The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-21
HousEKEEPlNe IN FLORENCE.

HOOSEkEEPlNG IN FLORENCE. Eva Madden in the Travel Magazine for
 May.
 The stove in an Italian house is a strange novelty. It is built of brick and very large, like an old-fashioned range. It stands under huge open chimney and has two grated openings and beneath each is a square hole into which the ashes fall from the grating. First you place on the grating a fine charcoal called brae- cio, then you thrust a lighted paper into the ash hole beneath and fam it with a fiat fan peculiar to Italy When the whole is mass of red you lay on your charcoal and continue flaming. The fuel costs but S1. 40 month, and everything is cooked over these two small openings. For baking you have curious iron af- fair called a forno di oampagna, which is placed above the opening.
 It was quite possible for Clotilda's baby to sit on the stove, for its bricks are never warm, but serve as a table for the cook and her dishes. The utensils used in Italian cooking are usually of earth enware, and are arranged always in curious rack above the sink
 So much for the kitchen
 Now for the duties of your donna. When she arrives she arranges your breakfast, sets part of the house in or- der and then goes forth to purchase your spese or marketing. Do not be surprised if she stays an hour, even if the shops are beneath your apartment. It is the custom of the donnas to visit all their friends, to buy only at the stalls, no mat ter how distant, kept by their friends or relations and to forbid 1t would be to set yourself against custom of the country. Also there Is no good in trying to correct what seems to be the undue familiarity of a Florentine servant. The democracy here is rooted centuries deep and Italian mistresses make friends of their servants. At the end of the day the donna appears before the mistress to reckon up accounts, give back change, or be supplied with the defciency..
 Our donna leaves at 2:3O and returns at to get supper. Her wages are B month and she refuses wine, an unheard- of incident. AS to food in Italy you get what you please, but a life spent in many different countries has taught me that 1t is better to eat the food of each country. For breakfast we have rolls or bread. but ter and caffe-latte. or much boiled milk and little coffee. with honey. jam or mar malade, when we desire it; for dinner, soup or marcaroni or rice in some of the Italian ways of cooking them, meat. two vegetables, pudding and fruit or cheese. At or we have tea, bread and butter and cake. and for supper meat or eggs, 8 side dish, stewed fruit or fresh cake, or what you will, with cocoa for the winter drink, lemonade for summer. We do not of cents a flask.
 A word about heating. That Is the bane of Italy. An open fireplace may cost as much as S7 a month in January and February, the fuel being wood, pine cones and a round brown peat affair called forme. All the chimneys smoke and bel lows are necessity.
 There is a curious round iron stove like a stovepipe in shape with outspreading legs, called "a pig" which most for eigners use, but its ugliness makes against 1t until you snlVer Into accepting It, Many rooms have no chimneys, but if you live on the top floor the law permits you to run your stoveplpe out a window
 But one thing you must remember. any, thing you attach to an Italian wall must remain there when you leave. For this reason many Americans who have bought anthracite stoves and put them into their Italian homes, at the same time purchase the cheap pig to substitute when they leave, substitution not to the dfsad- vantage of the Italians who would not stand the expense of these solcalled American stoves even if they inherited them.