown sauce add salt to taste and a half cupful of green peppers which have been seeded, freed from the tough white core and minced very fine. Stir to a paste, remove from the fire and spread upon the slices of hot toast. Set in the oven long enough to become very hot and crisp, and serve.

Fried hominy

Warm three cups of cold boiled hominy by setting the vessel containing it in an outer vessel of boiling water. When hot, add a saltspoonful of salt and a tablespoonful of melted butter, beat the hominy smooth and turn into small muffin-tins to get cold and to form. When very stiff, turn the forms over, roll each in beaten egg and cracker dust and set all in a cold place for an hour. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Block potatoes

(Contributed)

Cut raw potatoes in cubes. Wipe them dry and fry in deep fat until a light brown. Salt, drain on brown paper and serve hot.

FAMILIAR TALK

WITH MARTHA IN HER KITCHEN

(Time—The cook’s “afternoon out.”)

It is the Christian duty of every housemother in this comfort-loving land to provide a commodious, well-appointed kitchen and laundry, where daily household work is done, and clean, airy, comfortable chambers for workers, where they may take rest in sleep when that work is over. I should fail in observance of the Golden Rule if I were to oblige them to work where I could not work, or to sleep where slumber would be an impossibility to me.

My own preference for a kitchen floor-covering is really good linoleum of conventional design and light in color, therefore cheerful in effect. Many housewives insist upon oiled hardwood or painted floors. Not one cook in twenty takes proper care of an oiled floor, and paint soon wears off. It is economical to buy a prime quality of linoleum, and to lay the same pattern on kitchen, laundry and hall. When it wears out in one room it can be replaced from another. Inlaid linoleum will last for years.

Thick, strong rugs should be laid before the range and by the tables, one under the table at which the servants eat. Linoleum is cold to the feet, and one takes cold readily when over-heated.

I read, last year, that kitchen tables are now, as “a taking novelty,” covered with zinc. Over a score of years ago I covered what may be called the work-tables in my kitchen with this useful metal, tacking it neatly under the edges, lest a loose point might tear hands or clothes. I have kept it up ever since. The tabletops are cleaned easily; they never “take” grease or stain of any kind, and they outwear wood by many years.

Another invaluable invention which I wish I could place in every kitchen is a sheet-iron hood and asbestos curtain, fitted to the top of the recess enclosing the range. It works so easily upon pulleys that a little finger could pull it down. When raised, it is entirely out of the cook’s way; when down, it shuts in the range like an impervious screen. Sliding doors in the center allow one to look into pots and kettles simmering behind it, when oversight is advisable. If left closed, it will lower the temperature of the kitchen twenty degrees within two hours. It cost twenty dollars when new, twelve years ago. If I could not get another, twelve hundred dollars would not buy it.

I long ago discarded the old-fashioned tin and iron cooking utensils in favor of agate-nickel-steel ware, which is as easily washed as crockery bowls and plates; is light and neat in appearance; never rusts, and is altogether satisfactory. All of my kettles have covers, and we use covered roasters—another boon to housewives—for cooking meats. They keep in flavor and juices, and lessen the labor of basting.

Always have a rocking-chair convenient into which the cook can drop for rest between the times of active duty, and one apiece for maids in the laundry. For yourself, follow the rule I laid down imperatively a quarter-century ago in COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD—“Never stand at your work when you can sit.” A chair suited in height to the mixing table will save you many an ache in the feet, back and head.

Do not allow servants to jumble their table crockery, etc., up with pots, saucepans, kettles, colanders and the like. There is no reason why the dresser or closet in which the kitchen tableware is kept should not be as daintily arranged as the dining-room buffet. It should hold no commerce with the pot closet.

The servants’ chambers must be furnished with iron bedsteads, good mattresses, plenty of clean blankets and white spreads. The “honeycomb” spreads are absurdly cheap and easily washed. The rest of the appointments of the dormitories need not be elaborate. If they are neat and comfortable the occupants are more likely to try and make them attractive. When one pins up a crucifix over her bed, her mother’s or sister’s photograph against the wall, or even a colored lithograph of a patent medicine—notice it pleasantly. It means that she is catching the home feeling. Muslin curtains cost next to nothing. Hang them up at her window; give her a pretty cover for her bureau-top and a plain one for her washstand, and plenty of towels. The Golden Rule works well here—where does it not?

I read a little story many, many years ago—before you were born, I think—a slight, commonplace affair, that has furnished two generations of busy housewives with a hard-worked _mot de famille_.

Excuse the foreign phrase! We have none in English that exactly translates it. “Household word” comes nearer to it than anything else, without quite covering it.

The tale was of a fidgety housekeeper of the sort stigmatized in the rough parlance of the sensible vulgar as “nasty particular.” A friend, calling upon her soon after breakfast, found her fairly beside herself with worry because guests she had expected at noon had telegraphed that they would be with her at eleven o’clock that morning. Distracted Martha “could never in the world be ready for them. There was so much to do that she did not know what to take hold of first. It was enough to drive a woman out of her senses,” etc., etc., etc.

“But what have you to do?”

“Do! Do! Do! Why—everything!”

The visitor drew off her gloves.

“I will stay and help you. Shan’t I get the spare room ready?”

A gesture of disdain.

“As if I would have put that off until today!”

“Can I help about luncheon?”

“Well! I should be ashamed of myself if the cook hadn’t her orders and materials and all before this!”

