HOME INTERESTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2251, 22 April 1897, Page 45

HOME INTERESTS.

Whole "VYheatmeal Bkead (By request).— Two cups whole meal and one of flour, p. teaspoonful of cream of taroar and half a teaepoouful of soda, & teaspoonful of salt, rub loz butter into the flour. Mix into a dough with a tup of milk, work into a lump, roll out lin thick, and cub across into four pieces, not dividing ; prickle the top with a fork, and bake aboub 20 minutes.

Usikg up Remains op Cold Joists. — Mince or chop finely the remains of joint, Beaton with mixed herbs, or Bauce if preferred, mix well together with salt and water sufficient to form "a stiff patte, roll into puff or pie crast same as sausage rolls, and bake in a quick oren ; ham, beef, or ve*l minced in this way will also be found a splendid mode of making sandwichep, and will go twice as far as meat cut into slices.

FILLETS OF RVBBIT WITH TOJCATO SATJCK. — Remove the fillets from three rabbits in the following manner : — Insert a sharp knife on one side of the backbone, and draw it along so as to detach it from the fillet, which will come off easily enough. When both fillets are cut off, remove the inner skin and small nerves or sinews, or the fillets will crinkle up in cooking. Cut each fillet in two crosswise, flatten them ■with the cutlet bat dipped in water, trim them, and then lay them in a baking tin with plenty of batter, a sprinkling of pepper and salt, and a piece of buttered paper over all. Put the tin into the oven for 10 minutes or more, and as Boon as the fillets are done serve on a bed of tomato sauce.

Stuffed Cucumbers. — Peel a large cucumber, remove a narrow piece from the aide, and scoop out the seeds with a teaspoon. Fill the cavity with nicely-flavoured forcemeat, replace the piece, and bind it round with strong white thread. Line the bottom of the saucepan with slices of meat and bacon, put the cucumber upon it, and then two or three more slices. Cover the whole with nicely-flavoured stock, and if more vegetables are desired, two or three sliced carrots, turnip 3, and onions may be udded.. Season with- salt and pepper, and simmer gently uutil cucumber, meat, and veae-

tables are sufiicfehtly cooked. If the cucumber is tender before the rest, it should be taken out and kept hot. Thicken the gravy with a little flour, end pour it over the cucumber.

Devilled Toast.— Butter some pquares of toasfc, spread them with French mustard mixed with chili vinegftr and chopped pickles. Place on this a slice of hard boiled egjjj then cover with a thin elice of toast, and serve very hoi.

Lemon Fjhtters.— Beat three eggs without frothing them, sweeten and flavour them with lemon rind, atd add a teblespoouful ot brandy. Cut some etale bread (off which the cmst hss previously been taken) into elicea one-third of an inch thick. Stamp them into small fancy shapes with a cutter, dip into the mixture, and then soak till they have absorbed as. much of tho eggs as possible. Lift the fritters out carefully with a slice, and fry in the same tnauner us pancakes. Place these on a hot dish, and epriukle thickly with powdered white sugar. Serve very hot. Mixed Pickles. — Take half a xnedium-sizod cabbage- four hrg-3 roots of celery, four tableBDOonfuls of grated hor^a radish, six large grsea tomatoes, one or two lr.rge Spnni-h ouions, a quart and a-half of vinegar, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of powdered alum. Chop all tho vegetables and mix together. Put a layer about 2iu thick at the bottom of a jar, sprinkle with a tablespootiful of Bait, then another layer of vegetables and salt, and so on until al! is used. Let staud 24 hours, then drain and press out all the liquor ; cover with boiling water, lot staud again 10 minutes, then press with your hands till perfestly dry. Add to oue quarb of vinegar a. quarter teaspoonful of powdered alum and stir until dissolved. Now put a layer (2in thick) of tbe pickleo in the bottom of tbe jar, then sprinkle with mustard teed, black pepper, and tbe grated horse radish ; now auother liyer of pickles, and 30 on until all is used. Now pour over it the vinegar, let it stand for two days, wheu it <a ready for u»e. Chocolate Cakamels — One cup of white sugar, «>uo cup of browu sugars one cup of croam, 6.>z dcnble vauilia chocolate, two tablesyoontuls of flour, butter size of walnut, and extract of v&nills. Grate the chocolate. Mix the flour in o- lifctle cf the milk before it is added to the mixture. Boil all tbe ingredients (except; tho vauilia) from 40 to 50 minutes over a quick fire, the mixture boiling constantly. Whsn it is takeu from the fire sdd the vanilla. Pour it into a buttered pan. When nearly cold cub in squares. Coi.t> Meat Salad.— Slico lib cold beef or other meab thinly and evenly, pnl it in a dißh ■with sliced cold potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, beetroot, cucumber, and fintly-miuced shallot ; servo viiiAi suuca in a tureen made with six tablespoonfula of olive oil, oue tablespoonttil each of tarragon aud oniou vinegar, cayenne, aud salt.

