CHAPTER XXXVIII

COME OUT OF THE PARLOR

If I were a cook (of course, being a democrat, I aspire to no such plutocratic eminence, but were I a cook), I should want to have for my use a number of culinary accessories to make life more rosy, more serene and even more delightful than it naturally must be.

If I were even a wife, I should welcome gifts that would make the work I had to do in the kitchen more saving in time, effort and labor.

But being neither of these, and therefore, free to roam through manufactories, laboratories, and shops, I will suggest from the myriads of fascinating kitchen articles and appliances some that will make captivating and useful gifts. When you once have made a present of any of them you will automatically become entablatured in the recipient’s memory, and maybe you will be saved the expense of many a meal!

If I were that cook--I would hanker after the ice pick that doesn’t slide--the spring pick (25 to 35 cents). You just jab it into the ice and slide the handle up and down, and you waste neither ice, food, nor temper in the process. It is a gem of comfort.

THE SMALL EQUIPMENT

The cream bag, with all the alluring little tubes for making fascinating designs on the birthday or Christmas cake, saves the cook time in rigging up paper tubes for spreading cream and sugar.

If it were only to obviate the unpatriotic cry against our thick bread in comparison to the British gossamer slice, it would ease one’s life to have some one of the bread slicers on the American market which cost very little. (About $4.[1])

[1] All prices here are merely approximate. By the time this book reaches you the prices will be much lower, we hope!

Nothing saves more energy than the food chopper (from $2 up), the nut-cracker (from $1 up), the cherry stoner (75 cents up). These processes of stoning, chopping and taking out nuts whole are all tedious by hand.

The coffee mill, too, is a pleasure, the kind that has the glass top to keep you cognizant of how much work there is before you. Some of these screw on the wall and are about $1.35 and upwards. The beef press ($1.50 to $5) (See Chapter on electric mixing units) for invalid or baby is also a boon.

The prices of all these things are very low as prices go these days. In some of the realms, however, the prices vary so from day to day that one is afraid to mention them. But, whatever the prices are, the devices are worth the cost in helpfulness and service. And, strange as it may seem, the kitchen denizen, imperial though she be, rarely dowers herself with the time-saving, step-saving apparatus.

SCALES AND SHARPENERS

Kitchen scales, good ones, are really indispensable to the careful housekeeper. The balance type is the most accurate and costs from $8 up. Very often you can test your purchases and if under weight you can scold the grocer (what fun!) and if over weight--but what’s the good of dream stuff here? The hanging spring scale is accurate and costs from $2.50 up. (See