As it was, all I learned of her, to my sorrow, was a detestation
of bad cookery, and a firm conviction that that which was exquisite was
both wholesomer and more economical than any other. Dr. Kitchener, the
clever and amiable author of that amusing book, "The Cook's Oracle" (his
name was a _bona fide_ appellation, and not a drolly devised appropriate
_nom de plume_, and he was a doctor of physic), was a great friend and
admirer of hers; and she is the "accomplished lady" by whom several
pages of that entertaining kitchen companion were furnished to him.
The mode of opening one of her chapters, "I always bone my meat" (_bone_
being the slang word of the day for steal), occasioned much merriment
among her friends, and such a look of ludicrous surprise and reprobation
from Liston, when he read it, as I still remember.
My mother, moreover, devised a most admirable kind of _jujube_, made of
clarified gum-arabic, honey, and lemon, with which she kept my father
supplied during all the time of his remaining on the stage; he never
acted without having recourse to it, and found it more efficacious in
sustaining the voice and relieving the throat under constant exertion
than any other preparation that he ever tried; this she always made for
him herself.
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