The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1891-05-12

single Sundays dinner plan more dishe
than his mind could eventually grasp Of
his hands handle. And when he had ex
hausted the whole of the limited castro
nomical repertoire within our reach hs
would be suddenly inspired with 8
troublesome propensity to add hash tt
the programme. In cooking, as have
said, he lost his balance. His imagina
ton pictured more possibilities than his
body had strength to carry out. So
busted in getting up varied meal, be
would in few minutes leisure attempt
to shave himself or sew on shirt or pan.
taloon buttons. This put too many irons
in the fire.
A man who attempts to shave while a
pot is boiling over or roast requiring
careful watching is in the oven will mel.
Their shave nor cook well. He will be
apt to leave lather where it is not desir-
able, as he sometimes did. Trousers
buttons are not good in soup. l do not
| like to see wet shaving brush near a
roast ready to go into the oven. The
aesthetic taste repudiates these hints at
combination. Then sometimes in the
very crisis Of meal he became Hurried.
| He rushed about in haste overmuch,
with big spoon in one hand and giant
fork in the other, looking for missing
stove covers and pot lids seldom found
until the next day, and then in strange
places. Nothing is well done which is
done in hurry, especially cooking.
Some argue that men and women put
their magnetic and sympathetic infiu-
ences in the food they prepare. If man
kneading bread be in bad temper he
puts bad temper in the bread, and that
bad temper goes into the person who
eats it, or if he be dyspeptic he kneads
dyspepsia in his dough. It is awful to
think what we may be eating. I think
the unbalanced cook puts furries in his
stews, for I felt sometimes as if trying
to digest whirlwind after eating this
mans dinners. He ruled the house.
was his assistant. l was his victim. I
was the slave of the spit and the peon
of the frying pan.
When his energies eliminated and
settled on hash, when already the stove
top was full of dishes in preparation, l
was selected as the proper person to chop
the necessary ingredients. We had
neither chopping knife nor tray. The
mining stores then did not contain such
luxuries. This to him made no differ
ence. He was a man who rose superior
to obstacles, circumstances and chopping
10 Il hot l. !, IL l. IL
with a Ratchet on fat board. He
planned; | executed. He theorized and
invented; put his invention in practice
But never successfully could l chop
mass of beef and boiled potatoes with
Ratchet on a fiat board. The ingredients
during the operation would expand and
fall over the edge of the board. Or the
finer particles would violently fly off at
each cut of the Ratchet and lodge on the
beds or other unseemly places.
l do not favor 4 dinner of many
courses, especially if it falls to my lot to
prepare these courses. Few cooks enjoy
their own dinners, for two reasons
first, they eat them in anticipation; this
nullifies the flavor of the reality; Sec
ond. the labor of preparation fatigues
the body and takes the keen edge from
the appetite. Having kept my own house
for years know whereof speak. Two
hours work about hot stove exhausts
more than four hours work out of doors.
Americans in Europe are shocked, or
pretend to be, at sight of women doing
mems work in the fields. They are much
better off than the American woman,
fve-sixths of whose life is spent in the
kitchen. The outdoor woman shows
some blood through the tan on her
cheeks. The American kitchen house
wife is sallow and bleached out
once lived near literary cook. It
was to him by sort of natural heritage
that fell the keeping of the Hawkins Bar
library, purchased by the "boys" way
back IN the A. ID. eighteen hundred and
tifties. The library occupied two sides
of very small cabin, and the man who |
kept it lived on or near the other two |
sides. Then, during nights and rainy
days, he read and ate. His table. a
mere flap or shelf projecting from the
wall, was two-thirds covered with books |
and papers, and me other third with a
array of table furni- |
ture, TO Wit: A tin plate, knife, fork, |
tin cup. yeast powder can, pepper box,
ditto full OF sugar, ditto full OF salt. a |
butter plate. a bottle of vinegar and an
otner OF molasSes. and may be, on occa-
sions, one of whisky. On every book
and paper were more or less of the i'm
print OF greasy fingers or streaks Of
molasses. The plate, owing 70 the al
most entire absence of the cleansing |
process, was even imbedded in a brown
lsh, unctuous deposit, the CONCEALED |
oleaginous overflow of months OF meals |
There he devoured beef and lard. bacon
and beans and encyclopedias, Hum
boldt's Cosmos" and dried apples. novels
and physical nourishment at one and the
same time. He went long since where
the weary cease from troubling and the |
wicked, let Us hope, are at rest Years
ago, passing through the deserted Bar,
peeped IN at Morgans cabin. a young