The Fun of Cooking: A Story for Girls and Boys

This rule, of course, had to be doubled for two molds. They found it was not very easy to get the cranberries through the sieve; by talking turns, however, they were slowly squeezing them through when Norah came to their aid and gave them the wooden potato-masher to use instead of the spoon they were working with. The molds were set away to get hard, and then they asked their mother for something else to do.

"I've been thinking," she said, "that we ought to have for supper something the men would like very much; they will have had turkey once already, and perhaps they will be tired of it. Would you like scalloped oysters?"

"Mother, we'd perfectly love them!" exclaimed Mildred. "But do you think we could make them? I always thought they were very hard to make."

"My dear, they are the easiest thing in the world. To save time, you may copy the rule now, and then to-morrow, when everybody is here, I will not have to stop visiting and explain it."

SCALLOPED OYSTERS

"Sometimes, instead of baking these in one large dish, I fill little brown baking-dishes in just the same way; only, of course, I do not bake these so long—only ten or fifteen minutes. And sometimes for a lunch party, I get from the fish-market very large oyster, or clam, or scallop shells, and fill those instead of the little dishes, and they are very pretty."

"Mother Blair, those would be sweet—simply sweet! I think I'll give a luncheon and have them."

"Do, Mildred, and I'll help," said Brownie, unselfishly.

"Or you can have a luncheon and I'll help!" Mildred replied. "And now what else can we do to-day, Mother? Make some sort of dessert?"

"Yes, I think so; try this; it's simple and very nice."

CHOCOLATE CREAM

"I do love that," said Brownie, as she wrote down the last word. "When I eat it, I always think I'm eating melted chocolate creams."

"So do I!" laughed Mildred. "Perhaps Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary won't eat their creams to-morrow night, and then you and I can have them for lunch the next day, Brownie."

"They'll surely eat them!" sighed Brownie. "They're too good to leave."

When these were made and safely put away, all but the creamy tops, which were to go on just before supper the next day, Jack came strolling in.

"Smells awfully good!" he said. "Turkey, and onions, and mince-pies, and spicy things. Got any cooking for a boy to do—proper cooking, I mean?"

"I've just thought of something," his mother said quickly, "and I need you to do it right away. The girls are getting up a supper for Thanksgiving night, and they really ought to have some cake to eat with the dessert they have just been making."

"Cake!" ejaculated Jack. "I draw the line at cake, Mother Blair; making cake is not a man's job."

"Not cake, Jack,—only something to go in cake. I want you to crack some nuts and pick them out for the girls. Here is what they are going to make now."

NUT CAKES

Jack thought he could crack and even pick out nuts without injuring his dignity, so he went to work on a panful of pecans, and, by the time Mildred and Brownie were ready to chop them, they were all ready and waiting. Before long the little cakes were in the oven and out again, crisp and hot; almost too good to be saved, the girls thought, and so did Jack. But they knew there would not be time to-morrow to make any others, so they had to keep these, and when they were cold, shut them up in the cake-box.

"Now I think you have cooked enough for to-day," said their mother, after she had tasted one small crumb of their cakes and pronounced them perfect.

"But, Mother, what about the salad?" asked Brownie.

"Oh, do you really think we need salad with all these good things?"

"Honestly, I don't think we need it at all," said Mildred; "but I do think it would be nice to have it, because it's a party."

"Very well! But what can we have? Lettuce, and tomatoes, and other fresh vegetables are really out of season, or, at any rate, we cannot get them in this town; and yet we ought to have a green salad, because, of course, nobody could possibly eat chicken or lobster salad after a Thanksgiving dinner."

"I could!" called Jack, from the next room; but nobody paid any attention.

"Well, here is an idea—string-bean salad. That is very easy to make, and very good, too, and we can make it out of canned beans and nobody will know it. I will tell you how to make it now, because I'll be so busy to-morrow, and then, in the afternoon, you can get it ready quickly."

STRING-BEAN SALAD

"Now, certainly, that is all," said Mother Blair, as they wrote this down, "and I'm sure nobody will go home hungry after such a supper as that!"

"And what hot drink are you going to have, Mother?"

"Oh, I almost forgot that. I planned something which is especially Thanksgivingy, too. It is really and truly what the Pilgrim Fathers are supposed to have made for Thanksgiving Day out of wild grapes; but I am sure they had no lemons or spices, so it could not have been quite as good as this. We will have this with the turkey and oysters for the supper, and no coffee or cocoa."

