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The Pots, Pans, and Containers

WE business women go at our housekeeping quite differently from other women, partly because of the system business life has instilled into us and partly from necessity. We know that our housekeeping is going to receive a minimum of time and attention, so that we must arrange to eliminate as many of its details as possible and let the rest almost automatically take care of themselves. This requires tools to fit the task and those that will do the work with the least trouble.

One of my hardest workers is an aluminum four-piece set which does duty as a roaster, large kettle, steamer, colander, and vegetable cooker. This, with a small aluminum double boiler, is a treasure since I have found it possible to procure the steel wool and soap combination cleaner, now put up by several firms, to keep aluminum in good condition. Steel wool - aptly called the "shearings of a hydraulic ram" — applied with just a little "elbow grease" every few weeks keeps the aluminum utensils bright and shiny. It is the alkali of hard water which discolors them by attacking the surface of the aluminum, so by avoiding the use of extra alkali or soda in washing I avoid unnecessary work.

The hardest worker of all is a small double boiler; the upper part is used in preparing half-a-can recipes or in cooking about a pint of food material either directly over the flame or in simmering it over the lower water-filled boiler. The lower boiler is used in the cooking of larger amounts of food directly over the flame. This The Pots, Pans, and Containers utensil serves not only in its capacity as a double boiler but as a teakettle for boiling water for tea or coffee. The aluminum pans cost more than some others - the four-piece set costing over three dollars and the double boiler eighty-five cents - but a business woman counts so much of her time as money that her home hours become precious.

So for her, if not for all, it is economy in the long run to buy utensils that both do good work and require the least time and care later.

A PRESSURE COOKER AS A TIME SAVER The waffle iron has its regular Sunday breakfast to prepare, while my best playfellow, a steam pressure cooker, does double duty. It plays its part as a steam canner when a basket of peaches or corn has been sent in from the country by friends, as well as to cook combination meals in doublequick time. It is a large cast aluminum kettle with its cover fastened down to retain the steam by means of copper bolts which develop muscle and sometimes temper in the unscrewing when the table and guests are waiting - but then what good friend has not his drawbacks.

The pressure cooker's greatest asset to the kitchenette dinner party, besides cutting the cooking time in two or three, is that the odors of the cooking are all retained in the kettle and released to the great out-of-doors instead of in the room itself - by setting the cooker on the sill of an opened window before turning the exhaust valve to release the pressure prior to removing the cover. A ball-and-spring safety valve eliminates all possible troubles from too high pressure, for when thirty pounds of steam pressure is reached, as shown on the dial, a whistle blows which not only lets off the extra steam The Pots, Pans, and Containers but gives warning to the cook lady to turn down her gas flame.

GLASS JARS FOR DRY GROCERIES Glass jars with wide mouths and rubber rings around the top to exclude air and break the click of glass in closing come in various sizes. Pint and quart sizes at fifteen and twenty cents apiece best fit the need of a kitchenette. This is a purchase to be made but once, and once these jars are used you will never part with them, or be out of the food material needed through having forgotten that "the powdered sugar was all used up last time."

The little two-cup percolator, which in the first few weeks of its stay was as good as an alarm clock piping out "Get up and see your percolator perk", has had a tragic career. It had a dreadful accident. Somebody set it on the stove with coffee in the top but no water below, and it lost both its spout and handle, was badly burned, and had to spend four weeks in its manufacturer's hospital for injured goods. However, you would never know it now as it sings its cheery morning song.

THE UTENSILS AT WORK AND PLAY In order to prove the advantage of having utensils and food containers, work table and stove so close together, let us make a Baker sunshine cake. Bringing down the small-tube cake tin, size Number 5, from the top shelf, we can stand in front of the work table, reach down into the ice box for our two eggs, reach to the right without a step for the flour sieve, egg whip, measuring cups, flour pan, and the long-handled saucepan with a rounded bottom which does duty as a mixing bowl.

Baking powder from the shelf above is measured with the measuring spoon which The Pots, Pans, and Containers hangs in front of us and is added to the sifted and measured flour, sifted again once or twice, and set aside while the sugar is measured and sifted once. The eggs are separated, and the yolks dropped into a third of a cupful of cold water which has been placed in the mixing bowl.

The whites of the eggs are beaten up with the egg whip until the platter can be inverted without the mass moving.

The yolks and the water are beaten up with the Dover egg beater for five or six minutes until light and foamy. The sugar, then the sifted flour and baking powder, are added gradually, continuing the beating with the beater. The flavoring is added now, and the whites of the eggs carefully folded, not stirred or beaten, into the mixture. It is a very foamy mass as it is poured into the pan, half filling it, as a sunshine or sponge cake should rise as high again while in the oven. We may put this into a cold oven - that is, light the oven gas just as we put the cake into the oven and let it gradually get hot. A cake without shortening needs to rise and bake slowly so as not to be tough.

We must look at our cake frequently to see that the heat is right for the cake to rise but not to brown during the first fifteen minutes. It should take from forty to forty-five minutes for the entire baking.

If the oven gets too hot turn down the flame or turn out one of the burners. It is done and ready to come out when the edge begins to shrink away from the side of the pan, and it stops its funny little sizzling sound of baking. It should come out of the oven at once and be turned upside down to "hang" for a time before it is removed from the pan on to a wire rack to air, cool, and to be frosted.

In three minutes we can have all the The Pots, Pans, and Containers soiled dishes washed up, for as we have finished with egg beater, cup, or pan we have set it under the cold-water faucet to soak in cold water.

It has taken just twenty minutes to put the cake into the oven and five more to leave the same order we found. Cake making as simple as this becomes a pleasant diversion with the added zest of serving real homemade cake to friends who drop in later.

Simplified kitchens give greater satisfaction in return for the time spent in their planning than almost anything else, since to most women cooking is either a distinct pleasure or a dreadful cross.

Baker Sunshine Cake 1 cupful sugar 1 teaspoonful baking 1 cupful flour powder 1/3 cupful cold water teaspoonful vanilla 2 eggs extract 1 teaspoonful salt White Mountain Icing 1 cupful sugar 1 egg white cupful boiling water teaspoonful vanilla Cook the sugar and water together until it forms a soft ball when dropped into cold water. Add the flavoring and pour slowly into the stiffly beaten white of egg, beating while pouring it in. Beat until it begins to thicken and spread at once on the cake.

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