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

A classic bestselling resource for every household,Home Comfortshelps you manage everyday chores, find creative solutions to domestic dilemmas, and enhance the experience of life at home.

“Home Comfortsis to the house whatJoy of Cookingis to food.”—USA TODAY

Home Comfortsis an engaging and comprehensive book about housekeeping. It is a lively and readable guide for both beginners and experts in all the domestic arts. From keeping surfaces free of germs, watering plants, removing stains, folding a fitted sheet, cleaning china, tuning a piano, lighting a fire, setting the dining room table—this guide covers everything that people might want to do for themselves in their homes.

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, this is a practical, good-humored, philosophical guidebook to the art and science of household management.Cheryl Mendelson is a Harvard Law School graduate, a sometime philosophy professor, and a novelist (Morningside Heights and Love, Work, Children). In 1999, she authored the classic bestselling resource for every American household, Home Comforts. Born into a rural family in Greene County, Pennsylvania, she lives in New York City with her husband.
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 ThelÀ