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Kitabı oku: «Gala-Day Luncheons: A Little Book of Suggestions», sayfa 3

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March

With March comes a lull in the social world. Lent holds sway, whether one professes to observe it or not. Dinners, receptions, dances, are all postponed for a time, and quiet teas and luncheons are the accepted forms of entertaining. A Lenten luncheon gives opportunity for a meal without meat, one which may be a pleasant change from the usual menu, and still will not suggest a fast.

A LENTEN LUNCHEON

For this no colour is so appropriate as violet, and luckily this is the month when the flower itself appears most plentifully in market. In arranging the table it may be well to depart for once from the rule of having all the linen in white, and use any violet-embroidered pieces you happen to have. Such a centrepiece is especially pretty, under the real flowers, and violet and white china, if you have it, will make an attractive table. In the centre have a basket of rough green straw tied with ribbons of violet, and filled with a mass of the flowers arranged to look like one large, loose bunch, but really in a quantity of small bunches which are to be given to the guests as they leave the table at the close of the meal, unless you prefer to have a knot of the flowers at each place, tied with narrow ribbons. This giving of individual bunches of flowers at the beginning of the meal, although always a graceful and pretty custom, is not seen just now as much as formerly.

If you use candles, have them of violet, with plain violet shades edged with the flowers sewed to the paper or silk foundation; or else have plain shades of heavy paper painted with wreaths of the flowers. Your cards may match these, being squares of cardboard almost covered with a wreath of violets, with a bowknot painted on it, and the name of the guest written across the flowers. Your bonbon dishes may be filled with candied violets and other violet-tinted sweets.

Oysters on the Half-Shell

Bouillon

Halibut Timbales with Lobster Sauce

Salmon Croquettes with Peas

Shad with Roe. New Potatoes. Cucumbers

Violet Cabbage Salad

Brown Bread and Butter. Olives

Violet Ice Cream. Cakes

Coffee. Bonbons

If shad is not in market as yet, though it should be in March, use any broiled fish; if white fish is obtainable, nothing is nicer, especially if it is planked. The salad is an odd one; a head of purple cabbage is taken, the leaves turned back and the centre cut out; a white cabbage is shredded and mixed with as much shredded celery and stiff mayonnaise, and this is put into the purple cabbage head, and it is passed on a round platter to the guests.

The ice cream is a plain one coloured violet with fruit colour; it is put in a circular border mould and turned when firm out on a bed of whipped cream; the centre of the mould is heaped with this same whipped cream, and over the whole a quantity of candied violets is sprinkled. On the edge of the platter a wreath of natural violets is arranged with their leaves, making a really beautiful dish. If this seems too elaborate, or if the flowers are not abundant, fill meringue shells with the violet cream and tie two together with narrow violet ribbon and lay on rounds of lace paper on each plate; the cream should rather more than fill the shells.

If you prefer a menu with less fish and some meat, this would do: —

Oranges

Bisque of Oyster Soup

Halibut Timbales with Shrimp Sauce

Chicken and Pim-olas in Cases

Sliced Breast of Duck. Currant Jelly

Potato Roses

Apricot Sherbet

Sardine Salad. Mayonnaise

Violet Ice Cream. Cakes

Coffee. Bonbons

The oranges are to be prepared as was the grape fruit; that is, the pulp is loosened from the sides after a thick slice has been cut from the top, the core is taken out, and powdered sugar and sherry, if you use it, put in. The creamed chicken has chopped pim-olas added to it to give a delicious flavour. The salad is an aspic with one sardine embedded in each small mould. The potato roses are made by pressing mashed potato through a tube in spirals, and browning in the oven.

Sometimes one is moved to give a luncheon "Just for fun," on some gala day which suggests that informality will be in keeping with its atmosphere. Of course one invites to such a meal only such of one's friends as will appreciate the spirit in which the luncheon is given; nothing is more discouraging than to have one's little jokes fall flat, as they are sure to, unless all are in sympathy.

A ST. PATRICK'S DAY LUNCHEON

requires kindred spirits to really enjoy it.

