MAINLY FOR WOMEN

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 June 1936, Page 9

MAINLY FOR WOMEN

ITEMS OF INTEREST

SERVING DRIED FRUITS. SOME ORIGINAL RECIPES.

At this season of the year, when summer fruits are not yet “in” and everyone is a little tired of apples, pears and rhubarb, dried fruits, served in attractive ways, make a pleasing variation. . Snowball—Take Jib of any dried fruit, such as prunes, figs, dates, and so on, and Alb of rice. If prunes or tigs are used they should be soaked overnight in enough cold water to (over them. Boil the rice in plenty water, till tender, then drain. Grease a basin thickly with butter, and press the rice to the sides and bottom till the basin is coveted. It is easiest to do this if the rice is allowed to cool a little first. If too hot it will melt the butter. Put in the fruit with just a little water to help it to swell. ■' Cover with rice. Tie a greased paper over the top'and steam tor one hour. Let the basin stand for five minutes to set the rice. Turn “the snowball” out on a hot dish, and serve with custard or sweet sauce. Prune Whip.—Cook one cup of prunes, stone these, and chop them. Whip four egg whites very stiffly, and add half a cupful of castor sugar. Whip continually, and add to the chopped prunes. If almonds are liked add about two ounces of blanched chopped almonds, but these may be j omitted. Bake this mixture in a pudding or fireproof glass dish for about ten minutes in a moderate oven. Serve hot with boiled custard made of the yolks, or cold with whipped cream. „ „„ „ Apricot Charlotte. —Take o-Slb ot diied apricots, wash and cover with cold water. Allow to remain 12 or if possible 24 hours, adding more water if necessary. Simmer gently till tender, adding sugar to taste when the fruit is nearly cooked. Generously butter a piedish, coat bottom and sides well with sugar, line dish with bread —quarter of ai\ inch thick one piece if possible for bottom, and small fingers to fit sides. Pour in hot, juicy fruit, and cover with an-

other slice of thin bread. Bak© m quick, but not fierce, oven, covered with tin' or plate, and serve, turned out lightly dusted with sifted sugar. This pudding should be brown and caramelly, and is delicious with cream or custard. Time, about one and a half hours. The caramel must be brown, but not burned. Prunes au Vinaigre.-—This is a nice accompaniment to hot roast pork. Soak best quality rooking prunes overnight and par-cook in a double saucepan. Pour away the liquid, icplacing with vinegar and Demerara sugar, according to taste. Cook until quite tender. Place carefully in a dish, without breaking the fruit. Prune Marmalade Relish. —Wash a quantity of prunes in several changes of lukewarm water. Soak them for four hours, and cook in the same water until tender. Remove stones, cut the pulp into small pieces, and io each pound of prunes allow one sweet orange cut up finely. Add the orang© to the prune pulp and cook very slowly for ten minutes, then add sugar, using 11b to each 111 b oi prunes. Simmer gently until quite thick, taking care that it does not burn. Then add two tablespoonfuls c f coarsely-chopped walnuts and cook for another ten minutes. Put into small jars, and cover when cold. This is a delicious relish to serve with cold meats.

WEDDING SUPERSTITION. IGNORED BY MANY BRIDES. Brides who deliberately defy old wedding superstitions are growing in number —but very slowly (states the “Sydney Morning Herald”). Miss Barbara Birdsall, the young actress, wore a green costume at her wedding in London recently to Mr Leorge Hayes, the actor —and this in spite of the fact that actors and actresses are supposed to be “superstitious.” A Bradford (Yorkshire) bride not only chose green for herself and her 1 ridesmaids, but had her wedding cake coated with green icing. After her honeymoon she went to live at a house numbered 13. -• Several well-known brides in recent years have chosen a green colour scheme for their weddings. They have also been married on a. Friday—the one day in the week avoided by the superstitious. A nride at Pinner, Middlesex, was married actually beneath a ladder. The ceremony was in the parish church, which was undergoing repairs. The ladder was fixed in the chancel.

Despite all this,- there are still some who are superstitious—when it comes to their wedding day. Miss Helen Vinson (Mrs Fred Perry), the film star, is one of these. She and Fred Perry awoke the registrar five minutes before midnight on September 12 last year to avoid being married on Friday, the thirteenth.

"Generally speaking, I am not at all superstitious," Mrs Perry said when .she arrived recently in England, “but in a case like this, well, Fred and I wanted to be on the safe side.” Perhaps one of the strongest of all wedding superstitions is that May is unlucky for marriage. This is probably the reason why the first fortnight in June is the year’s rush period for weddings. Besides dates and colours, there are old boots and rice, symbols of good luck. But how many brides these days realise that the old boot was originally a symbol of the husband’s authority? In bygone days the father give a boot to the bridegroom as a sign that it was ribw the young man’s privilege to keep the bride in order!

