HINTS AND IDEAS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 224, 21 September 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

HINTS AND IDEAS.

STARCH.

SOME HOUSEHOLD USES,

For paperhanging, thin starch made with boiling water is cleaner and better than flour-and-water paste. Smoke marks on ceilings may be removed by the application of cold water starch. This should be made fairly thick, and brushed well over thj blackened surface and beyond its edge. When the starch has dried thoroughly it should be carefully rubbed over with a soft cloth. A mixture of white starch and soft soap in equal quantities, with half the quantity of lemon juice and cooking salt, is good for removing mildew from white articles. The paste should be spread thickly over the marks and left on for several hours, out of doors if possible, before it is washed off.

Coats, skirts, or trousers of light grey flannel, if slightly soiled, may be drycleaned with powdered starch. The powder should be sprinkled evenly over the garments and gently rubbed into the cloth with a piece of clean flannel. They should then be folded up and left for a few days. All traces of powder should be carefully shaken out and the clothes should be given a good brushing.

When fine needlework is being done in hot weather it is liable to become soiled by contact with warm hands. To prevent this the hands should be rubbed over occasionally with powdered starch.

CAN YOU DRINK MILK> Milk is a perfect food, and therefore especially valuable to young children and invalids, but there are some people who aro unable to digest it properly. Certain conditions, such as super-acidity of the stomach, will cause milk food to turn into a solid curd immediately it enters the stomach, setting up vomiting and other troubles. If milk is ordered and cannot be digested, the best thing to do is to dilute it with either water or lime-water in the case of babies, or with bicarbonate of soda or soda water in the case of adults. Milk and water, either in equal parts or in the proportion of two parts milk to one part water, can usually be assimilated by a person who finds milk indigestible. A pinch of bicarbonate of soda to two parts milk and one of water will often make it quite digestible when more elaborate and expensive processes fail. When milk persists in disagreeing with a person to whom it is essential, an escape from the difficulty can often be found in the drinking of whey. Boil a pint of milk with a teaspoonful of lemon juice, then squeeze the curd through muslin and drink the fluid part, which contains all the nourishing and strengthening properties, the indigestible part having been extracted. « GREASE ON THE CARPET. Make a paste of fuller's earth and magnesia, using boiling water. Spread on the grease stains and leave for a couple of hours. Then brush off with a clean stiff brush. The grease will have been absorbed.

FOR SCORCHED LINEN. Here is a simple way to take the scorched stain from linen: Boil an onion in a pint of water, and mix the liquor with two teaspoonfuls of vinegar. Make a paste with this and two teaspoonfuls of shredded soap and fuller's earth. Spread the paste _on to the scorched marks, and they will disappear in a few hours. The article should be washed as usual afterwards. WITH* ROAST BEEF. The batter for Yorkshire pudding should be made and allowed to stand about an hour before cooking. Make it the consistency of cream. Stiff batter makes the pudding heavy. FOR THE HOUSEWIFE. Old newspapers can be used instead of firewood by twisting a double sheet, then making into a knot. A few of these are sufficient to light a fire. Black satin should be washed by squeezing it in warm soapy water, using soap flakes. Rinse in warm water and then in cold. Press in a dry cloth till nearly damp and iron on the wrong side with a moderate iron. Air immediately. When washing floors have a square of wood, with castors at each corner, to hold the pail, which can then be pushed about as wanted; the soap can rest on a corner of this "platform" instead of being left in the water. In hot weather butter is best laid on a brick in a pan of cold water. It should be Covered with a flower-pot over which a damp muslin is placed. Black lead mixed with turpentine instead of water gives a brilliant and lasting polish and prevents the stove from rusting. Chintz or cretonne covers and dra • peries may be dry-cleaned with bran, powdered chalk and salt mixed, together in equal proportions and rubbed over the material with a piece of flannel. Vine far will keep flios off windows and mirrors. Springle a few drops on the wash-leather used for polishing the glass.