Miss Parloa's kitchen companion

Nepaul pepper, a delicate red kind, comes in small bottles, and is a great addition to the seasoning of some soups, sauces, and entrees. Mustard, when pure, has a dull yellow appearance. When ground mustard is mixed with cold water, the odor will be so pungent as to affect the eyes, as peeling raw onions will. Unless you are a chemist, this is the surest test you can make to ascertain whether the mustard is adulterated. The bright yellow color does not always mean that the mustard is inferior to the paler kind. The pure mustard is frequently colored to give it the bright yellow hue which so many people demand. Since this article is used extensively in sickness, a generous supply should always be kept in the storeroom, and care should be taken to have only the purest. Curry-powder is being employed more and more each year. It is a useful and healthful condiment when properly used. Some housekeepers try to make this powder themselves, but it is much better to buy it. The ingredients vary a little in the different makes. They usually consist of the following-named articles ground to a smooth powder: Coriander seed, black and Cayenne pepper, cumin seed, cardamon seed, turmeric. Sometimes cinnamon, ginger, caraway seed, and other spices also are used. The most reliable makes are Cross & Blackwell's. Curry-powder should be kept in a dark place, in a tightly corked bottle. CINNAMON. In buying ground cinnamon, like all ground spices, one must depend upon taste for the real article, for this spice is as much adulterated as pepper and ginger. But with the whole cinnamon the case is different, for here the eye can recognize the true and detect the false. The genuine cinnamon comes in small, thin, rather tight rolls. It can be broken in long splinters. The taste is delicate, sweet, and spicy. The price is much higher than for cassia. Cinnamon is sometimes mixed with cassia and sold for a pure article, and it is quite common to sell pure cassia for cinnamon. Cassia is more than twice as thick as cinnamon ; the rolls are large and loose ; the bark breaks off brittle and will not break in splinters ; the flavor is strong. It makes a good deal of difference in the flavor of a soup, sauce, or jelly, whether cinnamon or coarse cassia be used. SUMMER SALADS AND SWEET HERBS. How to Get Them from One's Own Garden. When the time comes for garden-making, people will do wisely to set apart a small portion of their land for salads and herbs. Many persons who live in towns have not only land for flower-beds, but enough also for a salad and herb garden, and yet they feel that it is not worth the while to try to raise anything for the table, because they have not an acre or more to cultivate. A small piece of land, properly used, will yield wonders in the way of flavors and relishes. In France mere yards.