HINTS AND RECIPES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 246, 17 October 1936, Page 3

HINTS AND RECIPES

SOMETHING TO INTEREST THE HOUSEWIFE. Apple sauce put into a dish and lightly browned in the oven makes an unusual accompaniment to pork sausages. If your baking-tins are thin and liable to scorch, sprinkle the oven liberally with salt before using them. This will improve matters considerably. Silver teapots can be kept dry if a lump of sugar is placed inside before they are stored away; otherwise teapots that are not in use are liable in become musty. The dish-cloth should be thoroughly washed and dried every day. If it is boiled in hot water and soda once or twice a week it will keep perfectly ; sweet and clean. Whisks that have been used for ' heating eggs should always be washed , in cpld water. Hot water sets the egg and makes it difficult to remove. To polish kitchen knives, mix a little bicarbonate of soda with powdered bathbrick, and scour them thoroughly. Here’s a quickly prepared supper dish: Grate some cheese on a plate, surround with sliced tomatoes, then break an egg in the centre. Grill until the egg is cooked. A good method of restoring discoloured brown shoes is to paint them with iodine. Let them dry after the painting process, and then polish in the usual way. When cleaning brass on front doors, so often the metal polish leaves smeary marks which are a nuisance to remove when dry. Just give an occasional polish round the area to be cleaned with furniture cream and you will find that a dry duster will take the smeary marks of the metal polish away very quickly. To Remove Grease Stains—lf oil oi grease in any form should get on light silk or any material, at once put a thick layer of talcum powder on the spot, and leave for an hour. If necessary, repeat the treatment. You will find the powder will absorb the oil. Then shake off the surplus and rub gently with a piece of the same material and traces will disappear. To Keep Rubber Bools Dry.—To preserve rubber boots till a pair of old socks with brain, tying up th? ends, and keep these inside the boots when not in use. This satisfactorily dries up the moisture and dampness inside lhe boots, a certain amount of which is inevitable when the boots are worn for working out of doors. To dry the stuffed socks place in a warm oven or before a fire. When Unpicking Stitches.—lf you want to unpick close machine stitching, you will find that if you cut through several sitches on both sides of the line of machining, the threads will pull easily. The knife method often injures the material. If stitching is extremely fine pick up the stitches with a needle and cut with scissors. For Stains on a Bath.—Green marks caused by water dripping from a geyser can be removed from a porcelain bath in this way: Make a thin coat of ammonia and borax and apply to the stain with a soft cloth. Rinse with warm, soapy water, then with clear water. If the stain is an nld one, several applications may be needed.

For the Children’s Tea.—Children will love these delicious honey fingers, and they are so good for them, too. Butter some slices of bread, spread thickly with honey, squeeze on a few drops of lemon juice on top, cover with another slice or bread and butter, and cut into fingers. Gingerbread and Ginger Cakes. Gingerbread.—Take Hb. flour, 1 tablespoonful dripping, 1 tablespoonful sugar, tablespoonful treacle, 2oz. raisins, 2 tablespoonful bicarbonate coda, 1 teaspoonlul ground ginger, i teaspoonful spice, 1 egg, i‘ teacupful milk. Put flour in basin, rub dripping among it, add dry ingredients, and mix them. Mix them in gently. Add egg, and give all a good stirring. Put mto greased tins. Bake in oven till cakes are firm In centre. Gingerbread Loaf. —Required: lib. flour, 11b. treacle, 4oz. butter, 1 egg, loz. ground ginger, some candied peel, and a few rarraway seeds, with a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda. The flour to be mixed in gradually; the butter and treacle to be milkwarm; the soda to be put in last. Let it stand half an hour to rise. To be baked in a slow oven. Old-fashioned Gingerbread. 11 b. flour, 6oz. butter, 4oz. sugar, 2oz. almonds, 2oz. candied peel, Soz. ground ginger, 1 teaspoonful mixed spice, i teaspoonful carbonate of soda, 1 egg, 4 tablespoonfuls golden syrup. Blanche and slice the almonds and cut up the candied peel, mix these with the ginger, spice and flour, beat tne butter and sugar to a cream, add the e&g and syrup, dissolve the soda in a little milk, add all together, well mix, bake in a slow oven for about two hours, taking care not to shake or cool when in the oven. Fruit Gingerbread.—Required: lib. flour, 2oz. each brown sugar and butter 2oz. glace cherries, 2oz. blanched almonds, 1 egg, 2oz. ground ginger, pinch of salt, S teaspoonful bicarbonate of soda. Mix all dry ingredients together. Melt butter. Beat egg up. Mix soda in very little warm milk, adding to the margarine and beaten egg; stir all together into the dry ingredients. Give a short brisk beating, and pour into flat pudding tin lined with buttered paper. Bake in moderate oven about one hour. Cool on wire tray. Then cut into fingers. Ginger Snaps. —Rub 4oz. butter in o 6oz flour, then add 51b. sugar and 1 oz. allspice. After mixing these ingredients well together, add the juice of 1 lemon, and pour in lib. o± treacle, which has previously been warmed. Beat the mixture well, then pour it on to a flat greased tin. Bake in a slow oven for fifteen minutes, cut into squares, and roll them round a spoon handle to make them curl.

