I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife's badly cooked dinners and untidy ways.
Isabella BeetonFrugality and economy are virtues without which no household can prosper. Whatever the income, waste of all kinds should be most sternly repressed ... Economy and frugality must never, however, be allowed to degenerate into meanness.
Isabella BeetonThe half-hour before dinner has always been considered as the great ordeal through which the mistress, in giving a dinner-party, will either pass with flying colours, or lose many of her laurels.
Isabella Beeton