Of course the meal should be carried out in green, Ireland's colour, and potato salad should be one of the distinctive Irish dishes. Have a white and green centrepiece, and if you have any green and white china have it conspicuously used, and for decoration get from the florist a wire harp, typical of that which "Once thro' Tara's halls," and cover its frame and strings with delicate green vines, letting their ends trail on the table. Stand small green flags among your candies and olives, and have pistache nuts among the salted almonds. If you use candles, have them green with their shades decorated in shamrock, which is like a small clover. For cards use the same thing, painted in little bunches tied with ribbon, or have a sketch of a typical Irish peasant, or of a tiny white-washed cottage with vines as one sees so many in Ireland. Under the name of the guest put a quotation from Moore, the poet of the country, the more familiar the better. Have your bonbons in the form of small potatoes, or else give each person one of the bonbon boxes which look exactly like large Irish potatoes, and fill it with green candies.

Grape Fruit

Cream of Green Pea Soup

Shad Roe with Sauce Tartare

Chops, with Peas and Bermuda Potatoes

Lemon Sherbet in Lemon Baskets

Potato Salad. Lettuce Sandwiches

Pistache Ice Cream. Cakes

Coffee

There is just enough green about this meal to suggest the day, without trying to have the whole in the colour, a thing seldom seen now, though not long ago it was thought a very pretty fancy.

This potato salad is a very delicious one, not to be despised because of its plebeian name. It is made by mixing equal parts of cold boiled potatoes cut into cubes with olives in rather large bits and blanched English walnuts, the whole covered with a stiff mayonnaise. The sandwiches passed with this are made by spreading thin slices of bread and butter with leaves of lettuce and mayonnaise, rolling them and tying with a narrow green ribbon.

The ice cream may be either a melon mould of French cream covered with a thick layer of pistache, or else a brick of the pistache with a centre of lemon ice. The little cakes should be iced with green.

QUOTATIONS FROM MOORE

"When friends are nearest, when joys are dearest, oh, then remember me."
"Here still is the smile that no cloud can o'ercast,
And a heart and a hand all thine own to the last."
"You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will,
But the scent of the roses will hang round it still."
"Oh, there are looks and tones that dart
An instant sunshine through the heart."
"There's nothing half so sweet in life as love's young dream."

A CHRISTENING LUNCHEON

The day that the baby is christened is surely a gala day, and one that admits a very dainty and beautiful luncheon after the service. Of course the colour of the decorations, whether in the parlours or the dining-room, should be white, and the flowers should be the delicate ones suggestive of childhood, such as white violets, Roman hyacinths, lilies of the valley, and daisies; these should be mingled with asparagus fern and other airy green, and used as lavishly as one's purse will permit. On the table spread for the luncheon there should be only white decorations. For this occasion it is more appropriate to use a cloth of plain damask or heavy linen and lace rather than the usual doilies, the centrepiece being of lace. If candles are used, they should be white with shades of silver; the appointments of the table should be, as far as possible, of glass, and all the bonbons and other decoration of white, such as candy baskets filled with crystallised fruits.

The centrepiece may be a wicker cradle painted white and tied with white ribbons, filled with delicate flowers and asparagus ferns, and the ices may be in cradle shape also.

Cream of Corn Soup

Timbale of Halibut in Melon Shape

Lobster Sauce

Chicken Breasts with Celery Sauce

Potato Balls

Orange Sherbet

Sweetbreads in Aspic with White Mayonnaise

Ices in Forms. Angels' Food

Coffee with Whipped Cream

The fish is prepared by putting a pound and a half of boiled halibut through a sieve, adding a teacup of whipped cream, seasoning, and the whites of five eggs well beaten; the whole is put in a buttered mould and steamed for half an hour, turned out on a round platter with the lobster sauce around it, and passed. The sauce for the chicken is made by pressing stewed celery through a sieve, adding seasoning and thickening. Stewed celery may be served with the chicken in place of this sauce.

The sweetbreads are cleaned, blanched by throwing in cold water when taken from that in which they have been boiled, and cut in bits; they are then seasoned and put in small moulds and aspic, or melted beef extract, and dissolved gelatine is poured over them. When they are served they are put on lettuce leaves and a white mayonnaise is put by the side of each.

