A Well-Kept Home : Household Traditions and Simple Secrets from a French Grandmother [Hardcover]

Laura Fronty (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 21, 2001

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.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Universe (April 21, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789305283
• ISBN-13: 978-0789305282
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 0.7 x 11.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #301,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

188 of 205 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not very useful or safe., April 5, 2002

By 

KittenWithaWhip (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Well-Kept Home : Household Traditions and Simple Secrets from a French Grandmother (Hardcover)

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.

72 of 79 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing, July 27, 2002

By 

djonn "djonn" (Toronto, On) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: A Well-Kept Home : Household Traditions and Simple Secrets from a French Grandmother (Hardcover)

This book is nothing but a hardcover magazine. Gorgeous pictures, useless content. These are not the memories of a French grandmother so much as a big... ad for you to buy a whole lot of products, try out some weekend project that never ends, give up and go out and buy more useless products. There are much better books on this topic for people who are serious about the running of their home but are mostly, unfortunately out of print.

41 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Warning -- Same Book, Different Title, July 16, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: A Well-Kept Home : Household Traditions and Simple Secrets from a French Grandmother (Hardcover)

I only gave this book three stars because it is the same book as "Secrets of Good Housekeeping" also by Laura Fronty -- same content, lovely photo's, etc., only difference is the title.