12. How many tablespoonfuls of water to a cup? (These relative measures are convenient for dividing recipes.) 13. Measure a level tablespoonful of flour, by filling the spoon, holding it level, and leveling the flour by running the back of the knife quickly from the base of the bowl of the spoon to the tip. How can you most accurately divide this in halves? In quarters? 14. How much does a cup of flaked cereal weigh? 15. How much does a cup of granular cereal weigh? 16. Butter is hard to measure in a cup. If a recipe calls for 1/4 cup butter, it is easier to measure it by tablespoonfuls. Find out how many make 1/4 cup. 17. How much does a cup of butter weigh? If you know this, you can weigh it, instead of measuring, or if your butter is in pound “pats,” you will be able to cut off a cupful, instead of weighing it. 18. An old-fashioned recipe for sponge cake reads thus: Take the weight of the eggs in sugar and half their weight in flour. Translate this into measures. =Preparing and mixing.=——Food materials that are not to be mixed with others still need special preparation before heat is applied. For fruits and vegetables, _washing_ is the first stage, followed by _scraping_, _paring_, _peeling_, _cutting_, or _slicing_. Meats, poultry, and fish must be cleaned by wiping, and _cut_ and _trimmed_ with a sharp knife. Cooked meats and fish and vegetables may be _chopped_ or _sliced_. Cooked vegetables are also _mashed_ and _beaten_. Cream is _whipped_ or _beaten_, and eggs served raw likewise. These seem simple processes, but each one needs a good tool and a knack in the muscles. Each method will be taken up in detail, with each food material. _Methods of mixing_ are important, where several ingredients are combined. We seek for a way that will give the most complete mingling of all the substances with smoothness and lightness, at the same time saving time and strength. We must look always for the “short cut.” It is necessary to have the texture of the food such that it can be well masticated and mixed with the digestive fluids, but time is too precious to spend hours on a dessert, or in beating biscuits. _Sifting_, or putting materials through a fine mesh, is used to lighten flour that has been packed down, to remove coarse portions, or to mix thoroughly several dry ingredients. _Stirring_ is done with a spoon, and is a round and round motion, used for mixing a liquid and a dry ingredient. _Rubbing_ is used for combining a dry ingredient with a semi-solid substance like butter. _Creaming_ is a term used for the rubbing of butter until it becomes soft and creamy. A spoon should be used, not the hand. “_Cutting in_” with a knife is used for combining butter with flour in biscuit and pastry where the butter should not be softened.