With a saucepan over the sea

method used in Europe for making a dish of meat or fish rich and appetizing, since only by braising, in a closely covered saucepan, and slow cooking, can the effect be obtained. French cooks put charcoal, or live coals, on the hollow lid of the earthen pan, to improve the flavor, but a tin pie plate, with the same addition, will do as well. A little box of growing herbs, the price and names and uses of which can be found in any large florist's catalogue, lightens expense, and helps to make soups, sauces, and salads savory. Plants always grow well in the kitchen because of the moisture and warmth. The French cook knows a trick of giving a delicious flavor, by rubbing the gridiron, or the joint of mutton, or the inside of the soup-pot, with a bit of garlic. Only the best of it is left to accentuate the original flavor. The chapon^ or bit of bread rubbed with garlic, is used in salad, mixing with the dressing, and imparting a fascinating but indescribable touch. It is an insult to human beings to offer the meat or stews merely warmed over. Even an English woman will broil thick slices of rare beef or mutton, serving them with a good sauce, and English children are never given cold meat, but have soup or chops, or milk puddings, because it takes sharp hunger and strong digestions to assimilate meat that is cold or With a Saucepan over the Sea cooked twice. The albumen of the meat becomes tougher. But stewed kidney and liver are fairly good when properly prepared a second time. The kidney, with onion, gravy, herbs, and tomatoes, makes a nice sauce for an omelette ; and the liver, if chopped very fine, can be used with breadcrumbs, to stuff baked tomatoes, or egg-plant or cabbage. It can be made into forcemeat balls for meat pies or soups, or cut up into dice, served with rice, and a little stock, to imitate chicken pilaff. Stock is so much better for the basis of sauces than hot water that every cook should manage, by intelligent thrift, to have a supply on hand, and even half a cupful will improve a dish wonderfully. Bits of cold ham or bacon, chopped fine and added to a little stock, makes the sauce richer, — in fact, a few bones, a bit of ham, an onion, a carrot, some celery and parsley, and a pint of water boiled down to half, will, if strained and seasoned, take the place of real stock. A cup of stewed tomatoes can be turned into sauce or soup, or the end and bone of a beefsteak, with barley, herbs, a bayleaf, carrot, onion, and a cup of tomatoes, added to the water needed, will result in a good broth. When it is strained and seasoned, a little sugar improves it. French cooks use With a Saucepan over the Sea sugar for a great many things ; a little goes a long way, however. Instead of hash, which grows tiresome, a foreign cook will often serve a savory sausage, chopping equal parts of beef or veal, and pork with herbs, onion, and seasoning, binding it in sausage skins — always to be obtained from the butcher — and boiling them an hour. The famous and dainty sausages of Aries and Lyons contain garlic and chopped truffles. When cooking eggs, these can be fried in the same pan, and are, at least, pure and harmless. Food is often wasted by keeping it improperly ; the soup allowed to get cool under a plate which turns it sour, or the milk or butter left too close to fish or meat, or the vegetables and dry groceries allowed to get mouldy through being kept in a warm, damp place. A cook who likes her business, or a wife who has the welfare of her family at heart, should be glad of any hints relating to these matters. The Germans aptly say that the kitchen is to the house what the stomach is to the body. And also, when the doctor calls, he should enter by way of the back door, and thank the cook for that neglect which calls for his costly visits. A plain cook should know how to boil, bake,