Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

pinch of powdered ginger brings out their flavour. They are always eaten in America with turkeys, as we eat apple-sauce with goose. Many people do not know that turkeys are natives of America, and that the French word dinde is merely a shortening of coq d'Inde (India being the name given to America for some time after its discovery). It is curious to think that these birds, now so common an article of food at this time of year, were totally unknown to the luxurious Eomans. The Cran- berries should not be mashed up, but should look like stoned cherries in syrup. They can be eaten with chicken or game, or with roast mutton instead of red-currant jelly. In Norway the small native Cranberry is eaten with any stew, especially with hares and ptarmigan. The custom of eating sweets with meat seems to come to us from Germany and the North ; the French hate it. One of the eternal trials to every housekeeper is the making of coffee. I always use half Mocha and half Plantation. When in the country, I roast the beans at home ; and the two kinds must be done separately, as they are not the same size. For breakfast coffee a small quantity of ground Chicory — the best French — is a great improvement, and increases the health-giving properties of coffee and milk ; but it should never be used for black coffee. The beans should in damp weather be warmed and dried a little before grinding; it freshens them up, as it does biscuits. One of the mysterious reasons for the flat tastelessness of coffee one day and not another is the coffee-grinder not being cleaned out ; a tablespoonful of stale ground coffee will spoil the whole. Other reasons are — either the water not boil- ing, or the water having boiled a long time, or water that has boiled and cooled being warmed up again ; this is fatal, as it is with tea. I find the modern crockery percolators a great improvement on the old tin ones, 1 6 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN which make very good coffee for a short time ; but the lining rubs off, and the tin gets black inside, which will destroy the colour of the best coffee. At Goode's, in Audley Street, or at the Atmospheric Churn Company, in Bond Street, they will sell you any portion of these percolators apart ; and the most terrible of breakers can hardly smash everything at once. Many cooks refuse to use Goode's excellent crockery fireproof stewpans, on the plea that they break. But new ones cost no more than the re-tinning of copper stewpans, which has to be done every year. For all stews, and for the cooking of vegetables and fruit, they are invaluable — and, in the case of fruit, indispensable. January ISth. — One excellent way of arranging flowers in most rooms is to have a table, a kind of altar, especially dedicated to them. This does the flowers or plants much more justice than dotting them about the room. If, however, flowers or branches are arranged in vases in the Japanese style, the more they are isolated in prominent places that show them off, the better.