Evening star., 1936-11-21

I want to learn how to cook and make
him comfortable. How can I do 1t?
A BRIDE.
Answer Buy a cook book and fol-
low directions. Read the newspapers.
Almost every one of them runs culi-
nary department that tells not only
how to prepare food, but also how to
buy it. and that is invaluable to every
housekeeper.
Any woman who can read and has
even ordinary intelligence can make
herself an expert cook in three
months if she is determined to do it.
There is nothing esoteric about cook
ing. 1t is an exact science. Two and
not three or seven or eight, and if
you follow the rules you cannot fail.
The women who are always hoping
that their bread will be light, or that
their cake won't fall, or that their
meat won't be overdone or underdone
are just cooks who are too careless
or too ignorant or too lazy to have
ever taken the trouble to master their
profession.
THE best cook I know is woman
who went from the schoolroom
into business, and who had hardly
ever had her foot in a kitchen until
she married at middle age. Her hus-
band was q man who was by way of
being an epicure, and SO she set her
self to learn how to please his fas-
tidious taste and has become a chef
whose dinners are famous.
Of course a girl can learn to cook
after marriage, but 1t is a sin and a
shame that her mother doesn't teach
her to do so before she is married,
for it would save the bride many
tear and prevent many a quarrel of
newlyweds. The first rift in the honey
moon, nine times out of ten. comes
when the young wife sits her young
husband down to a dinner that would
kill an ostrich.
You see. men labor under the de-
lusiQn that every girl is born know
ing how to cook and that 1t comes
just as instinctively to her to know
how to broil a steak or make coffee
as 1t does to breathe. He never in
quires whether his prospective bride
can make biscuit or not. He just
takes 1t for granted that she can make
bread like mother used to make So
when he finds that she doesn't know
any more about cooking than she
does about astrology he feels that she
Is failure and he has been stung.
The things he says about burnt toast
and leathery eggs as he jams on his
hat and starts for the Office in the
morning leave the bride in tears and
thinking about going back to mother.
You are quite right in realizing
the importance Of learning how to
cook, because your happiness and the
success Of your marriage depend more
upon that than upon any other one
thing. The best recipe ever given
for holding husbands love is the
old one: Feed the brute" A savory
odor coming from the kitchen will do
more to keep a wife alluring to her
husband than putting perfume behind
her ears. Nor is there any other such
effective method of keeping husband
nailed to his own fireside as to fill
him so full of the things he likes
best to eat that he doesn't feel like
wandering.
Furthermore, every young wife takes
not only her husbands heart but his
stomach into her hands when she
marries him. His health and we'll
being depend on how she feeds him.
So it is up to you to decide whether
your man will be . nervous wreck at
40 or going strong. Also whether he
will be quarrelsome dyspeptic or fat
and easygoing. DOROTHY DIX.