The favor with which the first edition of this book has been received by those who were interested in the subjects of which it treats, is eminently gratifying to both author and publishers. It has occasioned the purpose to make a second edition of the book, even more complete and helpful than the first. In making the revision, wherever the text has suggested a new thought that thought has been inserted; under the various headings new recipes have been added, each in its proper place, and the number of illustrations has been increased from thirty-seven to fifty. A more complete table of contents has been presented, and also a list of the illustrations; the alphabetical index has been revised and made especially full and complete. By many women cooking is considered, at best, a homely art, -a necessary kind of drudgery; and the composition, if not the consumption, of salads and chafing-dish productions has been restricted, hitherto, chiefly to that half of the race "who cook to please themselves." But, since women have become anxious to compete with men in any and every walk of life, they, too, are desirous of becoming adepts in tossing up an appetizing salad or in stirring a creamy rarebit. And yet neither a pleasing salad, especially if it is to be composed of cooked materials, nor a tempting rarebit can be evolved, save by happy accident, without an accurate knowledge of the fundamental principles that underlie all cookery.