American Cookery: Thanksgiving Menus and Recipes, - [i have read the book a hundred times TXT] 📗
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The first American homes derived their plans and their finish from medieval English tradition. They were forced to utilize such materials as they were able to obtain, and step by step they bettered the construction and ornamentation of their homes. As increasing means and added material allowed, they planned and executed more elaborately, not only in size and finish, but in the adding of window casings, caps, and shutters.
The acme of Colonial architecture was reached with the development of the large square houses with exquisitely designed entrances and porticos. These often showed recessed and arched windows, also those of the Palladian type. At the Lindens, Danvers, Mass., a memory-haunted mansion, may be seen one of the finest examples of these recessed windows. This famous dwelling, the work of an English architect, who built it in about 1770, is linked with American history through its use by General Gage as his headquarters during the Revolution.
The recessed windows that are found here reveal delicate mouldings in the classic bead and filet design, and are surmounted by an elaborate moulded cornice, which lends great dignity to the room. This is supported by delicate pilasters and balanced by the swelling base shown below the window seats. Such a window as this is no mere incident, or cut in the wall; on the contrary, it is structural treatment of woodwork. Another feature of pronounced interest may be noted on the stair landing, where a charming Palladian window overlooks the old-fashioned box-bordered garden that has been laid out at the rear.
We have dwelt, perhaps, too much on the old Colonial types, neglecting those of the present day, but it has been through a feeling that with an intimate knowledge of their designs we shall be better able to appreciate the products of our own age, whose creators drew their inspiration from the past. A modern treatment of windows appears in our illustration.
If, some fine day, all housewives awoke to the fact that most of the trouble in the world originates in the kitchen, there would shortly be a little more interest in kitchen problems and not so much distaste for and neglect of this important part of the house.
Of course, women will cry out that we have never in our lives been so intent on just that one subject, kitchens, as we are today.
I admit that there is a good deal of talk going on which might lead one to believe that vacuum cleaners and electric-washing machines, etc., are to bring about the millennium for housekeepers; and there is also a good work going forward to make of housework a real profession.
But, until in the average home there comes the feeling that the kitchen—the room itself—is just as much an expression of the family life and aims and ideals as the living room or any other room, we shall be only beating about the bush in our endeavor to find a remedy for some of our perplexing troubles.
Nowadays, women who are doing much work out in the big world—the so-called "enfranchised" women—are many of them proving that they find housework no detriment to their careers and some even admit that they enjoy it.
But so far most of them have standardized their work and systematized it, with the mere idea of doing what they have to do "efficiently" and well, with the least expenditure of time and energy. And they have more than succeeded in proving the "drudgery" plea unfounded.
Now, however, we need something more. We need to make housework attractive; in other words, to put charm in the kitchen.
There is one very simple way of doing this, that is to make kitchens good to look at, and inviting as a place to stay and work.
For the professional, scientifically inclined houseworker, the most beautiful kitchen may be the white porcelain one, with cold, snowy cleanliness suggesting sterilized utensils and carefully measured food calories.
But to the woman whose cooking and dishwashing are just more or less pleasant incidents in a pleasant round of home and social duties, the kitchen must suggest another kind of beauty—not necessarily a beauty which harbors germs, nor makes the work less conveniently done, but a beauty of kindly associations with furniture and arrangements.
Who could grow fond of a white-tiled floor or a porcelain sink as they exist in so many modern kitchens! And as for the bulgy and top-heavy cook stoves, badly proportioned refrigerators, and kitchen cabinets—well, we should have to like cooking very well indeed before we could feel any pleasure in the mere presence of these necessary but unnecessarily ugly accompaniments to our work.
We have come to think of cleanliness as not only next to godliness, but as something which takes the place of beauty—is beauty.
This attitude is laziness on our part, for we need sacrifice nothing to utility and convenience, yet may still contrive our kitchen furniture so that it, also, pleases the senses. With a little conscientious reflection on the subject we may make kitchens which have all the charm of the old, combined with all the convenience of the new; and woman will have found a place to reconcile her old and new selves, the housewife and the suffragist, the mother-by-the-fireside and the participator in public affairs. The family will have found a new-old place of reunion—the kitchen!
Granted then that our tiny house has a kitchen-with-charm, and an "other room," the rest of the available space may be divided into the requisite number of bed and living rooms, according to the needs of the family.
There is only one other very important thing to look out for; that is the matter of closets. There is no rule for the number of closets which will make the tiny house livable, but I should say, the more the merrier. If there is ever question of sacrificing a small room and gaining a large closet, by all means do it, for absolute neatness is the saving grace of small quarters, and storage places are essential, if one does not wish to live in a vortex of yesterday's and tomorrow's affairs with no room to concentrate on the present.
