To choose good Beef see if it be of a bright red color in the lean part, and white in the fatty portions. Reject that which has yellowish suet, or spotted unequal surface.

Healthy Mutton is of a clear, darkish red. Lamb should have the kidney fresh and fat, and in the forequarter the vein should be blue. If you buy the shoulder have your butcher remove the bone to make a place for dressing.

Young Pork should be white and firm and dry. If it be darkish or soft to the touch, it is old and stale.

The desirable features of Veal are whiteness and fatness, which show that the calf was well fed and bled.

Choose your Chickens by seeing if the breast-bone yields to the touch, if the scales on the legs be smooth, and the comb red.

Select a Goose with a clean, white skin, plump breast, and yellow feet. If the feet are red the bird is old.

A young Turkey should have his legs black and smooth, his spurs short, and his feet limber.

Roasting. - Have a brisk oven, put only enough water in the pan to prevent burning; rub a very little flour over the joint, but neither salt nor pepper. Salt draws out the juices which it is your object to keep in, and parching injures the flavor of pepper. This applies also to broiling and frying. Always pepper after an article is cooked. Carefully turn your roast once that it may be browned on both sides.

The Gravy. - When the roast comes out put it on a hot dish, carefully pouring off the fat, then pour into the pan a little boiling water and salt, and with a spoon rub off all the dried gravy on the bottom and sides of the pan. Add no flour. The gravy should be thick enough with its own richness. If you have got your gravy too thin let it boil a few minutes.

Broiling. - A brisk, clear-fire is indispensable to this mode of cooking. Let the gridiron come to a gradual heat that it may not be burning hot on the surface. Rub the bars with a bit of clean suet and lay on your steak or chop which should not be more than three-quarters of an inch in thickness. If too thick it will be overdone on the outside while inside it is still raw. Turn it but once while broiling, and when it is a delicate brown outside with a rare line inside it is finished. Lay it on a well-heated platter and dress with butter and a little salt. If you have allowed your fire to get too low do' not attempt to use the gridiron, but feed your fire anew, and if you cannot wait for it to burn low again, broil in a frying-pan following the same directions.

Boiling. - Never boil meat at a gallop. It injures the flavor and hardens the meat. Yet it must not go off the boil, as steeping gives meat an insipid taste.

Frying. - Professional cooks agree that the perfection of frying-fat is equal parts lard and beef drippings, and yet there are families where the drippings are never looked after, and all the rich fat from roast beef, pork, corn beef, and soup-bones goes to waste.

To Clarify It. - Put a little water in it, set it in boiling water and stir in a little salt. The next day it will turn out from a bowl in a solid cake. Scrape off the settlings and put it away for future use. It is as good as butter for shortening in cookies and ginger bread, and better than butter for meat frying.

Batter for Frying. - Three cups of sifted flour, mixed with three tablespoons of butter melted in warm water; pour the butter off the water into the flour first, then enough of the water to make a soft paste, which beat smooth, then more warm water till it is thick enough to mask the back of the spoon dipped into it, and salt to taste; add, the last thing, the whites of two eggs well beaten.

Dr, Merriman's Fragrant Kalliodont, Beautifies, Preserves the Teeth, and Charms all who use it.

T. S. McCool., B. A. Armstrong.

McCool & Armstrong, Manufacturers And Importers Of Picture Frame Mouldings, artists' materials, passe-partouts, window cornices and brackets, oil paintings, steel engravings & chromos.

Office and Factory, 411 Twelfth Street, Oakland, Cal.

Branch Store, San Francisco.