Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1879 — HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY. [ARTICLE]

HOUSEHOLD ECONOMY.

To Remove Tan.—Lemon juice used freely upon the face at night,,and permitted to dry there, will be found, after a few applications, to remove tan from the features, though we consider it a matter of little importance. Some ladies are sensitive about the matter «of tan, but men should never be; it is becoming to them. To Destroy Vermin.—Croton bugs and red ants can be driven off by sprinkling the floor with pulverized borax, and leaving a place for them to get out; to kill them mix borax with sugar, so they will eat it. For ants or other vermin, wash the shelves with a strong solution of borax; then sprinkle the same with borax mixed with sugar. When whitewashing your room, add a table-spoonful of pulverized borax to each pailful of lime. Woolen Cloths.—When woolens are worn threadbare, as is often the case in the elbows, cuffs, sleeves, etc., of men’s coats, the coats must be soaked in cold water for half an hour; then take out of the water and put on a board, and the threadbare parts of the cloth rubbed with a half-worn hatter’s “card,” filled with flocks, or with a prickly thistle, until a sufficient nap is raised. When this is done, hang the coat up to dry, and, with a hard brush, lay the nap the right way. Condiments.—lt is not enough that food should contain alimentary principles in proper quantity; to render it really nutritious there must also be a supply of condiments. These may be compared to oil in a machine, which neither makes good the waste of material nor supplies motive power, yet causes it to work easier and better, rendering essential service in the process of nutrition, though they are not of themselves able to prevent waste of any part of the body. Beefsteak, Madrid Style.—Take a piece of rump steak about three-quarters of an inch thick. Trim it neatly and beat it with the cutlet-bat, sprinkle it with pepper, dip it in oil, and broil it over a clear fire. Turn it after it has been on the fire a minute or two, and keep turning it till done; eight or ten minutes will do it. Sprinkle it with salt, and serve with a small quantity of finely-minced parsley and a piece of butter mixed together, Bid place over or under the steak. Garnish with fried potatoes. Beef Tea.—Take one pound of lean beef, free of fat and separated from the bone, and reduce it to the finely-chopped state in which it is used for beef sausages; uniformly mix with its own weight in water, slowly heated to boiling, and the liquid, after boiling briskly for a minute or two, is to be strained through a towel from the coagulated albumen and the fibrine, now become hard and homy. Thus is obtained an equal weight of the most aromatic soup, of such strength as cannot be obtained even by boiling for hours from a piece of flesh. To Sugar or Crystallize For-

Corn.—Put into an iron kettle one table-spoonful of butter, three tablespoonfuls of water, and one teacupful of white sugar; boil until ready to candy, then throw in three quarts of com, nicely popped; stir briskly until the candy is evenly distributed over the com; set the kettle from the fire and stir until it is cooled a little and you have each grain separate and crystallized with the sugar; care should be taken not to have too hot a fire lest you scorch the corn when crystallizing. Nuts of any kind prepared this way are delicious. Importance of Airing Beds.—The desire of an energetic housekeeper to have her work completed at an early hour in the morning causes her to leave one of the most important items of neatness undone. The most effectual purifying of bed and bed-clothes cannot take place if no time is allowed for the free circulation of pure air to remove all human impurities which have collected during the hours of slumber. At least two or three hours should be allowed for the complete removal of atoms of insensible perspiration which are absorbed by the bed. Every day this airing should be done, and, occasionally, bedding constantly used should be carried into the open air, and, when practicable, left exposed to the sun and wind for half a day.