“Perhaps I could dust the parlors? or polish silver? or—” glancing around the perfectly appointed dining-room, where the luncheon table was already laid—“I might arrange the flowers in the vases?”

It finally transpired that the frantic and “forehanded” hostess could specify but one thing that remained to be done before everything should be in order for the visitors. She had “butter-balls to make” for luncheon. She always kept the paddles in ice-water for hours beforehand.

I was young then and read the little story aloud to my mother—a woman blessed with a keen sense of humor and as keen a perception of the fitness of things. She adopted the phrase on the spot. “Butter-balls to make” became with us the synonym for needless hurry and flurry and worry. When used interrogatively, it was the cabalistic formula that caused a precipitate and a settlement of many a muddy whirl of anxieties, the open sesame to a “chamber the name of which was Peace.”

Half of the perturbations that chase the housemother “clean out of her wits” are as purely imaginary as those that beset the heroine of our wee scrap of a story. That other American Martha who cried out on Monday morning: “Washing to-day! Ironing on Tuesday! Baking on Wednesday! Bless my life, half the week gone and nothing done!” is hardly a caricature of the national housewife. Worry is a whirlwind that throws the weightier matters of the law of life out of plumb, and raises such a dust of minor duties and possible hindrances that the blinded victim can see nothing aright.

One of the fixed principles of the universe is that two objects can not occupy the same place at the same time. Another, which we are more slow to admit, is that no two duties are cast for one and the same instant. The throngs of homely tasks that obscure our toiler’s vision in the anticipation of “another day’s work,” drifting and dancing in the light of the new day—a flood of elusive moths—have really sequence and order. Let her take hold of her astral or inner self, by the shoulders, and hold her steady until she can weigh and classify the importunate atoms. The pretty fairy-tale of the tasks set for Graciosa by her wicked stepmother supplies another and a pat illustration. The poor girl had to sort a roomful of feathers of all colors and sizes. After laboring vainly for hours, she called tearfully for her fairy lover, who, with one stroke of his wand, laid each kind in a separate heap from the rest.

Your wand—and my wand—dear Martha, is the cool, long breath of sober reflection that gives us time to say: “All these things can not be done at once. Some of the less important can be laid over into the convenient season which must fall into the lot of even an American housekeeper. I must keep each in its place. I will”—a strong “will,” a long “will,” and many “wills” altogether—“I will think of but one thing at a time, and do it as if there were nothing else in the world for me to do.”

The discipline of thought and nerves that must attend upon such a moral and mental effort will train lawless impulses and teach concentration of thought as well as the much-vaunted higher mathematics could. Work need not, of necessity, be worry. Industry does not imply haste.

“Count five and twenty, Tattycoram!” entreated Mr. Meagles, when the foundling’s temper was likely to get away from her.

In the same tone of affectionate warning, I pass on my homely test of facts and values—“Butter-balls to make!” First, make sure of what you really have to do, and to do today. Secondly, having screened and sifted the mass, assort the ore before you begin to smelt it—and yourself!

In place of counting five and twenty, accept my formula—“Draw ten deep breaths” before you make up your mind that you have not time for one.

The world is full of fresh air and it owes us all we can take in leisurely and thankfully.

No matter how heavy your burdens, your experience reflects that of hundreds of others. It may be a mean kind of misery that loves company. The knowledge that others are fighting and toiling bravely along the same line with ourselves; that others have conquered the circumstances which oppose us, braces us for renewed effort. What woman has done, woman may do again.

You are far from being hopelessly “mired;” you have what is called “a good fighting chance” for life and usefulness. You have one tremendous advantage, a solid foothold to begin with, in the certainty that you are in the right path.

The confident assurance of this is half the battle. The other half is in doing your work as it comes to your hand. Don’t cultivate “a long reach.” It never pays. You “don’t get ahead one inch.” Perhaps God means for you to move by quarter-inches. He has ten thousand ways of disciplining His children, and so teaching them to make the very best of themselves. It is as certain as that He rules the heavens, that He knows just what sort of training is good for you. Your husband, your children, your home, are your working capital, a loan from Him—your talents, if you like that figure better. They are more than worth all the labor and the worries that fall into your lot.

Husband, children, home, work and worry fill to-day full. Hence the folly, and the danger, and the sin of “the long reach.” The one coming guest whom you should never welcome is to-morrow’s possible troubles. The children are not to be educated today, nor is John ill or dead at the present moment, and the “lonesome” maid does not go until her month is up. The faith that removes mountains wears short-sighted glasses and brings them to bear upon the work in hand.

This is not preaching, but practical philosophy. Try how it will work for a week—then a month—then a year.

Keep your house as well as you can for John, for the babies, for yourself, and let the neighbors run theirs to suit themselves. Comparisons, according to Dogberry, are “odorous.” Comparison of this sort savors of discontent and trouble. Mind your own business and take your business in sections.

“Magnify your office.” You are as important in your kingdom as was Queen Victoria in hers, and have not one worry where she had a thousand.

Dust may be disease in embryo, and should be done away with by the use of all reasonable means. Overwork and worry kill more women in one year than the neglected deposit upon picture cords slays in a century. “Let all things be done decently and in order” is a capital working motto, but reserve the right of private judgment in determining what constitute order and decency. Study what you can leave undone, or what may be laid over for another day with least discomfort to yourself and others.

Spare yourself, and study Slighting (so-called) as a Useful, Life-lengthening Art.

THE FAMILY LUNCHEON