“Well, there’s just father and Lonny and France and I, and mostly father brings home things from the delicatessen. And sometimes we roast meat and just eat at it till it’s gone. I’m not old enough to know much about housekeeping, father says. But Lonny cooks sometimes.”
Winona and Louise both stared at her.
“I’d go crazy,” said Louise frankly. “I should think you’d get so you never wanted to eat anything.”
“Anyway, you can ‘try this on your piano’ when you go home,” Winona threw in hastily, giving Louise a furtive, if thorough, pinch as she passed her, for she had seen Adelaide color up. “Boiled dressing’s easy. You know how to make drawn butter, don’t you—white sauce?”
“Oh, yes,” said Adelaide, rising.
“Well,” explained Winona, “when you melt the butter in the pan to mix with the flour, you add some mustard, just a pinch, and salt and pepper. Then when you’ve put in the flour, and the milk, and it’s just going to thicken, you put in the yolk of an egg. When it’s cold you thin it with vinegar. That isn’t hard, is it?”
Adelaide was swiftly following directions as Winona talked.
“Thin the egg with milk, and beat it a little—that’s right,” said Winona. “There—now take it off. The egg only wants to cook a minute. Now all you have to do is wait till it cools and add the vinegar, and—there’s your dressing!”
“Why, it isn’t a bit hard!” said Adelaide wonderingly.
“Nor a bit expensive,” said Winona. “As for the salad, you can make salad out of any kind of vegetable that will cut up.”