Wise Biscuits — Flour lib, lib sugar, Boz butter, oue small fceaspoonful Inking soda, and one large teaspoouful cr«am vi tartar ; three fggs. Mix the dry ingredients together very thoroughly. Baal; the eggs well, whites and yolks Aeparateiv, and stir in. Cufc with a biscuit cutter, roll out, and bake in a quick ovau.

Si'kwed Ox-tail. — Joint the ox-cail aud stow it gently in a little stock till tsnder, having added a few sliced vegetables to give a flavour. Whf n done remove tne rueaf-, strain tbe gravy, add some Harvey* sauce, lamon juice, finely chopped ghorkii), cayenne, and thickening of Hour. Lei the meat heat through, aiid serve with the sauco poured over.

Icing yon Cakfs —Take one cup of confectioner's »ug»r, two tablespoonful* of water, and boil 'quickly for five minutes ; tako from the fire and stir rapidly until white ; spread on the cako before it gefca too stiff.

Parsley Saucs. — One ounce of flour, loz butter, hftif a pint of cold water, a pinch of salt. Put the butter into a small auucapau, melt it-, tben draw the pan to tha side of (he fire, add the flour gradually, and mix well .7ith the back of an ordinary fpoou ; add very gradually the water and salt, stirring continually to prevent lumps ; stir over the fire till the sauce boil«, theti boil it for three minutes ; wash »ome nice fresh green parsley, ring it dry in v. clotb, pick ifc carefully off tbe flt&lks, chop small, and stir into the melted butter.

•. • Mr Charles Dudley Warner, an American author, is j ast completing an ambitious work — the editing of 30 volumes warranted to contain the world's best literature, ancient or modern. A review advertisement in an American paper declares that " these volumes represent all the literature of all time — from the stone records of Assyria and Egypt down to the writings of Kipling, Sterenson, Weyman, Howella, and Octave Thanet." The promise, observe, is merely to " represent " ; this may znean a great deal or a very little.

. • Paul Bourgefc, it will be remembered, brought and won a suit against hiß French publishers, some months ago, to compel them to give him full accounts. His example inspired his fellow-novelist Galdos to a similar course, and the Madrid Court has pronounced in his favour. As in Bourget's case, there is no question of violation of contract, but the plea is that an author has a right to know from actual inspection of accounts, not merely from statements rendered, just how his books are selling.

• . • The narratives of travels and explorations of the early French Jesuit missionaries among the Indians of North America, recorded in reports, documents, letters, and rare books chiefly found in the libraries and monasteries of Canada and the United States, have been collected and edited by Mr Reuben G. Thwaites, and will be published by Mr Elliot Stock under the title, " Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents." The work will conßiat of 50 or more volumes, in which the text of the original documents, as well as the English translation, will be given.

• . ' Mr Blatchford has broken the world's literary record. He is the first writer in the world's history of whom it could be said that oao of hia books attained to a sale of con.

