Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House [Paperback]

The classic bestselling resource for every American home. Choosing fabrics, cleaning china, keeping the piano in tune, making a good fire, folding a fitted sheet, setting the dining room table, keeping surfaces free of food pathogens, watering plants, removing stains --Home Comfortsaddresses the meanings as well as the methods of hands -- on housekeeping to help you manage everyday chores, find creative solutions to modern domestic dilemmas, and enhance the experience of life at home.
Further topics include: Making up a bed with hospital corners, Expert recommendations for safe food storage, Reading care labels (and sometimes carefully disregarding them), Keeping your home free of dust mites and other allergens, Home safety and security, A summary of laws applicable to the home, including privacy, accident liability, contracts, and domestic employees and more in this practical, good-humored, historic, philosophical, even romantic, guidebook to the art of household management.
Contents

Preface

BEGINNINGS

1 My Secret Life

2 Easing into a Routine

3 Neatening

FOOD

4 The Whys and Wherefores of Home Cooking

5 Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

6 Serving Meals

7 Stimulating Beverages

8 The Center of a Dwelling

9 Kitchen Culture

10 To Market, to Market

11 Cold Comfort

12 Bread and Honey

13 Safe Food

CLOTH

14 The Fabric of Your Home

15 Transformations

16 The Natural Fibers

17 The Man-Made Fibers and Blends

18 Fabrics That Work

19 Carefully Disregarding Care Labels

20 Gathering, Storing, and Sorting Laundry

21 Laundering

22 Drying the Laundry

23 Ironing

24 Folding Clothes and Linens

25 How to Launder Tricky Items

26 Common Laundry Mishaps and Problems

27 Sanitizing the Laundry

28 Removing Stains from Fabrics

CLEl!