HER “LAST LADY”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 192, 15 August 1931, Page 15 (Supplement)

HER “LAST LADY”

It seems to me that whoever takes on a new maid is expected to swallow at a gulp the habits and customs of the previous household to which she administered. I have lately engaged a now cook, says a Londoner. On my requiring coffee for breakfast I am informed, quite pleasantly, that in the course of twenty years she has never been in a house where they drank coffee for breakfast. This seems incrdible, for I have seldom met a man yet who did not prefer good coffee to tea, no matter at what hour of the day. Therefore, I stand firm for coffee, served with, freshly boiled milk, free from skin. Next comes the question of kippers. It never occurred to me when I ordered this simple dish for the first morning’s breakfast that any one would boil them. When tho roadmender at my door makes himself a savoury tea he fries the humble kipper, and dips his bread in the juice. Sensible fellow! But new cooks, one after another, present us with boiled kippers. When I protest I am told that fried kippers are most unusual. As regards toast, I contend that it should be crisp without being hard, and the steam should be dried out of it in the oven before it is put in the rack. What one generally encounters is either triangles of concrete warranted to break the teeth, or flabby pieces of ; pale bread of the consistency of india- ! rubber. Do people mally stand this sort lof cooking? I wonder. I And yet 1 doubt not that the ways of the “last lady” are largely mythii cal. | So it is more than likely that my dej parted c’ook is describing me in her new ■ place as a lady who never saw dirt, never got up to breakfast, took no interest in children, and was never known !to use a needle. Such probably are a | few of the legends that she tells of her >“last lady,” moaning me.