MULLED GRAPE-JUICE

The next evening, just as it grew dark, Mildred and Jack hung a sheet before the double doors of the library, and they, with some of the cousins, gave a funny shadow-play, "Young Lochinvar," with a rocking-horse for the "steed," and a clothes-basket for a boat, and their father read the poem as they acted it. When everybody had stopped laughing at it, the junior Blairs brought in the supper (the oysters had been quietly cooking while they played), and arranged it on the library table. Everything was hot and delicious, or cold and delicious, and the mulled grape-juice was almost the best of all. After everything had been eaten up, they all gathered around the fire and told stories. At last, when the visitors had gone and bedtime had come for the Blairs, Mildred said impressively:

"Now that was what I call a Thanksgiving Day without a flaw!"

CHAPTER XVI

"You might make a good deal of candy yourselves, and perhaps other people who would not care to buy quantities to give you, would make some too. Home-made candy always sells well."

"Miss Betty makes the loveliest pinoche!" said Brownie, thoughtfully.

"So she does. Suppose we ask her about planning to make candy at home."

Miss Betty had just come in from a meeting of her own committee on the fair, and was as interested as could be in the candy table.

"I'll tell you what to do," she said. "Get as many people as you can to give you just a little money, fifty cents, or even twenty-five, in place of giving you any candy—they will be glad to do that, you see, because it would save them ever so much which they can spend on the fair in other ways. Then we will buy sugar, and nuts, and such things with the money, and get all the girls on your committee to help on the candy-making, either in their own homes—"

"Oh, at our house, Miss Betty," begged Brownie; "that will be a party!"

"Very well, if your mother doesn't mind," laughed Miss Betty. "Then, when we see how much we can make in two afternoons, we will beg enough for the rest that we need. And I'll help you. I make awfully good candy!"

When the girls told their mother the plan, she said, "That's a bright idea!" and told the girls to ask the eight others on the committee to go to work at once and get the money for materials.

The next days were busy ones, and when, three days before the fair, the committee met, they were astonished to see how much money they had collected, enough to buy all the materials and have a good sum over. The girls all promised to help make the candy, and said they would surely be at the Blairs' for two whole afternoons, from two o'clock till dark, beginning the next day.

Jack went down-town and bought everything on the list Miss Betty gave him. White sugar and brown, flavoring, chocolate and nuts, citron and little rose-leaves, pink and green coloring, paraffin paper, and all kinds of boxes, little and big, covered with holly paper, or plain red paper, or just white paper. When he got home; he cracked nuts and picked them out beautifully, nearly all in perfect halves. Miss Betty said he was a regular trump.

The next day, the Blairs had an early lunch, and then Norah put the dining-room and kitchen in order, and got out saucepans, spoons, and egg-beaters. Mildred and Brownie laid lunch-cloths over two small tables in the dining-room, and found scissors and anything else they could think of that would be needed. On the dining-room table, across one end, Jack laid a white marble table-top from an old-fashioned table in the attic, and this they washed off and made very clean. Mother Blair said she was sure some kinds of candy were made on marble, and she meant to be prepared.

When the girls had come and their hands and aprons were ready, Miss Betty said she would take four or five girls into the kitchen to start the candy, and the rest could blanch almonds and get them ready to salt; and when the candy was ready for the finishing touches, she would bring it in and show them what to do with it. So she went off with Mildred and three other girls, and Mother Blair and Brownie went to work with the rest on the almonds. They wanted to have quantities of these because they always sold so well at fairs. This was the rule she used:

SALTED ALMONDS

Instead of having one pound of almonds, they had ten pounds, so the girls had plenty to do to keep them busy till the candy came in. Meanwhile, Miss Betty was showing them how to make:

COFFEE CANDY

Miss Betty had to show the girls how to see candy "spin a thread," because those words, she said, came in so often in all rules for candy. She just lifted a little up on the spoon and tipped it; at first the candy just dropped off, but as it grew thick it fell more slowly, and at last a tiny thread floated off in the air as the syrup dropped.