Inside and outside the tiny house must conform to one law—elimination of non-essentials; and the person who has a clear idea of his individual needs and has also the strength of will to limit his needs to his circumstances, will find in his tiny house a satisfaction more than compensating for any sacrifices he may have made.
No one doubts that it is a sacrifice to give up a lesser pleasure even to gain the "summum bonum" and that it does take will power to keep oneself from weakly saying in the face of temptation, "Oh, well! what does it matter! My little house would perhaps be better without that, but I have grown accustomed to it, let it stay!"
But how much more fatal in a tiny garden!
Oh! the waste lands which lie beneath the sun trying to call themselves gardens! Oh! the pitiful little plots, unfenced, unused, entirely misunderstood by people who stick houses in the middle of them and call them "gardens"!
No amount of good grass seed, or expensive planting, or well-cared-for flowers and lawns will ever make the average suburban lot anything but a "lot," and most of them might as well, or better, be rough, uncultivated fields for all the relation they bear to the houses upon them or the use they were intended for.
"Huh!" exclaimed Jennie, "there comes Aunt Rachel! Wonder what she wants now? Last time it was—no, it wasn't—that was the time when Jimmie Upson and his wife were here. How scandalized Aunt Rachel looked! Said I'd ruin my husband, and a lot of such tommyrot. As though Jimmie and I couldn't afford a spread now and then! I didn't, and I won't, tell Aunt Rachel that it was a special party and a special occasion. Of course, I know Jimmie isn't a millionaire, but—it's none of Aunt Rachel's business, so there!" she finished defiantly.
Aunt Rachel plodded blissfully up the walk. "Jennie'll be glad to see me, I know," she mused. "She's high-headed, but she knows a good thing when she sees it, and I help her a lot."
Jennie received her aunt with cordiality, but not effusiveness. To be discourteous was something she could not be. Besides, she liked Aunt Rachel and pitied her idiosyncrasies. "Why can't she be as nice when she goes to people's houses as she is when she is at home?" she mused. "I love to go there, and everything is just perfect, but the minute she steps outside the door—well, we all know Aunt Rachel! And she doesn't go home early either. Jimmie'll be furious. She always calls him 'James' and asks after his health and—and everything. I do so want him to like her, but I'm afraid he never will. I do wish I could get her interested in something. I have it!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "The very thing!"
Aunt Rachel looked up in surprise. "What's the matter, Jennie?" she inquired.
"Oh, nothing much, Auntie! I was just thinking aloud."
"Don't!" said Aunt Rachel. "It's a bad habit, Jennie—though I do do it myself, sometimes."
"Sometimes!" Jennie turned away to hide her smile. Why, Aunt Rachel made a business of talking aloud!
As luck would have it, the dinner went off to Aunt Rachel's satisfaction. It was good, but conservative.
"Jennie is learning," thought the old lady to herself. "After I've been here a few times more, she'll get along all right."
Aunt Rachel hadn't noticed that every idea Jennie has used was, strictly, either Jennie's own or her mother's.
"How long does your aunt expect to stay?" asked Jimmie, casually, while Jennie was clearing the table. Aunt Rachel was in the kitchen. She prided herself on never being "a burden on any one." Doubtless, some of her friends would have preferred that she be. Most of us have a skeleton we do not wish to keep on exhibition.
"Oh, I don't know, maybe a week or two," said Jennie, mischievously. "She hasn't told me yet."
"Oh!" replied Jimmie, in a disappointed voice. "Business down town"? "Dinner at the Club"? No, he couldn't keep that up indefinitely. Besides, what did a man want of a home, if he wasn't going to live in it? Covertly, Jennie watched him. She knew every expression of his face. It amused her, but she was sorry, too. "Jimmie wants awfully to flunk—and dassent," was her mental comment.
"Anything on for this evening, Jimmie?" inquired Jennie, sweetly, too sweetly, Jimmie thought. He had heard those dulcet tones before.
"Yes—no!" stammered Jimmie. How he wished he had! However, as Jennie said no more, he dismissed the subject from his mind. She probably didn't really mean anything, anyway.
When James Atherton reached home that evening, he found the house lighted from top to bottom. Beautifully dressed women were everywhere, and in their midst—Aunt Rachel, at her best!
"Ladies," she exclaimed, and Jimmie paused to listen, "I am honored—more so than you can guess—at the distinction conferred upon me. This afternoon you have seen fit to make me one of your leaders in a most important movement for civic betterment—an honor never before accorded a woman in this city—and I need not assure you that you shall not regret your choice. As a
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