Thk hare and tortoise story was very 
good in its day : but it is hardly applica¬ 
ble to these days of electricity, bicycles, 
etc. We can’t afford merely to plod 
along through life. We must lookahead, 
understand our route, keep in mind the 
time of day, and we shall be able to do 
the journey in half the time we could do 
it in tortoise fashion. There is time 
enough to stop for a rest or a visit on 
the way. 
* 
How could the world get along with¬ 
out enthusiasm ? How the harness frets 
one when enthusiasm fails. Work that 
has been performed as a pleasure, be¬ 
comes a trial when hope declines. Each 
of us has had experience enough to know 
what different aspects the same situa¬ 
tion may assume according as we view 
it when encouraged or disheartened. 
Knowing how great an influence the 
feelings exert on life, why should we 
not try always to encourage one another? 
It is bad enough to have one say, “ I 
told you so ! ” when a failure is made ; 
but it is far worse to listen to the weary¬ 
ing discouragement with which some 
people attempt to quench enthusiasm 
whenever it appears. Who can tell how 
many failures are the direct results of 
discouraging friends ? There is no bet¬ 
ter time than now to begin being cheer¬ 
ful and cheering. 
*• 
We call especial attention to the 
“Cooking Lecture” now running in this 
department. Cooking is an occupation 
that most women are interested in. 
Scientific treatment of the subject makes 
it only more interesting. The teacher 
whose lecture is reported in these arti¬ 
cles, talks like a true scientist; she 
gives the reasons for her rules. When 
the human mind first begins to exercise 
itself in children, it asks for reasons. 
The little child’s “Why, mamma?” is 
so continual that many a mother grows 
we try, and silences the questioner or 
gives very unsatisfactory answers. Un¬ 
fortunately, the human mind is too 
often shaped by the rebuffs it meets, 
and the habit of inquiry after awhile is 
effectually silenced. Things are ac¬ 
cepted as they present themselves, and 
conservatism and ignorance thrive. The 
definition of science is, “knowledge of 
principles and causes.” Each of us can 
begin making his education a scientific 
one by learning the causes of the differ¬ 
ent effects produced in the regular 
routine of every-day work. Introducing 
science into domestic doings, would seem 
to be a kind of education that would 
satisfy the mind’s longing without put¬ 
ting woman at odds with her necessary 
surroundings and occupation. 
A COOKING LECTURE. 
RECIPES WITH THE REASONS WHY. 
Part II. 
HE next thing prepared was bread. 
The bi’cad was set about 11 o'clock, 
in order to finish it in the afternoon. I 
had only a pint of water, and the dough 
doubled in bulk, a little more than 
doubled, and you see as I pull it up that 
it is perfectly spongy all through. It was 
set hard, that is, I kneaded it hard on 
the board before it was put into the bowl. 
I will now take it out on the board and 
mold it for the tins. You notice I am 
not using a bit of Hour on my hands, and 
the bread comes out of the bowl leaving 
it perfectly clean. Bread that is prop¬ 
erly kneaded will always come out in 
that way, and, with good flour, if bread 
is thoroughly kneaded, it can be handled 
the second time without any more flour 
on the board. This has crusted a very 
little over the top, because it was not 
covered tightly with a tin cover. I did 
not have one large enough to cover the 
size of the bowl that I used to make it 
in. I like to turn a pan or a tin cover 
over the bread when it is rising. 
Question. —What kind of yeast did 
you use ? 
Answer. —I used compressed yeast for 
raising this bread, not that I think it is 
better in every respect than any other 
kind, but because I know that it is fresh. 
It will always do in the same length of 
time, the very same thing, and you can 
depend uponjt; that is one thing that 
other yeast will not do. 
Q.—How long do you knead the bread? 
A.—The first kneading was 20 minutes; 
this second kneading only enough to 
mix it thoroughly. 
Q.—Did you put a whole yeast cake in 
that amount of bread ? 
A.—No, I put in only one-lialf of a 
cake. The second kneading is merely to 
distribute the air bubbles. When it rises 
in the first place, some of the bubbles 
are smaller than others, and if you bake 
it then, there would be large and small 
holes in the bread, as, perhaps, you have 
noticed in making Graham bread with one 
rising. You know it is not as fine grained 
as a bread that has been molded. Bread 
in jproper condition hygienically to be 
eaten, should be 24 hours old. This 
amount would make two fair-sized loaves, 
and about a dozen biscuit. 