Of course, they made a great deal of this candy, as it was easy. And when it was cool, they took the pans to the girls in the dining-room. Two of them left the almonds, and cut it up and packed it carefully in boxes which they lined with paraffin paper, tied each one up with narrow ribbon, labeled them with the name, and then put them aside. Meanwhile the girls in the kitchen made:

FONDANT

"This," Miss Betty said to the girls, "is the one thing, above all others, that you must learn to make, because it is the beginning of all sorts of cream candies. In part of it we can put almond flavoring and make it into balls and put a half-almond on top; or use vanilla flavoring, and bits of citron on top. Or we can add chopped nuts to it, or roll pieces of Brazil nuts in, and so on. And of course some of it we will color green, to put green pistachio-nuts on, and pink, to put bits of rose-leaves on. And we can take it while it is still pretty soft, and make little balls of it and dip each one in melted chocolate with the tip of a fork, and make lovely chocolate creams."

"Oh, Miss Betty, let me make those!" begged Mildred; and "Oh, Miss Betty, let me make pistachio creams!"; and "Oh, please, dear Miss Betty, let me make the nut creams!" begged the girls. Miss Betty laughed, and shook her head at them all. "The dining-room girls will finish these, all but the chocolate creams—those we will make to-morrow." So she took all the pans of fondant into the dining-room, and Mother Blair showed the girls there how to turn this plain white candy into colored bonbons, working on the marble slab; they were lovely when they were finished, and packed in boxes like the rest. Meanwhile, Miss Betty said they would make:

CHOCOLATE COCOANUT CAKES

"If you want to have these like little biscuits, do not put in the chocolate; just put them on the paper after spreading it in shallow tins, and bake them till they are brown on top. I think it would be nice to make some of each."

When these were done and carried into the dining-room, Miss Betty said: "And now I will show you how I make my very own pinoche. When I have to earn my living, I shall do it by making this candy, and I'm sure in a very short time I'll be a millionaire." The girls laughed, and said they wanted to learn to get rich too.

PINOCHE

"It's just as well we have so many to work," said Mildred. "It takes lots of strength to beat this candy."

"Yes, we need Jack's strong arm," said Miss Betty, smiling. "To-morrow, we must get him to help. Now here is another kind of nut candy that is very good indeed, and when you are all done with that pinoche, we will make this next."

NUT CREAMS

"Now, girls, just one more kind and that will be enough, I am sure. To-morrow we will change work, and I will teach all this to the other girls while you make salted almonds and tie boxes; I'm sure we shall sell all we can make."

It was dark when all this candy was done and in the boxes. The girls were tired, but delighted with their work, and the next day they came, eager to finish it. Those who worked in the kitchen made the same things as the other girls had made before, and, when everybody was done, it was astonishing how many, many boxes they had.

They had already decided not to have any two-pound or five-pound boxes, but to make only pound and half-pound ones, as these would sell better. They tied up the boxes which were covered with holly paper with red ribbons, and the red boxes with holly ribbons, and the plain white boxes with red, with a bit of holly tied in each bow. When Norah saw them all, she said they were "stylish." Certainly they were pretty, and the candy was delicious, and fresh as well, and all the committee and Mother Blair and Miss Betty were just as proud as proud could be.

When the fair was over, the ladies who were in charge of it sent a special little note to the candy committee telling them how well they had done.

"Next time we will make ever so many more kinds of candy," said Mildred, as they talked it all over. "I never knew there were so many. I used to think all you could make at home were molasses candy and peanut brittle, and everybody can make those, so they are not much fun."

"When the children get into their ward, we will make some candy for them," said Brownie. "I think the children with broken legs, and bad knees, and the not-very-sick children would like some, especially if we put it in white boxes and tie them up with big bows of ribbon."

"Of course they would," said Mildred. "It would be just lovely and would help them to get well ever so much quicker, I know. That's what Mother would call a particularly bright idea, Brownie Blair!"

CHAPTER XVII

Jack laughed and went upstairs for his book, and presently they all gathered in the sitting-room by the fire. The three children sat in a row on the great big sofa with the pillows tucked behind them, and Mother Blair sat in front, exactly like a teacher. She had three pads and pencils ready, and three packages well wrapped up, in her lap.

"It was just a year ago to-day that we got those books," said Brownie. "Mine has heaps of rules in it, too."

"So has mine," said Mildred, turning the leaves. "I did not know I had so many. And what fun we had making some of the things! Do you remember your cheese dreams at the House-in-the-Woods party, Jack? And the Hallowe'en things in the chafing-dish? And the attic picnic, Brownie? I'm sorry we can't have all those parties over again, Mother."

"We'll have plenty more, dear, and better ones, too. But how many receipts have you, Jack?"

Jack proudly displayed his camping receipts and a few others, principally chafing-dish rules. "Lots!" he said.

