152 WE FARM FOR A HOBBY 



this. It is not necessary to anoint a good, fresh fish 

 with sauce meuniere or marguery; it is not even 

 desirable. For your truly fresh fish has a delicate 

 flavor all his own that will be smothered in such 

 concoctions. Thus, too, on the home-use farm the 

 simplest recipes are the best. 



The most serious mistake we have made at 

 Medlock Farm so far has a bearing on this whole 

 matter of domesticity. We made it before we be- 

 gan farming for home-use, but that does not right 

 it. When we first moved here we found the kitchen 

 in what is now my study. The north wing, in 

 which the colonial kitchen had been situated, was 

 destroyed by fire at some unrecorded time; when 

 it was rebuilt in makeshift fashion the kitchen was 

 moved into the main body of the house. Back of 

 this room ran an open gallery. When we restored 

 the north wing we put the kitchen in it. As a 

 study, the room I now occupy is not large; as a 

 kitchen it was enormous. It involved hours of 

 waste labor and miles of useless walking. The new 

 kitchen goes to the other extreme. As a room dedi- 

 cated solely to the preparation of meals it is ideal; 

 but as the manufacturing center of a home-use 

 farm it is a washout. 



To correct the error it would be wrong to en- 

 large the present kitchen. What we shall do some 

 day is build something that every home-use farm 

 should have: a separate building, housing on the 