Now 1 will set some bread ; I am going 
to use the proportion of one quart of 
wetting, one cake of yeast, softened in 
one cupful of tepid water, two teaspoon¬ 
fuls of salt, two tablespoonfuls of sugar, 
and 3 or 3 % quarts of flour. One great 
mistake in bread making, especially in 
using a large amount of wetting, is in 
setting it too warm, and it tastes of the 
yeast. When bread tastes of the yeast 
the reason is more that it is set too warm 
than that there is too much yeast used. 
This water as tested with this dairy 
thermometer, is 85 degrees, and it feels 
almost cool to my finger. It should be 
about the same temperature as the finger. 
In setting bread we want the liquid at 
about this temperature, especially the 
liquid that the yeast is soaked in. This, 
of course, is a recipe for plain, every-day 
bread. 1 like, myself, very much to use 
part milk, and of course if you use the 
milk it is a good plan to scald it first, to 
be sure it is perfectly sweet. The tem¬ 
perature at which bread is raised is just 
the temperature at which milk will sour. 
If you use one cupful of scalding milk 
and a cupful of cold water, it will prob¬ 
ably make it very nearly the right tem¬ 
perature. Of course you can use all 
milk, and where there is plenty of it 
bread made of all milk is much better 
than bread made with water. It is more 
nutritious and it keeps moist rather 
better, and even for people who have to 
buy their milk it is a matter of wise 
economy to use part milk in their bread. 
You get the full value of the milk used 
in that way. 
Q.—Did you ever use potato water to 
make moist bread ? 
A.—If you mean water that potatoes 
are boiled in, 1 never did, unless the 
potatoes have first been parboiled, be¬ 
cause I object to the greenish, poisonous 
principle of the potato which comes out 
in the water. Use the potatoes them¬ 
selves, or if you take pains to parboil 
them, and extract that greenish prin¬ 
ciple, then use the water in which they 
are boiled for your bread. This makes 
very nice bread. 
A little sugar should be added ; two 
tablespoonfuls of sugar to this amount 
of flour, restores just about the amount 
of sugar that is lost from the flour in 
rising, so that the bread tastes just as 
sweet as bread that is not raised by 
yeast without any sugar. It is not nec¬ 
essary that the yeast should be dis¬ 
solved. I know a great many recipes 
speak that way about softening yeast; 
it is almost impossible to dissolve com¬ 
pressed yeast. You can soften it and it 
mixes in with the flour very easily. 
This flour has been sifted. It is always 
safer to sift flour that is to be used, be¬ 
cause it packs so hard in the barrel—not 
because the flour is not clean. I have 
in here now the milk and water, the 
yeast, salt and sugar; now I will add 
the flour. You should have 3 or 3% 
times the amount of flour that there is 
of liquid ; that is the rule for the stiff 
dough. We have the regular propor¬ 
tions of a cup of flour to a cup of liquid 
for a thin batter, like a pancake batter, 
or a pop-over batter : two cups of flour 
to one cup of liquid for stiffer batters 
like gems, muffins and corn bread, and 
three cups of flour to a cup of wetting 
for stiffer doughs, going up as high as 
four times as much flour as water, in 
pastry. 
This beating of the batter, I think, 
saves a little in the kneading, and it cer¬ 
tainly mixes the flour much more thor¬ 
oughly to begin with. Flour put into 
water will lump, but, of course, the 
lumps will come out if it is beaten ; if 
we add the flour without beating the 
lumps out, we would have to work them 
out in kneading. After the batter is 
thick enough to beat, the added flour 
will not lump. 
Q.—Where can we obtain one of these 
spoons ? 
A.—You will probably have to have 
them made to order ; I know of no place 
where they are for sale. I paid, I think, 
20 cents for this spoon ; the spoons that 
are not slit are a little cheaper. I ob¬ 
tained some in Milwaukee, myself, and 
I think they are generally made by hand. 