' “CONVERSATION TEST.” A New Yorker who runs a “Charm” school has been trying to find out what women talk about, states an exchange. She has made a “conversation test” of 10,000 women in all parts of the United States. And this is her conclusion: The average girl between the ages of 17 and 20 can talk at length on four subjects only—men, make-up, the movies, and schooldays? From 20 to 30 a woman extends her conversational scope. Popular topics of her talk are aviation, diet, the next war, politics, Communism, modern art, and conditioning. She says, too, that women don’t talk nearly as much as they it d to about babies, about sex, about drink, about bridge, and about housekeeping.

! MORE ABOUT STOCKINGS. I DARN IT OR GO HOLEY. Do you simply loathe darning-? I did, till I spent a holiday with Mirabel and learned to —well —tolerate it (says an English paper). ‘‘For darn we must.” said she, “and not just say it!” Always she made the timely’ stitch save file ninety-and-nine. She had to. with her ten-foot family. Here is her prize hint, and some others which may help you out. of a hole, as they did me!

To prevent that tiresome tangling up and knotting of the. darning thread give your needle a little twirl between the first finger and the thumb, as you draw it through the stocking. As this keeps the thread loosely twisted it is equally helpful in oversewing, buttonholing and embroidery. It is fin easily acquired habit, soon becoming automatic; and practice tells which way to twirl. Use the darning needles. If hard to thread, pass both ends of a short length of sewing cotton through the eye, drawing the worsted through by the loop. Darn on the wrong side, leaving tiny loops for shrinkage and cross on the right. It is sometimes easier to cross with the eye of the needle than with its point. No wooden darning-egg or mushroom equals the alive left hand; but the back of a toothbrush is grand for glove fingers, and its handle for kiddies’ wee gloves. For heavy knitted hose buy wool by the skein, shrinking it. in warm suds before rolling it into balls. Darn a very big hole with single wool, crossing with double, a single thread, or even two at a' time being more easily picked up than when doubled, and the whole darn less bulky. Two threads in a needle, tangle less than one used double. When procurable use “stranded” mending wool for fine woollen stockings and woven underwear. For cotton ones, fine worsted, is better than thread, which gets harsh and discoloured.

Prevention is better than holes! With new stockings, run .lightly over the heels and toes, on the .wrong side, with a very fine darning needle and matching thread. If worked diagonally on each side of the back seam, the apex of the triangle of darning coming above the shoe, it shows less and wears better than an up-and-down strain, too, on any much worn fabric.

Be kind to silk stockings and they'll repay you. Change, rinse in cool water, and wash frequently. Draw them on evenly. Beware of badly fitting shoes, nails, sharp buckles, roughened skin or hand-nails, and claw-set, jewelled rings that pick the silk and help to start ladders.

Oh, those ladders' See how they run! After them, full speed! If the sta/rt is too good and no invisible mender —human or mechanical —is in sight, there’s nothing for it but a fine over-sewn seam though it does, convert your perfect pair into “seconds.”

To handle them easily, make a flat roll of newspaper, covered with smooth white paper. Carefully draw the stocking over it, tuck in the foot and top to k©ep it firm and the ladder perfectly straight. ' Use the fipest short needle and sewing silk. Begin at the ankle and a little below the break, leaving a short free end of silk without a knot, and finishing off in the same way. This allows for some “give” in wear and washing. 1 Oversew with close stitches, keeping them as horizontal as possible, and taking in two threads at each side of the ladder. A knot in your thread would be fatal, so remember the little twirl trick.

FLYING DOMESTIC. CANADIAN MINEFIELD GIRL. VANCOUVER, May 20. In a new, booming northern mining camp, astride the border of Alberta, Saskatchewan and the North-west territories, fittingly named Goldfields, a girl of seventeen earns a lucrative living as domestic servant. She is Miss May Jean Rice, of Grande Prairie, Peace River. The only housemaid for hundreds of miles around, she spends each Monday washing, scrubbing floors and cleaning up the miners’ cabins in Goldfields. On Tuesday, she boards an aeroplane for Warren Camp, on Neilly Lake, 35 miles distant. Spending the night there, she returns to her base on Wednesday. For the remainder of the week she responds to calls at mining camps in the Goldfields sector, which has attracted the largest volume of prospectors of recently discovered fields. Miss Rice enjoys a monopoly of her occupation, and is paid so well that she can afford to “commute” to and from her work by air. She has received and turned down several proposals of marriage. “I’m having too good a time to settle down,” she said, “but, when I finally accept the ball and chain, the good man will be a miner.”

CARING FOR SHOES. Keep your shoes bright and shining and they will keep your feet along the path of life with that “twinkly”, feeling. Leather shoes which have not been worn for some time are liable to crack when- used again, and to avoid this they should be rubbed with petroleum jelly and left for a day or two longer, then wipe off the petroleum jelly and polish as usual with milk or turpentine from time to time to keep the leather from cracking. Petrol or benzine is excellent for lightening skin shoes which have a tendency to darken in wear, and shine on suede shoes can be removed with petrol. Finish off by brushing with a rubber brush. Black satin dauce shoes usually get shabby at the toes first, and should occasionally be sponged with vinegar and water. Silver kid shoes need to be carefully handled; marks can usually be removed by rubbing gently with a rag (lipped in soapy water. Brocade shoes can be cleaned with a gum india-rubber or with stale breadcrumbs.