The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1911-01-09
MAIDS AND NATIONS OF WASH
INGTON FOLLOW WAYS OF
GRANDM
MARKET SOCIAL MEETING PLACE
Dinner Given a Fine Art in the Capt.
tai and Hostess Likes to Make
Own Selection-A Socis Meeting
Place

In these degenerate days, when
the cry goes up everywhere that the
rise in tie cost of living is the fault
of the women, because they no longer
20 10 market, as i'm the old times but
order by telephone or leave it to their
servants. it is encouraging to note
that in Washington matrons, and
even young girls who might be sup
roscl to do nothing but dance and
dress and ride are following the ways
OF their grandmothers in the mark
eting line. The "gastronomiCal tenn
pie" as one old senator calls Center
Market, i'm Washin2ton, is a place
where it is safe to count ON finding
a goodly number of we'll known wo-
men between the hours Of 9 o'clock
a m. and u.
Center Market is a delightful place
OF a morning, with its stalls heaped
with plump poultry and meats ana
fresh fruits and vegetables, adorned
most likely with lunches of flowers,
and in charge. many of them, of pic
turesque old negro mammies. How
ever. it is not because of the pleas
anteness that the women haunt Cen
ter Market. Washington, even more
than Philadelphia and Baltimore, is
the home of bon vivants, epicures,
whose palates are hard to please, but
extremely apprecatiye when they are
pleased. In the recesses of Center
Market are the tidbits that will tickle
! these palates, and the Washington
women with whom dinner giving is
an art know it, Perhaps by search
ing they find terrapin at season
when terrapin is considered impossl-
BILE at any price, or a certain kind
of oyster and their guests, or the
very first poke shoots which are
most delicious tidbits. served like
asparagus. but for more tender.
Stately Mrs. Harlan, wife Of the
aged Justice Harlan, goes regularly
to market, AMI has unfailing judg-
ment, her friends say, in selecting
choice fruit and game. Baroness
Hengelmuller, wife of the dean of the
diplomatic corps. is another frequent
visitor to the stalls. The wives of
the cabinet ministers. most OF them
go at least once a week to find what
/ is new in the way of edibleS, and
! to buy what attracts them, and so
| do many of the women of the senate
set. Miss Helen Taft, when she is
| going to entertain some of her girl
/ friends. is in the habit of going her
self to select what she thinks will
please them.
Roman women used to meet social
/ ly at the baths. Washington women
meet at Center Market. 1t is a fire.
quent thing for telephone conversa-
| tion to break off with I've lots more
TO say but I'll see you at market.
Shall we meet at Bandanna Rosie's
stall? Or BE at Brown Sails at 12
and we'll arrange about the euchre.
But even the closest of friends
among these marketers have their Sc
crets, which they guard from each
other. If a woman has a pet stall
ard most of them have-whose posi-
blities only she knows. where the
very earliest and choicest of this or
that edible is sure to be reserved for
her, even her husband is not told. II
he knew. he might in some unwary
moment divulge the name of the stall
and her dinner specially would no
longer be her speciality.
Most attractive are the stalls
where the country flowers and early
fruits and vegetables are found, for
most of these are brought from near
by places and have a very different
fragrance and flavor from the hot
house productions or those brought
from Florida, California or the Caro-
inas The negroes of Center Market
know how their patrons prize these
delicacies with the real taste" about
them and watch with care the shell
tered hooks they know of that they
may reap a harvest from the first
things of spring. They bring wild
flowers, too and the bloom of the
fruit trees. and the air of Center Mar
ket is sweet with the scent of them
and of aromatic herbs.
1t is not. after all. so unlikely a
place for a romance to flower in. ana
there are romances connected with
Center Market. 1t is quite the custom
for a young Washington man to es
cort the girl he likes best 10 Center