66 BAKED MEATS. 



ATTICS. The upper rooms of a house should be kept 

 religiously clean. The cook generally sleeps there. Tur- 

 pentine round the corners of attic rooms is often sufficient to 

 keep ants off. Ants also dislike all alkalies. Never have 

 paper on the walls of attic rooms. 



It is customary to reserve, in a large house, one room in 

 the attic for such groceries and household matters as are 

 improved by an occasional change into a dry atmosphere. 

 Cranberries are sometimes spread on a coarse sheet in such 

 a room. Loaf-sugar hung here keeps dry and hard. Cer- 

 tain wines are improved by an occasional visit here. Flower- 

 seeds are spread in a sunny exposure to ripen in this room. 



Curtains should be so placed that they may be easily 

 taken down, else they will be a receptacle for insects. The 

 floor should be provided with small domestic mats, never 

 with heavy carpets. The floors can be easily washed up 

 once a week, if painted yellow or lead-color. Let the bed- 

 steads be often examined, and quicksilver beaten with the 

 white of an egg placed around suspicious crevices. Put it 

 on with a feather. Iron bedsteads are easily kept clean, 

 as, after removing the clothes, a little camphene poured on 

 to the bedstead, and ignited, effects a thorough purification. 



BAKED MEATS. Meats dressed in the oven. ( Wor- 

 cester.) 



Most good cooks object to the oven for the generality of 

 meats ; for though they lose less in actual weight by baking 

 than by any other process, they are thought not to improve 

 in piquancy and flavor. Some meats, all agree, make good 

 family dishes when put into the oven in deep baking dishes. 

 Veal, if not too rich, can be baked with less injury than most 

 meats. A leg of mutton stuffed with herb stuffing, with 

 slices of parboiled potatoes, artichokes, and bits of onion 

 dropped into the pan, makes a good dish. Tomatoes cut up 



