Smyrna Times

Food for Thought

There are many people who play a piano by "ear" and do this very well. The average person finds good training and the page of written music to be the only way of achieving any success with the keys.

Some people can take a motor trip with no map and lose no time in arriving at their destination. Most of us need the map.

The experienced person can usually dispense with written music or maps in repeating familiar scores or routes, but again resorts to these aids for new adventures.

These same theories hold for the cook book. The inexperienced person needs a good cook book. Many have learned to cook without one but the perils and expense of the trial-and-error system have nothing to balance them by a cook book's absence.

Then the new cook comes to us and says, "Why are recipes so involved? What will happen if I omit a bay leaf? I don't have a roaster, how can I bake half a ham? Will my salad be ruined if I don't use garlic in the dressing?"

Experience can show this new homemaker whether or not the bay leaf is necessary to her. She may go through life gaily in spite of her never having a clove of garlic in the house. What was wrong with baking the half ham in a heavy frying pan? The only requirement was some utensil for holding the ham, no lid, and low heat!

There are many excellent cook books for the beginner these days. These books show the weight of fresh peas to buy for two or four people, and, by pictures, show some frequent processes which may be difficult to describe such as "pounding" meat or making crescent rolls.

Now once you've mastered the processes of three simple meals a day, read further into the book. There you'll find suggestions to vary your meals, for fun and to eliminate the possibility of monotony.

Get yourself a cook book, a good cook book. Once you've found it you'll soon be passing gift copies of it on to your friends.