Get Milk: 1922

There sits Miss Hoffman, blissfully unaware of the GIGANTIC thumbprints all over her wall!

This lady is wearing a 'Hair-Net'. Wouldn't want any stray hairs to disrupt a gourmet experiment. Or perhaps, Hair-Nets were very popular at the time. One previous Shorpy photo showed a drug store with a big sale on hair nets - nets actually made of human hair!

I don't believe she is really cooking anything, just posing for the photo. Reason? No apron. At that time, no one cooked without an apron, particularly in a "dress" outfit such as hers. The labor involved with laundry was a primary reason, didn't want to get your clothes dirty before you had to.

It terrifies me just to look at that pressure cooker. No real safety measures on them in those days. I had an aunt who was almost killed by one and bore the scars to prove it. Not unusual occurance from those beasts.

[No question that it's posed. The process of setting up the camera and lights and exposing a large glass plate didn't lend itself to candid photography. - tterrace]

CCl4? Are you sure?
All the carbon-tet extinguishers I recall from the 50's-early 60's were the Bunn coffee carafe-style bottles meant to be thrown at the fire and shattered. This looks more like a pressurized dry powder model.

DaveB

Just the thing for the laboratory.

Looks like broken-up pieces of (stale?) bread in the bowl, to which she'll be adding that milk and whatever else she'll need to make one of her legendary Betsy You Bread Puddings.

Take a deep breath, and use the carbon tetrachloride fire extinguisher. It's effective, but poisonous.

Either it's stopped or the Photographer is quick, it shows the same time in both pictures, 11:37 a.m.
23 minutes till Lunch.

What is that over the sink, a bread box with a window shade?