HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3442, 2 March 1920, Page 58

HINTS AND SUGGESTIONS.

Before grating lemons, it is well to wash them in a basin of lukewarm water, for on examination it will be found that the outside of a lemon is anything but clean, and if put under a microscope it will be discovered to have tiny black specks on it, which are the minute eggs of an insect. Fruit should be taken at regular meal times, not between meals. 'lt combines especially well with cereal foods. About the only precaution which need be given in relation to fruits is, that they do not form a good combination with coarse vegetables. This fact explains many cases of serious grastic disturbance. To improve the dining-room table try this plan: Make a bag of several thicknesses of fine cheese cloth, and fill it with powdered pumice-stone. Dip this in good sweet oil, and rub 'the table well. Polish the table afterwards with a clean piece of flannel or chamois skin. If this is done once a week, the surface of the table may be kept in excellent condition. The labour of boot cleaning may be greatly reduced by the aid of a little glycerine. First brush the boots free from dust, and then apply a small quantity of glycerine with a rag. Let them stand for ten minutes, then polish with a brush. ißoots treated in this way will keep the polish for several days, and no blacking is required. The harder varieties of the green plum make a delicious pickle. Mix two pounds of sugar with a gill of vinegar, and place it in the oven until it forms a syrup. Prick about four pounds of plums with a darning needle, and drop them into the hot syrup. Simmer the whole until the fruit is tender, then pour into jars and tie down. Apropos of jam and pickle making, two easy ways of keeping preserves air-tight are by painting both sides of parchment paper with boiled starch or using a thin paste made of flour. Papers should be large enough to come well down round the sides of the jars, and the contents should then last for months, provided the storage place is free from damp. Brown boots or shoes that have become stained on the seashore or elsewhere can be renovated by the .application of salts of lemon applied to the marks. Dissolve about half a teaspoonful in a teacup of water, rub the, marks over with a sponge dipped in the liquid, and clean subsequently in the ordinary way. Shoes stained by sea-water can often be revived by the application of spirits of ammonia. Given juioy blackberries and good cooking apples, everyone ought to turn out an excellent pie or pudding, yet so many cooks make tho fatal mis'iake of stewing, or boiling, both the fruits together. Consequently, the aoid in the blackberries turns the apple-rings into a leather-like substance. Stew your fruits separately, and remember that the sugar should be added when the fruit is practically cooked. This latter tip saves your sugar, and the fruit is all the better for it. ,

Spirits of turpentine will remove most spots from silk, but care must be taken to see that the dye is fast. It is as "well

to experiment first on a spare piece of the fabric. Failing this, powdered French chalk, mixed to a mustard-like consistency with lavender water, should be rubbed into the stain, left till caked, and a hot iron—laid on a sheet of blotting-paper—-finally passed over the top. When taking out your trunks and suitcases from their seclusion it is, not unusual to find that the leather bindings and straps have perished for want of a little nourishment. This trouble may easily be obviated by the application from time to time of a little good polish such as is used for tan boots, or even by a dressing of vaseline, which will keep the bindings, supple. To clean old jewellery, make a la'ther of warm soapsuds, and add to it half a teaspoonful of sal-volatile; brush the jewellery in this, afterwards polishing with an old silk handkerchief or a piece of wash-leather. If you have any boiled starch left over on washing day, do not throw it away if you have any oilcloth or linoleum to be cleaned. Mix it with the water you will use for the purpose, and you will find that it gives the linoleum a splendid polish.