"Are you going to put rice in it?"
"I'm going to take down the rice in a separate little bowl this time because I don't know whether Mr. Emerson likes rice."
"Be sure you don't over-cook it. Every grain should be separate."
"I learned the very simplest way to cook rice. Wash it and put it into boiling salted water, a quart of water to a cupful of rice. Putting the rice in will stop the boiling, so when it boils up again you give it just one stir to keep the kernels from sticking to the bottom of the saucepan. You mustn't stir it any more or you'll break the grains. It will be done in about twenty minutes. Then you pour it lightly into a colander and turn it lightly from the colander into your serving dish, and there you are, every grain separate."
"If you save the rice water it serves as a vegetable stock for a soup."
"Our teacher told us a story about the value of rice water. It was in a famine time in India and some of the natives went to the English and said that if they could have the water the camp rice was cooked in they wouldn't ask for anything else."
"They knew how strong and good it is. Mr. Emerson won't want more than a cupful of chicken broth this afternoon—what are you going to do with the rest of it?"
"One gill of it will make chicken custard with the beaten yolks of two eggs and a pinch of salt. You cook it in a double boiler until it is thick."
"That ought to taste good and be nourishing, too."
"I shall put on another gill of the broth, with a teaspoonful of Irish moss if I can find the kind that is prepared in powder form. After that has boiled about fifteen minutes I shall strain it through a piece of cheesecloth into a cup and when it has stiffened and I'm ready to serve it, I'll turn it out on a pretty little plate and lay a sprig of parsley on top."