"Not half enough. You've done only pretty well, Jack; but a beginning is something, after all. But now, children, the examination is going to begin. Here is a written question for each of you, and you are to write the answer down on this pad."

"Dreadful," murmured Mildred, accepting her slip of paper and pad with a long sigh. This is what she read:

"What would you have for luncheon, if you found in the refrigerator some eggs, a little celery, cold boiled potatoes, a bottle of milk and butter; and beside had in the house cookies and a basket of very poor pears? Look up the rule for each dish in your receipt book."

"That's easy," said Mildred, happily, going to work at once.

Brownie's slip said:

"If you were ordering breakfast to-morrow morning, what would be the nicest things you could think of? And could you make them all?"

And when Jack opened his folded paper he read:

"Plan a Sunday night supper with nothing but what you can make yourself."

"Ask me a hard one," Jack said, waving his paper around his head.

Mother Blair took a book and began to read to herself while the pencils scratched away on the pads and the receipt books were consulted over and over. It was only a few moments before, "Done!" said Mildred, and "Done!" said Brownie. Jack was a trifle slower, and they had to wait for him to finish. It was not so easy an examination as he had thought at first.

"Read the question first and then the answer; you begin, Mildred," said Mother Blair. So Mildred read her question, and then taking her pad read what she had put down:

"For luncheon I would have first, cream of celery soup, made by the rule I copied under cream soups; I learned how to make those when Mother was sick. After that I would have creamed eggs on toast. (You know I can make those, Mother; I made them just last week.) And with them I'd have hashed brown potatoes; that rule I know by heart. And then for dessert I'd stew those poor pears, like apple sauce, you know, only I wouldn't cut them up but keep them in halves the way Norah does; and I'd have the cookies with them."

"Good, Mildred—splendid! I did not know you could manage so well Now let's see what Brownie would have for breakfast."

"Cereal first; see the rule of cereal with dates,—only I'd leave out the dates this time—and then I'd have muffins; of course, I can make those. And coffee, and poached eggs. Do you think that is a good breakfast, Mother?"

"Delicious, dear. I only wish it were breakfast time now. And how did you get along, Jack?"

"You gave me the hardest of all," Jack grumbled. "But I did it, all the same. I'd have cheese dreams, and corned beef hash first; then I'd have pigs in blankets on toast; and camp coffee; and then corn cakes and syrup to finish off with."

Jack smiled complacently. "That's what I call a good, substantial meal."

Mildred was screaming with laughter as he finished.

"Cheese dreams and pigs in blankets, and corned beef hash, Mother Blair! For Sunday night supper!"

"You'd have regular Hallowe'en nightmares after that meal, Jack!" said his mother, laughing too. "However, as you know how to make all those, we will let you have them—on paper. Only when you get a supper for this family you need not have quite so many things, especially if we have company; they might not appreciate them. Now are you ready for the next question?"

The examination proved such fun that they kept it up all the morning. They told how to lay a table for breakfast, luncheon and dinner; how to arrange a sick-room tray; what to give a little child who came in to a meal; how to make fudge, and sandwiches, and tea and salads and cake; how to put up jelly, and how to cook eggs in different ways; some of these things Brownie and Jack did not know, but most of them they wrote down on their papers very well indeed. And they planned all sorts of meals, and that was the most fun of all, family dinners, and company luncheons, and picnic suppers, and party meals for Thanksgiving and Fourth of July and Washington's Birthday and other times. It really was not so much of an examination as it was a game.

Finally Mother Blair said they had done enough. "You know so much more than I thought you did that I'm satisfied," she said. "Really and truly, children, I'm proud of you! You all get a hundred in your examination, and you each have earned a prize beside for standing at the top of your three classes."

Then she opened the packages she had had in her lap all this time and brought out three books.

"Before I distribute the prizes I must make a speech," she said. "That's the way it's always done at school, you know.

"Children: You have done so well in your cooking lessons that I am going to give each of you a real cook book, for you know now how to use one. There are many other dishes beside those you have learned already that I am sure you will want to know how to make, too. All you have to do is to turn to any rule here and follow it carefully, exactly as you do in the books you have made yourselves. Mildred, here is your book— I present it with pride! It's a regular grown-up cook book, only it's a very easy one. And, Brownie, yours is a little girl's cook book; you will love it, and I present it with pride, too, my dear child! And Jack—"

"I do hope mine has plenty of cake in it, Mother, and lovely desserts all made with gelatine, and fancy salads with fixings on them; you know those are the things I really like to make," said Jack demurely.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you," laughed his mother, "but yours is a regular boy's cook book, all about—"

"Camping!" interrupted Jack, as he saw its title. "Well, now, that's about the right kind of a book for me, after all. Say, Mother Blair, I think your prizes are great."

