36 
House 
& Garden 
MEALS THAT ARE EASILY EATEN 
Knowledge of Foods, Imagination in Serving Them and Proper Kitchen 
Equipment Are Three Essentials for This Achievement 
SARAH FIELD SPLINT 
T HERE is a lovely house in the country to which I am some¬ 
times asked, a cheerful, spacious place with children and a 
flower garden and a view of distant blue mountains, all 
three of which greet my grateful eyes when I sit down to breakfast 
each morning. To me this first meal of the day would be an event 
even if the food were commonplace. But it never is. The mistress 
of the house is a strategist who not only decides what she wants 
her family to eat but cannily sees to it that they eat it. 
Perhaps strawberries are our portion some fine June morning. 
The luscious red fruit, still proudly wearing their green caps, are 
at our places when we come down, heaped on a gray green grape 
leaf, beside them a mound of glistening white sugar. Later I 
watch the children actually devouring their cereal because a few 
raisins have been cooked with it. And still later I discover that I, 
who declare an abhorrence for eggs whenever food is under dis¬ 
cussion—I have eaten two eggs because they came to me scrambled 
in an enchanting blue shirred-egg dish, sizzling hot and adorned 
with a sprinkling of finely chopped parsley. 
Simple as these decoys are, they trap us, children and grown¬ 
ups alike, into eating what is good for us. And, between meals, we 
consume sweet wholesome cookies instead of candy because the thin, 
crisp hearts and stars, crescents and oblongs, rings and twists tempt 
us as no,plain round cookie possibly could. I find the aversion 
formed in my own childhood for rice and tapioca puddings, cus¬ 
tards and similar you-must-eat-it-because-it’s-good-for-you-dishes 
gradually disappearing under the beguiling influence of cherry and 
nut, meringue, and whipped cream garnishings. As for spinach, I 
view its appearance three times in one week with pleased interest, 
having followed it from its bed in the orderly vegetable garden, 
through the kitchen to its final destiny of timbale, of entree, and of 
a delicate creamed vegetable, seasoned to perfection. 
A GLANCE into the kitchen of this house gives one an im¬ 
mediate understanding of the success achieved in the dining¬ 
room. It is moderately large with walls of primrose yellow. 
The doors, trim and chairs are of delft blue. Sun sifts in through 
Dutch curtained windows. A figured blue and yellow linoleum 
glistens on the floor. Half a dozen pieces of highly polished cop¬ 
per adorn the walls. Everything is spotless, including the plump 
intelligent cook in her white percale frock. And within easy 
reach of her capable arm is a shelf of labelled glass jars—raisins, 
currants, dried parsley, angelica, nut meats, bread crumbs, candied 
fruits, marshmallows, shredded cocoanut, alphabet vermicelli. In 
some cool place I know she has olives, pickles, pimentos, grated 
cheese and capers tucked away, and I know, too, she appreciates 
the tactful suggestions of her mistress as to how and when to use 
them. Her pantry shelves are filled with a variety of molds and 
cookie cutters, with casseroles and baking dishes, glass bells, 
vegetable scoops and pastry tubes. 
It is a kitchen which belongs to the new era in housekeeping and 
that it makes an important contribution to the health and achieve¬ 
ment of the family is very evident. 
No greater contrast to this cheerful, convenient kitchen can 
be imagined than that of an old-time, brown-stone mansion in New 
York. From its gloomy precincts ascends nightly a dinner like 
this: oysters, cream of pea soup, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, 
potatoes roasted in the pan, cauliflower with Hollandaise sauce, 
hearts of lettuce with Roquefort dressing, steamed fruit pudding 
and coffee. The cook, now finishing her thirtieth year of service 
with this one family, has planned and executed it. That her em¬ 
ployers have survived a generation of this massive catering is due 
to their iron constitutions and their unalterable satisfaction with 
the old order. To cover the ugly dark brown of kitchen walls and 
woodwork with paint of a lighter hue, to substitute a gayly pat¬ 
terned linoleum for the brown unfigured one, to retire the faithful 
old cook to a position of less responsibility and replace her with a 
well-trained younger woman would seem to them a trivial and un¬ 
necessary proceeding. They will continue as they began, unimag¬ 
inative, sublimely indifferent to advancing advoirdupois and 
inertia. 
I WONDER if most of us are not the reflection of our kitchen. 
We live by what it is and what proceeds from it. For it to 
furnish us with wholesome, nourishing food is not enough. It 
must make that food so attractive that we cannot resist it. Most 
women to-day personally direct the menu planning in their homes 
and their frequent presence in the kitchen is working out with ad¬ 
vantage to the help no less than to the family. For inconvenient 
equipment and dismal surroundings must go in the light of modern 
housekeeping which recognizes that work cannot be well done unless 
the mind of the worker is reasonably contented. 
A young bride whom I know says she thinks of her meal plan¬ 
ning as a game in which she wins or loses points. Her object is, 
of course, to advance her peerless young husband to the dizziest 
heights of success and to reach them he must eat everything she 
orders for him. He should go far if he carries off his share of the 
responsibility as well as his wife does hers, judging by a Sunday 
night supper I recently had at their apartment. There were delec¬ 
table looking sweetbread canapes at our places when we sat down, 
whose taste proved to be as good as their looks; then came scalloped 
oysters piping hot with hot biscuit and a vegetable salad in which 
I quite openly counted thirteen ingredients all charmingly arranged 
in a big silver salad bowl; the dessert was a mold of Canton gela¬ 
tine cream and with it were served little cakes which the bride had 
made herself, icing them in different colors and decorating them 
with angelica, almonds and raisins. 
Her kitchen, small and compact, held an inspiring view of the 
Hudson from a west window. The sash curtains were drawn back 
so that she might glance out at the river as she cooked. It was a 
blue and white kitchen and on a convenient shelf were the season¬ 
ings and condiments and trimmings that achieve inviting looks and 
flavors. Her young husband, full of enthusiasm to conquer the 
world, carries the reflection of her kitchen with him into his work. 
An old maid’s children are always the best brought up, and in 
pronouncing my theories about the proper feeding of families I 
realize I am at it again. But the editor has asked me for this 
article and there is nothing to do but to push intrepidly forward. 
Knowledge and imagination are the two first furnishings to be 
acquired for the kitchen of to-day—knowledge of the laws of nu¬ 
trition, then imagination to enforce them on one’s family wuthout 
friction or ostentation. Many books and pamphlets have been 
written on these subjects which can be obtained with little trouble. 
And then a bright and convenient kitchen is necessary, a cooking 
laboratory that, under proper supervision, will yield big dividends 
in health, pleasure and success' for the family it serves. 
As the young bride says, meal planning is a game. You win if 
your husband and children yield to your skill by eating what you 
place before them. You lose if they ignore it. If they prefer 
a meal at home to one anywhere else, if they like active exer¬ 
cise and have clear eyes and skins, if they sleep well and are 
not over or under normal weight, then you may class yourself as 
a champion and greatly to be envied. 
