Cooking for profit

n garden peas or home canned, and with but half the steak make a stew with peas, a la Turque, the meal need not cost more than 15 cents each, all counted, or 45 cents a day. There has been plenty of matter contributed to the newspapers at various times in regard to the cost of living, but all partaking more of the nature of arguments in favor of some person's pet scheme than of plain statements of actual trials. What we think this diary of ours proves is that people can live more cheaply and better in numbers together than they can by twos and threes; that a moderate variety of dishes does not necessarily cost more per plate than two or three dishes in larger quantity would if we have the foresight to know how little of some of the dishes will be required and know what to do with the remainders, and that the profit or loss of keeping boarders depends greatly upon the selection of material and the skill to offset one or two expensive dishes with a good many others made of cheap materials, but exceedingly well cooked and well served — as for illustration; a pound of the breast of chicken costs 25 cents, and you cannot board them on breast of chicken ; a pound of baked beans costs 3 cents, and they will not take beans alone; put the two together and you have 2 pounds of the most desirable and most desired food for 14 cents a pound, which you can afford, and it takes more skill and care to cook the beans so that the dish will be sought after than it does to cook the chicken. Dinner. August 24. Soup— Tapioca cream (7 qts 48 cents.) Fillets of whitefish, a la Normandie (5 lbs 80 cents.) Potatoes a la Victoria. Roast ham, champagne sauce (i lb 20 cents.) Sirloin of beef, a la Hongroise (20 cents.) Roast sucking pig, a I'Anglaise (No. 108; 10 lbs and sauce, 210 cents.) Roast prairie chickens, game sauce (10 grouse, 200 cents.) Lamb stew with tomatoes (2 lbs 15 cents.) Stewed khol-rabi 8, browned sweet potatoes 15, corn 10, string beans, a la Turque 10, potatoes 12 (55 cents.) Lemon soufflé pudding (2 qts 20 orders with sauce, 35 cents.) Custard and blueberry pies (3 pies, 27 cents.) Mountain strawberry ice cream (3 qts frozen, 75 cents.) Almond cream cake, pound cake (2 lbs 25 cents.) Peaches, nuts, raisins, cheese, condiments (54 cents.) Milk, cream, butter, etc (106 cents.) < Total, $9.70; 56 persons; 17½ cents a plate. 1063— Tapioca Cream Soup. Take 3 quarts soup stock and 3 quarts milk, make a white roux to thicken it by simmering a _ slice of ham in 4 ounces butter and stirring in a cup of flour and add soup to the roux until it is thick sauce; let boil, then strain back mto the soup. Put in a small blade of mace, a cupful of minced onion, a cup of turnip and carrot in the smallest dice and small cup of crushed tapioca. Boil slowly until the tapioca grains are transparent and stir in a spoonful of chopped parsley, with salt and white pepper. 1069— Fillets of Fish, à la Normandie. Cut the fish in thin fillets size of two fingers, double them and place in close order in a baking dish. Prepare mashed potatoes with yolk of egg mixed in as for croquettes and place a border of it round the edge of the dish.