Paper lining for drawers, of course, is necessary. The pretty paper lace doily for under finger bowls, cake and bread, these are delightfully pretty and save the linen, the laundress and the laundry list. CHOP PAPERS Paper “golf stockings” for chop bones, poultry legs etc. are decorative. CHARLOTTE RUSSE Vegetables and charlotte russe are often, too, served in the paper cup. Which, by the way reminds me that in large kitchens the paper cup is indispensable. In this place it would be well to say that a pad--a writing pad--should be in every kitchen for multitudinous listings and memos. No kitchen is a perfect one that isn’t “padded.” In fact it is a sell if it isn’t! CHAPTER XXXVIII COME OUT OF THE PARLOR If I were a cook (of course, being a democrat, I aspire to no such plutocratic eminence, but were I a cook), I should want to have for my use a number of culinary accessories to make life more rosy, more serene and even more delightful than it naturally must be. If I were even a wife, I should welcome gifts that would make the work I had to do in the kitchen more saving in time, effort and labor. But being neither of these, and therefore, free to roam through manufactories, laboratories, and shops, I will suggest from the myriads of fascinating kitchen articles and appliances some that will make captivating and useful gifts. When you once have made a present of any of them you will automatically become entablatured in the recipient’s memory, and maybe you will be saved the expense of many a meal! If I were that cook--I would hanker after the ice pick that doesn’t slide--the spring pick (25 to 35 cents). You just jab it into the ice and slide the handle up and down, and you waste neither ice, food, nor temper in the process. It is a gem of comfort. THE SMALL EQUIPMENT The cream bag, with all the alluring little tubes for making fascinating designs on the birthday or Christmas cake, saves the cook time in rigging up paper tubes for spreading cream and sugar. If it were only to obviate the unpatriotic cry against our thick bread in comparison to the British gossamer slice, it would ease one’s life to have some one of the bread slicers on the American market which cost very little. (About $4.[1]) [1] All prices here are merely approximate. By the time this book reaches you the prices will be much lower, we hope! Nothing saves more energy than the food chopper (from $2 up), the nut-cracker (from $1 up), the cherry stoner (75 cents up). These processes of stoning, chopping and taking out nuts whole are all tedious by hand. The coffee mill, too, is a pleasure, the kind that has the glass top to keep you cognizant of how much work there is before you. Some of these screw on the wall and are about $1.35 and upwards. The beef press ($1.50 to $5) (See Chapter on electric mixing units) for invalid or baby is also a boon.