TWO WOMEN.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 217, 13 October 1916, Page 3 (Supplement)

TWO WOMEN.

By OXE WHO HAS BEEN BOTH. "However do you manage?*' I saked Molly. "A year ago you were spending pounds, and to-day—"l hesitated, wondering if I tad trodden on delicate ground. "Yes, to-day,' she said, serving out a delicious fruit salad, "1 am spending shillings, and yet the difference, as tar as you and all my other guests are concerned, is unrecognisable," she continued, with what I took to be housewifely pride. I nodded approval. Then—''However do you manage? 1 repeated. "No mystery," she laughed. "Before Jim joined up I did a big think and came to certain decisions, and I've stuck to them. And if the war over to-morrow I'd still stick to them. Why, i just wasted heaps if tlun<is before. But it wasn't exactly my fault; I hadn't ben taught much about domestic science, so I just drifted and I mightn't have known anything yet had it not been for the war. "Can you l>elicvo," she continued, "that a year ago I used butter for cooking—for frying "fish and browning meat and so on—when I could have used dripping with equally good results;? "That I bought fresh bread every because 1 liked it new, whereas now I always buy a cutting loaf, which, yo i know, goes much farther. "That I used to let the butcher keep the bones from the roast I bought, 'or I could never be bothered with a stock pot. You should see my stock >ot now! "That I seldom served a dinner which didn't include a pie or a tart in_jhe menu.. To-day 1 give salads 'nslead. "That I pared the potatoes thicklv, wastng all the valuable part next to the skin. "That I speculated rashly on 'out-j"*-season' delicacies, and simply lined the gasman's pocket with my extravagance in gas." "What a list of accusations!" J gasped. "Yes, but a true list," answered my hostess. "But Molly," chimed in her a : ster, "that surely can't save you pounds!' '"Try it and see," was the quick reply. " I know lam saving a third of what I used to be spending, and if that isn't an achievement in war time, what is?"

After that sisterly snub she turned to me. "Really, you wonldn't believe what a spendthrift i was. I used to leave the gas burnrng full on all the time food was cooking, instead of lowering the jet as soon as the pot came to the boil."

* * * Over the coffee, which was delicious, and made—how do you think? Just listen, and 1 will tell you how to make it,, because Molly let me into the •*>- eret. Make coffee just as usual, and after you have had all you want, pour about a cupful of boiling water over the grounds. Let it stand for a little and then dram off the water inU a jug. When you make your morning •.offee, or after dinner, as it may be, add the coffee water to the milk you are going to boil; or if you use cream, bgil the coffee water up with your fresh coffee. You will be surprise*d at the improvement. This is a trick a French soldier taught Molly. But over the coffee, as I was saying, 1 learned more on savmg. One lesson Molly says she has digested is not to lose in the kitchen what she has saved in the market.

Suppose meat is tough, she does not throw it away or ruin her relatives' digestions by serving them 1 .with jawsticking beef or mutton. No. she knows that long, slow cooking .will make the toughest meat tender. And Molly does not waste gas in cereal cooking or dried-fruit cooking when she can first* of all steep the cereals, or the dried fruit, in cold water for several hours, so that they will not require half the boiling. I have seen tapioca pudding come out of the oven half-raw after two hours' cooking, but if the tapioca had been steeped in as much water as ::■ would absorb overnight it would not have needed long in the oven and come out just right. So with other cereals too. * # # *

When Molly first started housekeeping she was a member of the " Women-Who-Do-Xot-Know Army." Her husband spoiled her, she did not need t* "skimp" either in food or clothing. Sh9 could buy to-day and discard to-mor-row, knowing there was always the wherewithal to pay for more. But things have changed, and now my little friend, like many another petted wife, is being tried like gold in the furnace. And. so far, she has shown that sh.i is made of sterling nieta/. She has not only reduced her expenses, but developed a system in working which saves valuable time. She has also devised little labour-saving schemes and adopted many little saving devices. So she is now one of "The Women-Who-Know", a thinking, living, tororkin.; unit. And a happv one. —E. .7. CRAIG iii the "Daily Mail."