Miss Corson. Yes; of course you can understand, ladies, that I could very soon scrape the tin off of the inside of a sauce pan with a metal spoon, a knife, or anything of that sort. Copper sauce pans should be cleaned with a rag, a little Sapolio and hot water. If they are cleaned as fast as they are used they are no more trouble to keep clean than any other sauce pan. I use in stirring simply a small pudding stick—an old-fashioned wooden pudding stick. It does not scrape the sauce pans, and there is no danger of uncooked flour accumulating on the sticks, as it does in the bowl of a spoon. If you are stirring with a spoon, some of the half-cooked flour might get in the bowl of the spoon, and then your sauce would have the taste of the raw flour. I will leave the stick in the sauce pan and pass it about so that you can see what I mean. Anyone can whittle these little sticks out, using any kind of hard wood. Do not use soft wood. You will have noticed, ladies, if you have ever put sauce of this kind, thick sauce, to keep hot, it may have grown very much thicker by standing; in such case add a little more milk or water, and a little more seasoning when you are ready to use it.

Question. How do you make perfectly clear sauce?

Miss Corson. You can make a nearly clear thick sauce by using arrow root. Of course, a clear thin sauce is simply sugar dissolved in water, with butter or flavoring as you like.

POTATOES, STEWED IN BUTTER.

The potatoes are peeled and sliced in rather small slices of even size; put them over the fire in enough salted boiling water to cover them, boil them until they begin to grow tender; not till they break, but just till they begin to grow tender; after the potatoes are boiled tender drain them, and suppose you have a pint bowl full of potatoes, use about two heaping tablespoonfuls of butter; melt the butter in a scant half cupful of milk. When the butter is melted put the potatoes into it, and with a spoon lift them very carefully from the bottom, always without breaking them, until they have absorbed the milk and butter; then season them with salt and white pepper, and they will be ready to serve. Season them palatably; I could not give you the quantity of seasoning because it would depend upon the salt that the potatoes had absorbed from the water. You should taste them first before seasoning at all, and then if they need any more salt add a very little at a time. If you simply want the potatoes nicely stewed you don’t add so much butter, a scant tablespoonful, and milk enough to moisten them; but this receipt is an exceedingly nice one—rather rich, but very nice.

(At this point the fish was done, and Miss Corson continued.)

You notice, ladies, that I take off the skin of the fish before taking it up. That is very easy; it slips off easily, and without it the fish is much nicer to serve at the table. In serving sauce with fish you pour some around it, not over it; or you serve the fish on a napkin, and the sauce in a dish, as you prefer. If you serve the fish in a folded napkin garnish it with a few sprigs of parsley, if you can get them, or with a lemon sliced, if you do not live—as some unfortunate people do—“fifty miles from a lemon.” Lemons are very nice always with any kind of fish. Parsley can be bought here all winter long. I have learned that from the advertisements in the papers already; and a little of it makes a great difference in the appearance of a dish.

Question. Can you tell us how we can tell whether a frozen fish is stale or fresh?

Miss Corson. You can after you have thawed it in cold water; you can tell by the smell. (Laughter.) The way to thaw frozen fish is to put it into perfectly cold water and keep it in a cold place until all the frost is drawn out. Of course the most of the fish in this market would be frozen in the winter. This one has been frozen.

Question. Can you tell us how to carve a whole fish?