this outside resource, which is always very costly,
and invariably destroys the individuality of a repast. Many new recipes
will be given, and others little known in private kitchens, or thought
to be quite beyond the attainment of any but an accomplished _chef_. But
if strict attention be paid to small matters, and the directions
faithfully carried out, there will be no difficulty in a lady becoming
her own _chef_.

I propose to begin with sauces. This is reversing the usual mode, and
yet I think the reader will not regret the innovation. The cooking to be
taught in these pages, being emphatically what is popularly known as
"Delmonico cooking," very much depends on the excellence of the sauces
served with each dish; and as it is no time to learn to make a fine
sauce when the dish it is served with is being cooked, I think the
better plan is to give the sauces first. They will be frequently
referred to, but no repetition of the recipes will be given.

Before proceeding further I will say a few words that may save time and
patience hereafter. Of course it is not expected that any one will hope
to succeed with elaborate dishes without understanding the principles of
simple cooking, but many do this without perceiving that in that
knowledge they hold the key to very much more, and I would ask readers
who are in earnest about the matter to acquire the habit of putting two
and two together in cooking as they would in fancy-work. If you know
half a dozen embroidery or lace stitches, you see at once that you can
produce the elaborate combinations in which those stitches are used. So
it is with cooking. The most elaborate dish will only be a combination
of two or three simpler processes of cooking, _perfectly_ done--that is
a _sine qua non_--something fried, roasted, boiled, or braised to
perfection, and a sauce that no _chef_ could improve upon; but to
recognize that this is so--that when you can make a Chateaubriand sauce
or a Bearnaise perfectly, and can _saute_ a steak, the famed filets a la
Chateaubriand or a la Bearnaise are no longer a mystery, or that one who
can make clear meat jelly and roast a chicken has learned all but the
arrangement of a _chaudfroid_ in aspic--will make apparently complicated
dishes simple.

I go into these matters because I hope to cause my readers to _think_
about the recipes they will use, when they will see for themselves that
even the finest cooking is not intricate nor in any way difficul