9idefaßljnovef a million "copies fn hta own lifetime. S^me of cur most successful novelists have not even reached a sale of a million with all their respective successes combined. But Robert Blatchford's "Merrie Eugland " has not only sold to the extent of a million copies among English-speaking people, but has been translated into German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and three other foreign tongues. The German translation itself has had a sale of over 10,000 copies. The book has been pirated in various parts of America, so that it iB impossible to estimate the extent of the sale in those quarters. What, is more certain, American and colonial newspapers have used the work as a serial. Such an enormous sale says much for the style and ability of the writer. •.• DrA. Donaldson Smith, whose'account of bis adventurous journey across Africa from Somallland to Lake Rudolf and Lama. Llassa is about to be published by Mr Edward Arnold under the title of " Through Unknown African Countries," was born in Philadelphia in 18G4. He studied medicine at Harvard, and walked the hospitals of London, Pariu, Heidelberg, Berlin, and Vienna before returning to his own city to practise. Four months later his father's death left him with "an independent fortune, when he resolved to travel and explore. After a shooting trip through Moxico and the west^he went to Norway in ISO 3 for salmon fishing and moose hunting, and thencß to Sonmliland for a hunting trip. Ifc was on this latter trip that he saw his opportunity for exploring to the west as far as Like Rudolf. Sines he was a boy he had spent, his vacations Hhooting, or iishiDg for salmon or trout, or climbing the Alps. He hopes ",to do some more wors: in ouUandish regions," bat has nob made any plans junt yet. He expected to go to India in December for a three months' shooting trip, but was detained by the delay in bringing out his book. • . ' Tho following appreciation of Mr Gaoige Meredith is taken from >i recent, issue oC Harper's Bazaar :— " Singularly enongb, George Morodith's books do not in the very leant suggest his own personality. Ho is tha moe*- lucid, pointed, and witty of conversation»li*ts; and what appeals to one moss is his modesty and ganerous appreciation of other authors. In height, he is about st't Sin, of a slender, gmc«fal figure, and has a gentle, blue-eyed face of the Vandjck typa, a pointed bsard, and hair parted in the middle a?>d allowed to i'ail ia a fringe over his forehead. His face is so full of fedicg, so mobile, and so expr&ssive that, somehow, iv spica of grey hair and lines, hs gives one the idea always of youth; «nd he is vsrv gay, cheerful, and oxc&edingly bravo. His friends who knew him in his days of afcrugglw, before tho world rscognked hi=J tfoaitw, aud when he was a reader of MSS. for Chapman and Hall, nay that neither poverty, nor lack of appreciation, nor struggle altered <.he divine sweetness of his disposition.' Hf» id "» most welcome and songhtafter"visitor'i*i country houses, for, with tha gefliua and experience of an oldoe man, fcho bops and oheeirfiulnpss of a younger, and his own marvellous amiability, imagine what a companion he ia ! " •.• The New York Bookman gives an interesting account oE Mr CLifcon Johnson, who h*s illustrated for American publishers two of "lan Madaren's" books and Mr J. M. Barries "A Window in Thrum?." The 3tovy of his success may be of interest to somo vho have taken to the same work here: — "Mr Johnson was a New England farm boy. and has, with very few exceptions, alway/ livftd in a little country hamlet on the bani"of tho Connecticut River. When 15 he l*fr school, and spent nsarly five years in a bock store in a neighbouring city. It was thi<s familiarity with books that strengthened Sis artintic and literary bent, and enabled him also to understand better what makes a book attractive in the matter of illustrations. At this time ho began to sketch and write, and when he returned to the farm life he kept up the practice, ard gradually found his way into periodical literal ure. His interest In pictorial work led him to study in the New York art schools for several winters. As a help in drawing he purchased a camera, and made a series of photographs for a local illustrated work, which proved very successful. This gave him the idea of his first book. 'The New Eai?land Country.' Since then tbe Ma;sr3 Applston hay« published two J books of his, ' The Country School ' and ; ' The Farmer's Boy,' and an illustrated edition of White's ' Selborne.' "

• . • Poor Mr Barrett — none of his critics is so severe aa he of the Jewish Chronicle, who frankly declares " Daughters of Babylon " to be impossible. "It is quite true that in Hebrew law a betrothed maiden was regarded as a wife with regard to the penalty inflicted in the case of her uncbastity. But this very fact implias that Mr Barrett's heroine must, by tbo time his play opens, have become her affianced husband's wife. Long betrothals were unknown in ancient Hebrew life. Farther, the trial of the accused couple in the new play is a mere caricature of Hebrew justice. If there was one thing on which Jewish law could rightly pride itself it wao its rigid and unbending reference to a merciful and just criminal code, the mildest and fairest that the world has ever yet seen. To conceive, as Mr Barrett does, that the same individual could act as judge and accuser is absolutely unwarranted. No one who was in the slightest degree concerned in the matter could give evidence, and the evidence of a brother was inadmissible against a brother. Bat Mr Barrett commits himself still more deeply. At least two eye- witnesses were necessary to establish a criminal charge. Further, in the interests of justice and mercy, the examination of witnesses was very severe, and, instead of the judge being able to press the charge against the accused, he was exhorted rather to press the law in his favour. No such trial as Mr Barrett has placed upon the stage could «ver have occurred in a land where the fine Hebraic laws of justice and social customs prevailed."

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