Cooking is an art, a science—and an accomplishment of which any woman who is proficient at it might well be proud. For centuries people have been jesting to the effect that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” and that “armies move on their stomachs,” all of which is true. Truer than the jesters imagine! Cooking can not and should not be taken too lightly. We have to eat to live, and it is a well-established fact that the length of our span of life depends to a great extent upon the food we eat.

The Catholic mother who is a good cook is one of God’s greatest blessings to the human race. She knows that to serve God well her family has to enjoy good health. She knows likewise that good health is largely a consequence of appetizing and nourishing meals. She knows that healthy youngsters are happy youngsters. Good food she gives them, and good food she tells and shows them how to prepare as they grow old enough to be of help to her and to themselves. Wise indeed is the mother who lets her daughters putter around the kitchen preparing candy and other dainties, for girls who learn to love to cook learn early in life an art that can be taught with greatest success only in the home. Girls who can cook need never fear for their future; it is assured once they learn that wielding an effective mixing spoon is infinitely more profitable than fingering a lipstick.

The good nun who can plan and cook appetizing meals economically is a valued member of any community. Convents, hospitals, orphanages, schools and other institutions depend upon such women even more than upon a superior, in many instances, for their success.

The thoughtful and helpful priest’s housekeeper is the woman who can cook delectable meals in a number of delightful ways. Monotony in any line is a curse; monotony in cooking and serving the same old dishes in the same old way week after week and year after year is an affliction that should be visited on no rectory. The thoughtful cook will serve the priests in the rectory in which she is employed a variety of foods that will keep them toned up in body and in mind, that they might better be able to serve the God to Whom they have dedicated their lives.

In the pages that follow, I trust, mothers, nuns and priests’ housekeepers will find the help I intended when starting this undertaking. Here and there throughout the book I have inserted little thoughts, little reflections that have helped me over the rough spots of home-making and I hope they will also be of some value to my reader friends. None of us is in high spirits all of the time. All of us have our “blue days,” times when everything we undertake seems to go wrong. These hints and reflections are intended for just such times. May they and the recipes be all my friends are looking for, and all that I intended, when writing, that they should be.