"It sounds difficult, just the same."
"No more than whist or chess or any other game worth learning. Of course it calls for brains, and it cannot be learned in a moment, but it's a game, all the same, and good fun when you have learned it; you'll see!"
[CHAPTER VIII]
The Game of Menus
"Now for our game," said Mrs. Thorne, after looking in the refrigerator the next day. "I have been thinking about what it is like, and I have decided that it is not so much like chess or whist as it is like anagrams. But though it may not be as great an intellectual feat to master it as though it were one of the famous games, it takes brains, nevertheless. So take heart and try and learn it."
She took one sheet of paper and gave Dolly another, and went on.
"You know already that the refrigerator plays a large part in our housekeeping and we must be guided in our planning by what we find there morning by morning. But still there is always a place for new dishes after combining the old ones. So first we see what we have and then decide what will best go with it."
"Do you always write down what you are going to have? Why?"