This bread is now so that I can turn it 
out on the board. Bread may be kneaded 
in the bowl, but it is more convenient to 
turn it on the board, and I think it is 
rather more effectual. The kneading 
should be begun when the dough is as 
soft as you can easily handle it. The 
only difficulty in making bread, and 
making it hard to begin with, is that it 
is often made too stiff ; a little persever¬ 
ance and a little practice will enable 
you to handle it verj" soft, and it thickens 
up very quickly as you add more flour 
to keep it from sticking. There is no 
better way of cleaning the bowl when 
you take it out, than the cushioned ends 
of the fingers rubbed against the bowl 
with a little flour between ; a clean 
board, a clean bowl, and clean hands, 
are three of the desirable things in bread 
making. By clean hands, I do not mean 
hands clean merely from any other dirt, 
but hands that are reasonably free from 
the bread dough. This kneading of the 
bread is really the only hard work about 
bread making, and this is hard because 
it takes considerable time, more than 
for any other reason. It is one of the 
hardest things to learn if a person does 
not know how. The motion is from the 
shoulder, rather than from the elbow, 
moving the whole arm, and there is no 
need to make hard work of it. It is not 
the force that is put into it, but the 
number of times it is turned over and 
dented in. 
We recognize, in the cooking school, 
two kinds of flours—the bread flours and 
the pastry flours, the bread flours being 
granular to the touch, made of spring 
wheat, and the pastry flours being soft 
and more like the old-fashioned flour of 
the stone grinding, and being made of 
winter wheat. Flours that are lumpy, 
are pastry flours—bread flours should 
never lump. 
A GLIMPSE OF ROMANCE. 
I WAS sitting in the carriage recently, 
acting as “hitching post”; while 
waiting, and imagining, that the minutes 
were hours long, I noted the unpleasant 
environment. The street was very nar¬ 
row, and the buildings were high, old, 
dingy, and cheerless looking. The odor 
was disagreeable, and I was wondering 
to myself how people could live in such 
an atmosphere, amid such surroundings, 
when I happened to glance up at an open 
window in the second story of a much 
besmoked brick building. Two old, bat¬ 
tered dishpans stood in the window— 
one of them heaped full of boiled pota¬ 
toes. I could just see the face of a very 
pretty girl who was peeling the pota¬ 
toes, and tossing them into the other 
dishpan ; she worked so rapidly that I 
fancied that she was a girl who was 
more than earning her wages. 1 now 
saw that this dingy-looking building 
was the rear of a prominent hotel; the 
kitchen window was my point of interest. 
In a few minutes a young man came near 
this busy maiden ; he had on a white 
cap and coat such as waiters usually 
wear. He looked a second Romeo— 
something had evidently gone wrong 
with his Juliet; she had possibly re¬ 
ceived a reprimand of some sort, and her 
haste in peeling potatoes may have been 
on account of the extra amount of nerv¬ 
ous energy thus generated. “Romeo” 
seemed to feel very sorry for her ; there 
was sympathy and adoration in his coun¬ 
tenance. He put his arm around her 
neck, and looked at her so lovingly ; he 
patted her cheek, but she peeled at the 
potatoes as dextrously as ever, though 
she gave back his loving glances, as she 
worked steadily on. Suddenly “ Romeo ” 
disappeared—our errand was finished, 
and we drove away. “Juliet” -vas 
still peeling potatoes. 
I could not help thinking of the bit of 
romance I had witnessed, and the ever¬ 
lasting moral back of it. To me, that 
place was disagreeable ; the sunlight 
gave but the least bit of its blessedness 
to the dank walls. The air was polluted 
with smoke and dust and various odors. 
No blue sky arched above, no fleecy 
clouds floated in the June air ; just noise 
of rattling wagons grinding over the 
cobblestones ; of car whistles ; of gongs, 
and electric roar from the street rail¬ 
way. All this, to me, was pandemonium 
—but to those two, to “Romeo” and 
“Juliet,” it was heaven. They had 
love in their hearts, and they did not 
hear the rush and roar of the hurrying 
city ; they saw each other, and the dingy 
dishpans, the old smoked buildings, the 
sunless air, had no existence as such for 
them. 
And so it is everywhere—true love has 
the power of transforming the common¬ 
est objects into the most wondrous 
beauty. The humblest home becomes 
“ the kingdom of heaven ” if only love 
is there. Sometimes I have visited the 
poorest homes with the greatest enjoy¬ 
ment. One in particular, I have in mind, 
which is scarcely habitable ; it is not 
