A Well-Kept Home : Household Traditions and Simple Secrets from a French Grandmother by Laura Fronty, Yves Duronsoy

Living Mind
Home Improvement

Household Hints Book

A Well-Kept Home : Household Traditions and Simple Secrets from a French Grandmother
by Laura Fronty, Yves Duronsoy (Photographer)

Hardcover: 160 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.72 x 11.34 x 8.76
Publisher: Universe Books; (April 2001)
ISBN: 0789305283

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Book Description: The frantic quality of modern life and our increasing reliance on technology and on manufactured goods to ensure the smooth running of our homes has submerged our awareness of the inherited and seasonal patterns of effective domestic household management. A Well-Kept Home revives the more natural methods used by our forebears to run their homes, reflecting on the traditional way that earlier generations cooked, cleaned, decorated, groomed and gardened.

In this exquisitely illustrated book, Laura Fronty draws on her own grandmother's life experiences in the home and the garden, providing helpful tips and natural solutions for effective food preparation, cleaning methods for clothes and the interior, restorative beauty treatments and basic approaches to gardening. She emphasises the satisfaction gained from even the most mundane of tasks and offers indispensable tips for activities that cover a variety of domestic themes. They range from making bitter orange marmalade or instant shortcrust pastry, lighting a wood fire, treating wooden floors with wax, protecting clothes from mothballs, mixing ivy water for cleaning delicate fabrics, pruning rose bushes, to preparing lily oil as a face moisturiser.

A Well-Kept Home transforms our approach to the daily chores surrounding the upkeep of our home. The practical advice and natural recipes make it possible to take real pleasure in those essential household duties, while at the same time evoking the atmosphere and spirit of a time gone by.

Customer Reviews
Not very useful or safe., April 5, 2002
Reviewer: A reader from Los Angeles, CA USA
About 50% of this book offers advice that is either useless or dangerous. A few potted geraniums on your windowsill will NOT keep away mosquitoes. You do not make "Homemade soap" by squashing together the remains of previously-used soap. Ditto for "Homemade cheese". Anyone who tries to "save" rancid butter by massaging in a few tablespoons of baking soda and water is just asking for a bellyache. Do you have any "Spanish White" around your house? Neither do I. If I'm going to make a special trip to "any local hardware store" to pick up a tube of Spanish White and a vial of "methelated spirits" so I can blend them into silver-polishing paste, why wouldn't I just snap up a cheap tube of silver polish and save myself the added expense and mixing effort? The worst advice in the entire book is this: "Give your apricot, plum or cherry jam an almond taste by cooking a few crushed fruit stones, enclosed in a small muslin bag, at the same time as the fruits." That almond taste you've just added is CYANIDE, a deadly poison found concentrated in fruit pits and usually used to execute gas-chamber prisoners in a really horrible way. Do you really want to add that to your jam? Wouldn't you rather use an inexpensive and non-poisonous almond extract, almond milk or even marzipan paste instead? And for those of you who argue that a little can't hurt - how much arsenic or lead do you usually like to add to your food? Cyanide is MUCH worse. How much is too much? The authors certainly don't say. They don't even mention that it's poison.

If anything, the photographs in the book are exquisite, and if you study them for decorating ideas, gardening ideas and color combinations, the book is certainly worth a dent in your credit or library card. The prose, however, needs more than a little tightening up and perhaps some fact-checking.

A breath of life from an older time, November 13, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from Taunton, MA USA
A little of everything...cooking, cleaning, beauty products, garden lore. Lovely photographs.

If you're interested in "old ways" or in France, you might also enjoy REALLY RURAL, a book by Marie-France Boyer.

A Well-kept Home: Practical Advice, September 24, 2001
Reviewer: Victoria Fuller from Portland, OR USA
Am pleased with this book on two levels. 1)Visually exciting: beautiful photos giving a feel for a France that people really live in. 2)'Simple' recipes for household challenges: I am an antiques dealer and have been searching for repair/cleaning answers that don't come out of a bottle. The common ingredients listed are easy enough to come by and have worked wonders on my antique linens, copper and brass pieces, etc. Overall, a fun book for those of us who wish we could spend more than just 'vacation time' in France.

Homemaking, not just housekeeping!, June 6, 2001
Reviewer: A reader from Seattle, WA USA
A wonderful book! Just good. old-fashioned sense and solutions for living without modern chemical products. Simple "recipes" for cleaning, preserving, scenting your home. Very inspiring, too. There is joy in having a well-kept home and it's inviting to others, too. Complete without being overwhelming. Uncomplicated. The "old ways" are easy to fit into an over-burdened, stressed-out lifestyle and easily replace methods and rituals already used.

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