Feminine Interests

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 896, 13 February 1930, Page 5

Feminine Interests

GENOESE RUSKS .* f

Required: Four eggs, ljoz of melted ! butter, 4oz ot castor sugar, ?,oz of sifted flour, lib of royal icing. put the eggs into a basin and whisk them well for live minutes; add the • astor sugar and then whisk tor another five minutes. Put the basin over a pan of boiling water on the fire and beat for 10 minutes. Stir :n very lightly the flour and the gently melted butter. Grease a baking-sheet, line it with greased paper and pour the mixture on to it. Bake in a. quick oven about seven minutes. Then turn out on to a sugared paper. When cold, spread over with a thin layer of royal icing, cut it into neat rounds, put them on to a baking-sheet., and bake in a cool oven till they are pale I brown. When thoroughly cooled, pipe the remainder of the icing on to them, in funny patterns, or animals, which will amuse the children. For the Royal Icing.—Required: lib of icing sugar, the strained juice of one lemon, two whites of eggs. Sift the sugar through a hair sieve into a basin. Whisk the whites of eggs to a slight froth. Make a well in the centre of the sugar, put the whites of eggs into it, and work them with the sugar, using a wooden spoon; add the lemon juice gradually, as required. Beat the icing till it is quite white. If too thin add extra sugar, and if too thick add extra lemon juice. When finished, keep the basin covered with wet muslin to prevent a crust from forming on top. HUSBANDS SHOULD REMEMBER j That tact is sometimes better than truth. * * * Her size in gloves and stockings, snd her favourite perfume. * * * That she’s likely to be just as tired *s you are at the end of the day. That she prefers chocolates with hard centres. * * * That an unexpected bunch of violets Vill often work wonders. * * * That a. kiss in time saves nine; and She should never have to ask for one. * * * Your wedding anniversary—aud her birthday. * * * To notice what frock she is wearing, and to say how charming it is.

Have You a Safety-Valve

Nothing is truer than the familiar proverb, “Ail work and no play,” but the wise person will happily combine both. If we only realised the importance j of having a safety valve— -not one of j us would he foolish enough to try to ! live without one. How many tragedies are due to the j fact that people go on, and on, with their own particular job, never slackening—ignoring life and its interests. They rush and hurry—let their work absorb them until sooner or later the inevitable happens. The pressure of the incessant “sameness” becomes unbearable, and they “crack up” under It. There are many business girls who have started out with tremendous hope of making a huge success of their jobs. They sacrifice ail to become “efficient with a capital E,” and they usually annihilate the very object they \ set out to accomplish. They live in the office, they carry it with them wherever they go, forgetting that to work well they must be fit —and to be fit there must be time for play as well as for work. If they won’t learn this early, they will find that Nature has taken her revenge—ravaged complexions, fretful nerves, and loss of friends who won’t bother with them because they have become “difficult.” TIED TO THEIR HOUSES. Most of us know housewives who have tied themselves to their houses to the exclusion of everything else They become neurotic. Husbands and children seem to be growing away from them, because they have no time to give to them. Then they wake up to the fact that they are the most unhappy of mortals. Some women, when they realise the prison they have made for themselves, try to escape by running away from their duties. We women are such extremists. We are either house-hound or we neglect our homes. When we marry, we are so enthusiastic about our home —it is so fresh, dainty, and new—there are so many pleasant little tasks to attend to that we can’t tear ourselves away from them. We see a neighbour passing by our window, smartly dressed, full of the joy of life—and we think: “Well, Mrs. Brown can’t be looking after her home properly, or have no time to be and go out i fe often as she does.” AFTER THE FIRST THRILL. Later on, when the house begins to lose its freshness, we have become so used to staying in that we feel we cannot get out. We have made prisoners of ourselves! We see Mrs.

! Brown bright and cheerful, and we ) think with bitterness: “Ah, yes, Mrs. | Brown must have more money than | we have, or she couldn’t dress so well and go out as often as she does.’ The real fact is that Mrs. Brown has not allowed herself to forget that keeping a house does not mean losing j all sense of proportion. The wise and happy ones of life are those who | arrange their time so that play as j well as work has its place. If we I only remember that, our jobs will j not suffer, but rather improve, and, | what’s more, we’ll gain health as well j as keep youth. For just as the business girl must look to her appearance and preserve her freshness if she would make a success of her job, so should the housewife keep her life balanced by belli of a safety valve, if she would keep that first-year thrill of her home, her husband happy, and herself contented.