"I never could understand; "said "Mrs. Tingee, one day, "how the Italians can be so poor, as the papers say they are, and yet eat so much macaroni as the papers tell us they do: I should think it would break them up buying eggs to cook it with. But then," she added reflectively, "sometimes the papers say things that ain't so. Do you cook macaroni sometimes?"

"Yes ma'am, quite often."

"Do you put cheese in it?"

"Yes."

"And eggs?"

"Yes: and butter and milk and tomatoes and gravy and oysters and chicken and many more things."

"Ah; I had a girl once who wanted to make a dish of macaroni and I kept laying off to get the things together, but, somehow, I never did. Do you know, a friend of mine told me she once knew a hotel cook who never made a dish of macaroni without putting eight eggs in it! Do you think that was true?"

"Yes, ma'am; and I have no doubt but that there are hotel cooks who will even use as many as twelve, or thirteen." Then Mrs. Tingee said, "O, myl" It is a singular trait in this lady that she never seems to regard the difference between a dish for two hundred people and a dish for two or three; all she sees is the eight eggs gone at one fell swoop.

1 venture the opinion that the Italians eat macaroni alone or in soup or gravy without much thought of cheese and without any thought of eggs, and I doubt very much whether many of them would touch the dry and heavy cake of macaroni and cheese that is seen at many hotel tables in this country. There is a good example of an Italian way of preparing macaroni, spaghetti, lassagnes, fidilini and other such pastes at our No. 65; which requires neither eggs nor butter, and here is another just as good:

1/2 pound macaroni.

2 or 3 ounces cheese - or a grated cupful.

3 or 4 basting spoonfuls of fat from the roasting meat.

2 cups water or milk.

2 spoonfuls flour thickening.

A handful of crushed crackers.

'Boil the macraoni 20 minutes, then pour off the water. Put in the cheese and other ingredients and salt; turn it into a 2-quart pan. strew the crushed crackers on top and bake brown.

The flour thickening added is to form a sort of sauce in it, but not enough to cake to the macaroni together. When there is a suitable sauce or gravy ready at hand it can be used to good advantage in that way. The strained gravy from a chicken stew, for example. Cost, 9 or 10 cents tor 12 dishes.