LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

and the accessories of the occasion, the ribbon bows, the cupids, the heart-shaped cakes and ices all make the table attractive. Lay it as daintily as possible with your most elaborate doilies, your prettiest candle-shades, and all your odd little dishes of silver. Of course, pink is the colour to choose, and the more pink roses you can have, the better. A very beautiful table which will suggest the day at first sight is set with five tall slender glass vases, one in the centre and four grouped around it at intervals filled with roses. This arrangement really takes no more flowers than is required for one large bunch, but the effect is of far more. The florist will sell or rent to you a large snow-white dove, the emblem of Venus, which can be suspended from the ceiling with an invisible wire; you can tie a number of narrow pink ribbons to his feet, or to his bill, and draw them down to the table, fastening two or three by each plate with a pink rose. If you have a large bisque Cupid it will do quite as well as the dove, and if you prefer to use vines instead of ribbon, these will form a sort of bower under which the meal is served. Put the central vase on a lace centrepiece laid over pink silk, and if your doilies are of lace they, too, may be lined with pink for this one occasion. There are candle-shades made of small paper roses which are very inexpensive and pretty, and these may be used with pink candles in silver sticks. If you fancy the idea, large pink satin bows laid on the corners of the table, if it is a square one, or at intervals if the table is round, add to the colour. Fill your bonbon dishes with small heart-shaped candies, pink-iced cakes of the same shape, and candied rose leaves, in addition to those filled with the usual olives and salted almonds.

      Your guest cards will of course be valentines, and you can buy them in any variety and at any price, but the most appropriate are those painted with old-fashioned figures, or with Watteau-like groups. Of course, if these valentines are on heart-shaped cardboard they are still better; it is easy for one who paints in water-colour to decorate such pieces of board with figures and an appropriate rhyme or a quotation, adding the name of the guest and the date of the luncheon. Besides these cards, there are boxes in heart shapes of all prices, from the plain ones which need the addition of sketches, to those of satin which come from Paris and cost a small fortune. The plainer boxes may take the place of guest cards, and so serve a double duty; in any case, the boxes may be filled either with tiny candy hearts or with rose leaves such as are in the small dishes.

      The sandwiches served with the meal are of course to be cut out with a heart-shaped cutter, as are the cakes, and the latter should have small silver arrows stuck through each of them.

MENUClams on the Half-ShellCream of Spinach Soup with Whipped CreamWhitebait. Brown Bread and ButterChicken Mousse. Stoned OlivesChops with Peas. Bermuda PotatoesGrape Fruit Salad. Cheese SandwichesIce Cream Hearts. CakesCoffee. Bonbons

      The cream of spinach soup is made by cooking the vegetable until very tender, pressing it through a sieve and adding hot, thickened milk; a little whipped cream is to be put in the bouillon cups before the soup is poured in. The whitebait is one of the most delicious things in our winter markets; it is a very tiny fish of delicate flavour, and while it is rather expensive at first thought, it is not so in reality, for it is so light that a pound goes a long way. It is cooked after being dredged with flour, by frying for only a moment in a wire basket in hot fat, and served with a bit of lemon on rounds of lace paper; brown bread and butter in thin strips is passed with it. If it is not to be had, and of course outside a city it is difficult to obtain, lobster Newburgh, made from the canned fish, is an excellent substitute. About a pint of the meat is needed for eight persons; a half-pint of cream is put on the stove with the yolks of two well-beaten eggs; when it thickens the lobster is added, then the seasoning and last a dash of sherry, and it is served in ramekins or paper cases.

      The chicken mousse is a cold dish, made by chopping and pounding the cooked white meat of chicken until it is a paste, seasoning, and adding enough chicken stock in which gelatine has been dissolved to thoroughly moisten it; it is then whipped with an egg-beater until light, pressed in a pan, and allowed to harden; sometimes in addition to the stock a half cup of whipped cream is mixed in, and this is an improvement to the ordinary rule for making it. When it is to be used it is sliced and cut out in heart-shaped pieces; two stoned olives are put on the plate with each piece, or, if you prefer it, a spoonful of sauce tartare.

      The ices may be of strawberry cream or of raspberry ice or a mixture of both, they are to be heart-shaped, as has been said, and each one should have a sugar arrow stuck through it. If you prefer roses to hearts, these should be laid on lace papers. If this course must be prepared at home, the cream can easily be coloured a rose tint with fruit colour, and a spoonful served in a dainty little box made of pasteboard covered with rose crêpe paper, cut to resemble petals of the flower, tied with ribbons to match.

      WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY LUNCHEON

      The twenty-second of February suggests that an almost unlimited amount of ingenuity may be spent in preparing a meal in honour of the Father of our Country. There is opportunity for decoration such as few gala days offer, and this may easily be the prettiest luncheon of the year.

      If the meal is an informal one a centrepiece may be arranged which will amuse the guests. Get at the florist's a small dead plant, such as an azalea, and pick off some of the twigs, making a symmetrical tree of diminutive size. At a Japanese shop you can buy the pretty artificial cherry blossoms used to set off the bric-à-brac in the windows, and these can be fastened to the twigs with invisible wire, the little tree may stand in a low pot filled with moss, and at its base may be a small hatchet. With this, your candle-shades should be a sort of rosy white. You might use in preference to this a bunch of the cherry branches in a vase in the centre.

      Or, if you prefer to have the Colonial colours, choose a large dark-blue bowl and fill it with yellow tulips, and have all the dishes, or at least several sets of plates, of dark-blue ware; if one does not own Staffordshire of her grandmother's or the beautiful Chinese Canton china, still she need not despair, for the shops are full of a cheap and pretty imitation of the latter which gives an admirable effect. The candle-shades should be yellow, in tulip pattern preferably, and the candlesticks of old-fashioned silver.

      At each plate lay a bonbon box in the form of a paper hatchet with the handle filled with red and white candies, and tie a bunch of artificial cherries to it with narrow ribbon. You can get at the printer's cards with the head of Washington which a line of gold paint and a bowknot will transform into a miniature. Fold your napkins into little cocked hats, and stand small silk flags in your dishes of almonds and olives. In addition to all this, you can send to Mount Vernon for small souvenirs in the shape of hatchets, supposably made of the actual historic cherry-tree, which may take the place of the paper hatchets at the plates.

      Should your luncheon be given for the members of some patriotic association, you might add the name of some famous Revolutionary battle to your guest cards, or possibly a quotation from some well-known novel which has historic characters, such as "Richard Carvel" or "The Virginians."

MENUGrape Fruit with Brandied CherriesCream of Chicken SoupSmelts with Sauce TartareFried Sweetbreads. Mushroom SauceCarrots in Cases. Bermuda PotatoesCelery and Cabbage Salad in PeppersIce Cream Hatchets. CakesCoffee. Bonbons

      Cut the grape fruit in half and remove the seeds and core, loosen the pulp around the sides and put in the cavity in the middle a couple of preserved or brandied cherries, with a little of their juice. The soup is a strong chicken stock to which cream has been added; a spoonful of whipped cream is put on top of each cup as it is served, and hot crackers are passed with it.

      Put a little water-cress on the plate with the smelts as well as the sauce.

      Sweetbreads are especially good with both mushrooms and carrots, though one does not often see the latter vegetable with them, but creamed, in small paper or paste cases, they are by no means to be despised, above all, if they are the new ones which have just come to market.

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен

Скачать книгу