THEY CAN AND DO

WOMEN IN TENNIS EARLY MISGIVINGS “I do not think,” wrote a newspaper correspondent in 1577, “that any lady can, or ever will, be able to play this game, as it is very hard work for a man, and dress is such a 'drag. 1 . . ■ Furthermore, no lady would ever be able to understand the system of scoring." It was the year of the first all-Eng-land lawn tennis championship at Wimbledon (states a condon writer). The game was comparatively new. Matches were to take place on July 9, and the following days. The entrance fee was £1 Is. Players were informed that they "must provide their own rackets, and wear shoes without heels. Balls may be obtained for practice by personal application to the gardener.” Those were the days (in private games) when there were official rules —but few knew them; when courts were all lengths and breadths, nets of all heights, service-lines often nonexistent. And if you did manage to get the ball over the net—well, it was truly delightful. There was no need to apply for tickets months beforehand for that first Wimbledon meeting, for even on the final day only 200 people strol’ed up to watch the contest. And they all got a good view for the sum of Is per head! What would they have thought of the 20,000 people who crush into Wimbledon daily during international matches nowadays, paying up to. £5 for a seat and 5s for a standing place? “The gate" on that memorable final day amounted to £lO. But that was not all the money this first Wimbledon brought in. At least another £lO must have been taken on preliminary days. Then there were the entrance fees of the players—22 of them, all told. So what with the sale of programmes and incidentals, the total takings must have amounted to quite £5O. If we had been present, at the AllEngland tennis championships in 1877 we would have been startled out of our shilling seats by many strange phenomena. First, the serving. It was not an over-arm service—that, did not come in till four years later; nor was it an under-arm serve— though this was commonly employed. The “doggv” serve of 1877 was ro”nd-arm. being delivered from a .point le v el with the shoulder. And poisonously sucessful it was, ton. The service court in those more spacious days was 26 feet from the net. instead' of 21 feet as now. And. as for the net. itself, it was not. only three inches higher at the centre than ours, but 18 inches higher- R f, the posts. Hence, there was very little side-line plav. There was plenty of volleying, but it. caused the spectators grave misgivings. and many of them thought that it should be put. down bv law. There was no law or rule, however, to nut down the vollever who thrust his racket right over the net to achieve a stroke. Everybody foot-faulted: there were no “lets”: and the nlayers did not change ends until the comn'ete set was over, thus giving the winner of the toss an enormous adven'age in the third a-d last set. When the score reached 6—5. it was a “sudden-dea'h” win; thus thirlv-t.h’-ee games were the utmost possible in a tournament m.-teb. Still the noint remained—bow covli lawn tennis be made na’atabie tn f n e ladies? It was suggested that gentlemen should “serve e°sv” to them, and that ladies covM refuse as many services as thev liked—nr disliked. And it was more tb n n hinted at that gentleme-r should make a point of playing the ball as near to the lady as possible.