AUTHORS AS COOKS.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, Issue 205, 13 August 1927, Page 5

AUTHORS AS COOKS.

Housewifery and Art.

Most of us labour under the delusion that artists and authors and such folk lead weird Bohemian lives, living in bare futuristic studios, and the feminine element at least, clad in smocks, with unkempt, iauk hair falling in their eyes, and existing chiefly on meals scrambled together any old how and any old time in a frying- pan. But the genuine, dyed-in-the-wool article is quite different from this conception, she can cater for the literal tastes of herself or her family as well as she caters for the literary taste of her public.

An American visitor was recently in Europe, and called on several of the Engusti "literary lights” in their homes. She writes ot her interviews as follows:— “To have tea or dinner with Sheila Kaye Smith <Mrs try) is to hnd yourself ensconced in the most ingratiating of easy cdairs in a room all blues and reds and purples charmingly harmonised or at an old oak table in a dining-room in soft restful shades, luicn room in her house is a colour scheme of beauty. The dinner wilt have been planned and ordered by the author ot ‘Joanna Godden’ herself lor ‘though 1 am not interested in the actual cooking, 1 am tremendously interested in the actual ruults.’

“Margaret Kennedy, too, is houseproud and her home in Kensington is as far removed from the Sanger Circus ideal as anything one could imagine. And May Sinclair gives careful, loving thought to her little home in St. John’s Wood and plans her dinner parties with artistry. “Miss Violet Hunt has a quaint and interesting home on Campden Hill, where her mother lived also and where most of the notable folk in London for two generations have been entertained, there is a scrap of a garden for summer tea-parties and a gay little drawing-room, where one sips tea when the tire is lighted and the curtains drawn. Her special griddle cakes come in with the tea. “Of course G. B. Stern loves good food. Who can ever forget the marvellous dishes the Rankovitz family ate in ‘The Matriarch.’ And Miss Stern has many recipes written out by the ‘Old Lady’ herself. “In her little home ‘The Bean,’ on the top of an olive-coloured hill at Diano Marina, she struggles to initiate Italian cooks into the mysteries of Rankovitz food, between writing her novels and short stories, looking after the welfare of seven dogs and picking blossoms in a jungle of sweet peas. “She has wonderful ways with chestnuts which are placed in a saucepan with powdered sugar and rum, then lighted. The chestnuts are well soaked in the rum and are soft before being served with whipped cream on top. And a Rankovitz cream cheese, she tells us, is served with chopped onions, pickles, butter, caraway seeds, mustard and paprika all mashed up together. “Miss Cynthia Stock ley has had homes in many places and loved them all, but perhape Paris taught her most of her cookery lore- Like Louis XV., she prides herself on her omelets, only hers can be swallowed without the effort Louis’ courtiers had to make. Her omelet pan is never used for anything else, and, (instead of being washed, is rubbed dean with a dry cloth. Her eggs do not go in till the butter is sizzling and when the omelet is ready to turn she folds in the filling, which may be of anything from onions to jam. “Mrs Dawson Scott, who writes novels, builds houses and guides the PJE.N. Club to international success, has a home in St. John’s JVood. where she offers banana trifle

as a favourite dinner sweet. A fresh sportfee cake over which sherry wine has been poured for the bottom of the dish, then bananas cut in pieces and sprinkled with nutmeg. Over this a smooth custard and little dabs of whipped cream with a spot of jam in each.’ ”