Title: American homes and gardens
Identifier: americanhomesgar91912newy (find matches)
Year: 1905 (1900s)
Authors:
Subjects: Architecture, Domestic; Landscape gardening
Publisher: New York : Munn and Co
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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TOOLS FOR HOUSEKEEPING By Elizabeth Atwood Recipes and photographs by Mary H. Northend After boiling in this solution of soda, the sticky masses that have been burned in the bottom of dishes becomes disinte- grated. Then the stain may easily be removed by using Dutch cleanser or any gritty cleaner. In this way all cook- F IS strange how many very good house- ing dishes, with their pretty white linings, may be kept keepers are careless about the "tools" of looking like new. Did it ever occur to you how much was their routine work, both in regard to the left sticking to the linings of cooking utensils before the completeness of equipment and in the care advent of white-lined kitchen ware, which shows every spot of them. If, for comparison, you take a immediately? a peep into a carpenter's chest of tools you Brushes are a boon in a kitchen, yet you would be sur- will find everything there bright and shining. Do you sup- prised to find them missing where you would surely expect pose the carpenter would go to work with a rusty saw, the to find them. The long-handled brush for cleaning milk- teeth needing setting and sharpening? Do you think he bottles and narrow-necked pitchers; a brush for washing would try to use a plane that was not sharp? In short, be- vegetables; a brush for washing iron skillets and tins, with fore he begins a job he takes care that the contents of his a handle to it; a brush for brushing out fringes of doilies,
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etc.—these may be found in the five-and-ten-cent stores. So cost is not the reason for their absence. It is just plain lack of thought and care; and yet their use facilitates the work in a surprising way. Then the dish-towels and the dishcloths. What a mess and mass of raggedness in this connection is to be found in many kitchens? Rags which have outlived all chance of usefulness as dish-wipers are relegated to do duty as dish- cloths, all strings and lint though they are. I have seen them, so I know whereof I speak. These same pieces of cloth taken and folded to- gether, and a few rows of machine stitching put through them, would be changed from useless, troublesome rags to good dishcloths. The same thing may be done in making good floor- cloths. Many thin pieces of cloth, very absorbent, are of no use whatever for the hard wear a floorcloth gets, if left open in the original shape. But take and fold in the straggling ends and stitch back and forth several times, and presto! the unusable is converted into the best kind of a floor cloth. Just a little thought, just a little care, and a maid's work is made just All too often superfluous devices are mere hindrances to the a little pleasanter. worker. The practice of using up the old tablecloths in the shape The simple furnishings—the really needful—should be of dish-towels is a so-called economy practiced by many of the best, and should be kept in perfect order. And maids housekeepers, that to my mind is no economy at all, but a are not the only ones who are careless in matters of this sort, waste, while at the same time it adds work to the one who A can of sal-soda should be on every sink shelf, for as a presides in the kitchen. The good housekeeper carefully cleanser of tins and all utensils it is hardly to be surpassed, hems her dish-towels before they go to the kitchen; others tool-chest are in good order. Is his work any more im- portant than the daily work carried on in any kitchen? I am sure it is not; but the carpenter realizes that in order to do a good job with profit to himself he must have his tools in such shape that he can go about his work with them quickly and surely. It is the old story—almost any thing will do, as long as it holds together, is allowed to serve in the average kitchen, or in connection with the care of the house. This, however, is far from being true econ- omy. Just because a maid is paid to do the work, it is often assumed by the inex- perienced or thoughtless housewife that she can take extra time to rub the lint off from each tumbler that ac- cumulates by reason of the old worn cloth given her to do service as a towel. It may be true that the maid is expected to do what is placed before her to do, but she should have things in such shape that her work may be facilitated, not retarded. If this were realized more fully by all housewives, there would be less criticism of the time it takes Molly to do her work. I do not advocate a myriad of fancy tools in a kitchen

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