“But,” Mrs. Reardon continued with rapture, “your kitchenette is a dream. It always reminds me of jewels--the tiled floors, walls and ceiling like luminous settings and the apparatus like lovely gems. Really it breeds appetite and culinary prowess. Any one could cook in this place! And when I’m not in such an esthetic mood I am reminded of an engine room in a small electric yacht.” “That is amusing,” said Mrs. Eggleston, laughing, “but I hardly can see how it could be otherwise because Gregory and I thought of all the yachts we knew before arranging this kitchenette. He always says ‘Well, dear, we certainly are ship-shape here--even if we don’t own a yacht!’” Whether the slit in the wall kitchenette or the tiled kitchenette is the only kitchen in the family, or whether the kitchenette is only for weekends of the foregoing variety, it must be small and ship-shape. These are the only definite kitchenette requirements. THE NECESSARY EQUIPMENT It need consist only of a couple of three-foot shelves, so compact are the stoves and ranges made for light housekeeping. But roominess is no crime, so multitudinous are the tools to play with. Smallness, however, is unusually synonymous with convenience in kitchenettes. Nearly every professional woman and many men in the large cities are banded into a huge League of Rations by the sympathetic tie of small kitchenettes. These compact cooking outfits make the lives simple, adaptable and healthful, they are the result of the hatred of the restaurant and café which turn steady diet into a farce, and they put an end to the régime: “Eat, drink and be merry, for to-morrow we diet.” And so the slit in the wall or the covered cupboard is made the nucleus of home cooking and family feeling. No servants needed, none missed and a feeling that you are not living down by doing your own work but living up by managing the difficult combination of living well and doing your job on the outside to the best possible advantage. For the most part these kitchenettes are run by gas, but are for that reason cheaper in the cities like New York, where there is no cooking rate for electricity. But the new appliances for the electric kitchenette are like toys, they are so fascinatingly contrived. You are crazy to have ice cream or whipped cream with which to employ the electric kitchen power unit which can perform all these miracles, and you are led into gustatorial and epicurean extravagances by cooking, boiling, baking and grilling at the same time on the new stove. A whole dinner can be cooked on the dining table with these new ranges even if you have no kitchenette! The terror of dishwashing has evaporated! The electric dishwasher has been born and now our Ladies Eggleston and Reardon can, without loss of epithelial beauty, dash into the kitchenette for their matinal refreshment--sans sacrifice, sans anything but appetite and culinary ardor.