"So do I," murmured Mildred, who was deep in a rule for a perfectly delicious dessert with whipped cream and nuts in it.

But Brownie did not say a word. She was reading the story in her book about how some children learned to cook.

INDEX

BEVERAGES
Cocoa, 33
Coffee, 87
Coffee, camp, 122
Grape juice, mulled, 226
Lemonade, 68
Lemonade, grape juice, 98
Tea, 84

BREADS
Baking powder biscuits, 34
Camper's bread, 144
Corn cakes, 126
Corn meal mush, fried, 142
Muffins, 83
Pancakes, 130
Toast, cream, 190

CAKE
Brownies, 22
Chocolate crackers, 49
Christmas, 16
Currant, 80
Gingerbread, "perfectly lovely," 46
Gingerbread men, 24
Macaroons, oatmeal, 17
Marguerites, 67
Nut, 224
Peanut wafers, 49
Spicy cookies, 64

CANDY
Chocolate cocoanut cakes, 237
Chocolate squares, 239
Christmas elves, 25
Coffee candy, 234
Fondant, 235
Nut creams, 238
Pinoche, 237
Pop corn balls, 21

CEREAL
Cereal with dates, 189
Oatmeal, 210

DESSERTS
Chocolate cream, 222
Custard, baked, 79
Custard, soft, 191
Custard, junket, 184

PUDDINGS:
Camp, 150
Cornstarch, almond, 202
Cornstarch, chocolate, 202
Cornstarch, plain, 201
Strawberries in box, 119
Strawberry cake, 118
Strawberry Russe, 118
Strawberry short cake, 115

ICE CREAMS:
Chocolate, 96
Fruit, 96
Parfait, 104
Plain, 95
Strawberries, frozen, 100
Strawberries and ice cream, 103

EGGS
Deviled, 51
Goldenrod, 190
Creamed, 177
Poached, 185
In ramekins, 213
Scrambled, 36
Spanish, 174

FISH
Baked, 149
Broiled, 129
Fish balls, 142
Panned, 132
Salmon, creamed, 214
Salmon, scalloped, 81
Salmon, steamed, 135
Sardines, hot, 215
Small fish, broiled, 132
Warmed over, 129

OYSTERS:
Panned, creamed, 176
Pigs in blankets, 173
Scalloped, 221
Stew, 36

FRUIT
Apples, baked, 190
Apple sauce, 208
Dates, stuffed, 69
Orange baskets, 68
Pineapple, stuffed, 178
Strawberries for first course, 116

JAMS AND JELLIES
Conserve:
Apple, 162
Cranberry, 162
Jam, 153
Grape, 158
Jelly:
Apple, 162
Made over, 199
Spiced fruit, 159

MEATS
Chicken, creamed, 112
Corned beef hash, 132
Dried beef, creamed, 207
Ham and eggs, 125
Meat pie, easy, 214
Pork, salt fried, 141
Stew, ten minute, 138
Veal loaf, 60

MISCELLANEOUS
Almonds, salted, 233
Covering jellies, 163
Icing for cake, 20
Laying the table, 74
Packing a freezer, 94
Sick room tray, 187
White sauce, 82

PASTRY
Tartlets, 20

SALADS
Chicken, 52
Fruit, 53
String bean, 225
Tomato, plain, 110
Tomato, yellow, 111
French dressing, 52

SANDWICHES
Cheese, 45
Cheese dreams, 35
Egg, 45
Ham, deviled, 176
How to make, 43
Lettuce, 45
Meat, 44
Orange marmalade, 63
Sardine, 45
Sweet, 45
Toasted sardine, 61
Tomato and cheese, 175

SOUPS
Chicken broth, 183
Cream, 182

VEGETABLES
Beans, baked, 143
Corn, boiled, 148
Corn, roasted, 148
Onions, boiled, 149
Potatoes:
Baked, 128
Baked and stuffed, 32
Boiled, 129
Creamed, 83
Fried, 135
Puff, 198
Scalloped, 174
Rice patties, 196
Tomatoes, Spanish, 212