The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1882-07-06
Garnfsh.

decorative art than some are disposed to
admit is beyond question; but it is
also question if the present mania for
decorative art is not passing legitimate
bounds and laying new burdens on
already overburdened shoulders. Its
motive and tendency have been toward
real growth in perception, and the sub
tie harmonies of form and color mean
more to-day than ever before. One can
forgive even the epidemic of sunflowers
and daisies or even the impossible sage.
green storks reposing on one leg in the
midst of pink puddle, surrounded by
cat-tails of any and every color save that
of nature; for out of incongruities has
come a better sense of what place color
holds, and the influence is found even in
the cheapest wall paper or the more SUBJ
dued patterns of carpets and other house
hold furnishings.
Decoration is an accepted part of the
creed of to-day, and yet in such accept
ance lies a new evil to be grappled with
by every one who desires simpler forms
of life, and thus more time for better
work in better fields.
Granted that many women have no
engrossing occupation of any sort and no
capacity for doing good work even were
the way clear before them. They are,
after all, but small proportion in the
mass of quick and eager minds reaching
out constantly for more and more light,
and longing for any method that will
give them a little more of the coveted
time. Many of these women ssdo their
own work" Many, with a trifle more
income, keep but one servant and that
more than probably an incompetent one,
who must constantly be supplemented
by the mistresses' hands. Nine-tenths
of them, through the education possible
for the poorest, and through the constant
stimulus afforded by the flood of period
ical literature in both papers and maya
zines, bringing the latest thought or dis
covery into even the log cabin of the
frontier, are educated day by day into
more and more delicate tastes and de-
sires, and as the result more and more
discomfort and irr cation in learning to
go without.
For many with the ambition and exec
utive power latent or active in the ma
jority of American women, life becomes
long struggle to attain as near as du-
plication of methods described as means
will admit. The woman who must pre-
pare every article of food and wash ev-
cry dish soiled in preparation signs for a
dinner in courses. The woman with
one servant not only signs for but at
tempts it, and we laugh at her. Yet
such effort has been stimulated and en-
couraged by every household column in
every paper she has taken up.
Not that they do not also abound in
wise and practical suggestions, but most
women turn at once to the menu, and
by its length or its brevity Judge of the
status of that column. 1t is preferred
in French, whether the names of dishes
are understood or not, and it must be
long, whether in French or English.
Above all it must have an elaborate des-
sert, and the woman who longs for time
for reading or recreation, the walk or
ride that unceasing work prevents, will
give an entire morning to the prepare
ton of some elaborate sweet, far better
unmade and utterly unnecessary as the
ending of a heavy dinner. Whatever
may be the personal tastes or beliefs of
the Trainer of such menu its composition
in a certain form seems obligatory, and
more and more there is added to each
rule the form, 'sGarnish with -, etc."
Now garnish, where one has chef
Vase end and aim in life is garnish,
may be and is legitimate enough; and
garnish with the flowers in season, as
nasturtium flowers with the pale green
of tender lettuce in salad, is attractive
and appetizing. So with parsley, that
unfailing friend of the cook. But the
garnish requiring an hour for single
dish that must in any case consume other
hours is most certainly false and miser-
able use of time, to be discouraged by
every reasonable woman in the land.
All this apropos of recent article de-
scriptive of "a simple dinner for plain
family This '.simple dinner con-
tanned nine dishes, five of them very
elaborate in preparation and most of
them with garnish. The stewed turnips
could not be simply cut into quarters or
sliced, but were cut to simulate the divi-
sions of an orange. The broiled fish was
garnished with potato balls-a quart of
potatoes cut into balls with French
vegetable-cutter, parboiled aud then
fried brown; and the praised beef had
its decoration in colors by means of deep
yellow carrots and pale yellow turnips
contrasted with white. These smaller
balls, no larger than peas, half a cupful
of each, must be scooped from the raw
vegetables and each variety boiled sepa-
rately and dropped into its cup Of cold
water to preserve the color till wanted.
This sounds exceedingly simple and
innocent, inexpensive and ornamental,
and the masculine reader would very
likely say, as he noted the glowing des-
cription of the enthusiastic recipe writer,
81 don't see, Sarah Jane, why we can't
have things done this way too. They
don't cost anything
No! The time and the blister on the
finger against which the vicious little iron
cup rested as it was urged through the
slippery evasive potato cost nothing.
And the spoonful of .'peas'' worried out
from the unyielding and infexible car
rot also cost nothing but the half hour of
time might have been added to the other
half hour spent upon modelling the tur-