Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1886-10-01
HOUSEKEEPING.
Table Ec0nossy,

We need Variety in meals, but we do not
need great variety of dishes at one meal.
One or two dishes that like, with their usual
aacscompanlments, make enough dinner for me.
than anything else think this is the normal
condition of a healthy taste and appetite.
With many tempting dishes before ls, we are
apt to fall into the state of the little boy who
cried because, as he said, he'd eaten 80 much
PIE he couldn't eat any. pudding.
No one is the better for eating meat more
thanonce day. have known people to eat it
much less often than that, and be none the
worse. Suppose it were omitted one or two
days in the week, and those days made the des-
sert days, when some dainty pudding, fresh,
juicy pie, or seasonable fruit would make all
and espec ally the children, forget the absence
OF that expensive piece dc resistance which, in
its way, is q sort OF fetch too and may well
DO refused sacrifice once in wilhelm hot
summer-time twice in while-without harm
to anybody.
Would not these be liked az we'll as the meat
dinner? L fancy the children would come to
look on them as q sort Of treat. OF course
they need not come too often; certainly not two
in succession.
| have just come from dinner of mealy
baked potatoes, with gravy made OF part milk
and part water, with a little butter, salt, and
pepper for seasoning, fried onions, brown
bread and butter; not bit of meat. Apple
pie and doughnuts were on the table; but
felt neeued and wished for neither.
know On excellent housekeeper, one of the
possessed it would almost seem, of special
and we'll unapproachable knack, who
says that when she does her housework alone
she can not, and Will not, stand half day
rolling out pie-crust She is not very strong;
something must be sacrificed, and she things
things l agree with her. For, though q
srow of pies" may seem q comfort to house.
keeper on busy days, the establishing of that
row has certainly made at least one day busy
And can not help thinking that on those
time to make buildings out Of nothing, it
would be q wiser pan to put the apples or
other fruit fresh on the table, and so save
work, spices, sugar, and shortening Ishould
prefer a fresh apple or dessert any day to one
should infinitely prefer it to one of the last of
that row of pies. For no matter how light,
juicy and delicious pie may be when freshly
baked it can not stand Two or three days
without becoming something very different
soaked, @sogsy," leathery thing, both unfit
Ny famous pie-maker before mentioned
claims that no pie is really good and whole
some after the day on which it is made; and I
think she is right At any rate, do not care
for 1t only when perfectly fresh.
Oatmeal Cruel makes an excellent occasional
slipper or breakfast for children, or for grown
people, if they like it, and needs only very
little milk. Dry bread or crackers crumbled
into 1t make it heartier, and more agreeable
to some tastes.
think one mistake which we make in this
table question lies in thinking as we are apt
to do, that Just SO much, and SO many varie-
ties, must be cooked and spread out on the
table, whether it is eaten or not We imagine
it must be there, or our credit as good aud
bountiful housekeepers will be seriously i'm
paired believe this is at the bottom mere
prejudice. If we have all we need or want in
one or two things, why should we be the bet
ter, or fancy ourselves the better, for having
things that we do not need or want set about
us to waste? have heard it asserted that we
Americans are the most wasteful people in the
world, and that q French family would live on
what an American family throws away.
was once the guest Of q young housekeeper
not far away, when the mercury took q sud
den excursion to the polar regions, in the
hope, perhaps, of finding, or forcing, passage
through the bulb to the open air. OF course,
in the morning, before the fires had time to
thoroughly accomplish their work, the dining
room was bitterly cold. Without any apology,
my hostess gave me chair by the kitchen
stove, where l could sit with my feet in the
oven. She give me napkin, plate, knife,
fork, etc, and then kept me busy with buck
wheat cakes, fresh and hot from the griddle
close by, where she was turning them. She
was O near relative and SO used no ceremony;
but in any case would not that have been bet
ter than giving me chair of state in the chilly
dining room, with an elaborate breakfast
which must have been stone cold before I
could have eaten half OF it?-Helen Herbert