“Teresa, I take my hat off to your baked potatoes. There isn’t a club chef in New York who can hold a candle to you when it comes to baking these.” “It isn’t the baking, my dear boy, it’s the buying of them. A watery potato won’t bake well.” “Ah--and how, pray, do you know a watery potato from a dry one?” inquired her brother with something akin to respect in his voice. “By breaking them open, silly boy,” she answered with a gay little laugh. “As runs one, so, generally speaking, runs the whole basket. I don’t look at the size or smoothness of the skin, but at the grain of the broken potato.” “Are they Maine or Long Island potatoes?” asked Mrs. Larry suddenly. “Maine,” answered Mrs. Moore. “There isn’t a Long Island potato on the market to-day.” “But, Mr. Dorlon--” “Told you so! Yes, and they always will, if you ask for Long Island potatoes. I don’t take any one’s word for food. The only safeguard is to know your market for yourself and ask no information of the dealer.” “Then you think there are no honest dealers?” asked Mr. Gregory. “Lots of them,” replied his brisk hostess, “but we women put a premium on misinformation and trickery by demanding what the market does not offer. We demand fresh country eggs when only the dealers in certified eggs can furnish them, and so we get cold storage eggs labeled ‘country,’ We demand Long Island potatoes when the market is sold out, and we get Maine potatoes at a slightly higher figure than they should bring, because the dealer does not dare tell us the truth. If he does, we go to another dealer who knows us better.” “In Boston,” remarked Mrs. Gregory, “we have a little marketing club and study prices and market conditions. It takes time, but it saves us all quite a little.” Mrs. Larry ate mechanically, hardly knowing what was served. This was what the lecturer had meant about studying food values--what Larry had meant by finding a new market. But both of them had missed the mark. She would combine the two, study the old markets and find new ones. Mrs. Moore was warming up to the topic and everybody was interested. “New York is headquarters for the National Housewives’ League. We have district branches and leaders, and we are shaking up the dealers just beautifully. Last week our district leader announced that there had been a drop in bacon and ham. One of the nationally advertised brands of bacon in jars was selling at several cents less a jar. I asked my grocer why he had not reduced the price. He said this was the first he’d heard of it. The next day he started a sale on this particular brand, and I bought a dozen jars. He knew all the time that the firm had cut the price, that ham and bacon were down, but he did not give his customers, who did not know the same thing, the advantage of the wholesale cut. Other grocers gave it and announced it as a special or leader.