Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-02-19
THE TOPICAL TALKER.
A Little Suggestion of What Housekeeping
and Amateur Cooking Are Worth.

and Amateur Cooking Are Worth.
WHEN Miss Parloa was here last year teach.
ing everybody how to cook, she impressed me
wonderfully, as she doubtless did many an
other, with the evidences of thorough common
sense and knowledge of the world she
showed in conversation and in her lectures.
The science of cooking is not the limit of her
mind, and it seems to me that Miss, Parloa
might readily have taken much higher place
in literature if she had been so minded In
the current number of the North american
Revietp Miss Parloa has really admirable lit
tie paper on the question, SIS Housekeeping a
Failure?' She saws emphatically that house.
keeping is success, though many housekeep-
ers fail by the wayside and take refuge in
boarding houses.
Four other women contribute answers to this
/ interesting question, but think Miss Parloa
puts the case of the home as opposed to the
mere lodging or abiding place, which the hotel
and the boarding house afford, more strongly
and concisely than any of the rest.
cannot refrain from quoting the following,
in which Miss Parloa points out one of the ad-
vantages the home has over the hotel or
boarding house when one is suffering from a
long illness: "You hunger for some particular
1OOus anu lOHluS pIepdIo ~ duu oElug
to your bedside; not to be served, bear in mind,
in the unattract1ve dishes made expressly for
boarding houses, nor yet in those of finer quail
ity, though possessing no charms for you, which
are found in hotels, but rather in the various
dainty bits of china and glassware which you
prize and with which so many pleasant recol-
lections may be associated"
IT is difficult to estimate the precise amount
of benefit that some of Miss Parloa's pupils got
out of her lectures last year.
One of these pupils-a demure damsel of Is
summers-approached her father the other day
with request that he expend some $40 or so on
a course of mandolin tuition for her benefit.
"How much did 1 pay for your cooking les
sons last year," he asked.
''Six dollars, papa" she replied.
swell, what good did that do you? I've never
tasted a thing you've cooked yet. l don't be-
heve you can cook potatop'
She protested Indignantly against this ar
raignment. The cooking lessons had been in
valuable to her, and so forth.
"Well," said her father "rIl tell you what
I'll do. If you will cook the dinner to-day, and
without assistance, Pll pay for the mandolin
course"
She agreed
So
OVER the cooking of that dinner I deem it
kindest to the cook to draw veil. Suffice it to
say some soup was in the tureen,a piece of beef
by courtesy, roasted potatoes, corn and few
smaller Dishes at least in a nominal state of
cookedness, when the head Of the household
returned from business, with an appetite sharp
ened by brisk walk in frosty air.
The family sat down to dinner, the amateur
cook, with scorched face and anxious air, at
her accustomed place. When the soup had
been served it was noticeable that she turned
pale.
81 hope you dinner is not in the soup" said
paterfamilias to the pupil of Parloa
The latter smiled rather obviously. But in a
minute, when black and unrecognizable OBJ
ject on a big dish was brought in, she did not
smile at all. Neither did anybody else. They
were all hungry, you see, and the prospect of an
eatable dinner was fast fading away. The beef
was burnt to crisp, the potatoes were as
hard as bullets. the steYed corn was smoked,
and even the last resort, an apple pie, con.
structed, as the cook had thought, on entirely
constitutional plans, was a dismal, tough and
taSteless failure.
"Well. Belinda" said her father, 'is this
your dinner?"
"oh this is my first attempt" replied the
unhappy girl; "ri1 do better tomorrow"
''Not if l am to be the judge you WON'T" re-
Joined her father, taking out his pocketbook.
II am satisfied with one experiment, and sooner
than suffer from second I'll give you the $40
for your mandolin course without further ques.
tion."
This parents reasoning seems good. His
daughter may give pain with her mandolin but
she is not as likely to kill with it as with her
cooking.