The cream may be in the form of cradles, as has been suggested, or a white cream may be served in spun sugar cases, or, if neither of these is to be had, a plain cream may be served in slices with whipped cream around each. The cake should be passed in a large iced loaf, and the coffee should have a spoonful of whipped cream on top.

With the last course a large silver tray may be carried around the table with a mass of white roses and asparagus fern on it, which proves to separate readily into individual roses, each one holding a tiny card bearing the name of the newly named baby, which the guests will doubtless like to preserve as souvenirs of the day.

To alter this menu a trifle for those who do not fancy a sherbet and a cream in the same luncheon, have for dessert small moulds of whipped cream set with gelatine, filled with chopped almonds and flavoured with sherry; serve a spoonful of whipped cream with each. This is a good dish and one that is easily prepared, and may be substituted in any luncheon for the suggested cream when that is not just what is wanted.

April

April brings many other good things beside the showers typical of the month; summer now begins to declare itself, and flowers, fruits, and fresh vegetables are in season. Easter usually comes in April, and brings not only a religious festival but a gala day as well, for Easter Monday is holiday time the world over. To keep it hospitably, let us have an

EASTER LUNCHEON

For this, no flowers are so appropriate as jonquils, for they are the colour of spring sunshine, and have a suggestion of gaiety all their own. They do not lend themselves to any arrangement other than the massing of them in a bowl, but they do blend well with violets; and if your luncheon is very elaborate, the two may be used, the jonquils in the centre and the violets in a wreath around the bowl, or in smaller bowls about the table. A mahogany table is at its best with yellow flowers, each setting off the other; but whatever the table, lay it with doilies; if you have a yellow and white centrepiece, use it, but if not, choose a white one. Candles are not to be used in summer weather, unless, as one sometimes sees them by way of decoration, they are unlighted.

In addition to your little dishes of radishes, almonds, candied ginger, and other relishes on the table, have some filled with Easter eggs in candy. Each guest may have a tiny, downy chicken at her plate, such as fill the shops at this season, or if you prefer, a box in the shape of an egg, filled with bonbons, or rather candy eggs. These boxes come in all prices, ranging from a few cents for those of plain cardboard to the expensive ones in satin which are imported and cost an alarming sum; one will have no trouble in finding something pretty within her means.

The ice cream for an Easter luncheon may be very attractive; it comes in various egg forms from the caterer, but the prettiest is that which is in small eggs of ice and cream, in different sizes, served in a nest of spun sugar of a straw colour. There is also a large form in which a hen sits on a larger nest of the same sort with little chickens peeping from under her wings, but this is rather too elaborate for a luncheon. If all caterers' forms are out of reach, the best substitute is made by serving rounded spoonfuls of a very yellow cream as nearly like eggs as possible. The menu for the luncheon should consist principally of chicken and eggs in different styles.

Clams on the Half-Shell

Cream of Chicken Soup

Green Peppers Filled with Creamed Salmon

Patties of Sweetbreads and Mushrooms

Chicken in Rice Border. New Potatoes

Lemon and Peppermint Ice

Egg Salad. Cheese Straws

Ice Cream in Egg Forms. Cake

Coffee. Bonbons

The peppers are prepared by cutting off the small end and filling them with creamed salmon, heating them in the oven before serving. The patties are to be purchased at the bakery and filled with a mixture of sweetbreads and canned mushrooms. The chicken in rice is a delicious dish, and one easily prepared, but seldom seen. The white meat of two or if necessary three chickens is stewed until tender, then cut into pieces about four inches by two, and put in the centre of a border of boiled rice which has been turned out on a round platter; a sauce made of the strained chicken stock, thickened and with cream added until it is white in colour, is then poured over the whole. If sherry is used it should be added the last thing.

The sherbet is odd; make a lemon ice and divide it; colour one half light green and flavour with essence of peppermint; serve the two ices together in glass cups, one layer of each.

The salad is made by cutting a head of lettuce into strips with the scissors, until it looks like grass, and putting this in a sort of nest shape on the plate with the yolks of hard-boiled eggs in a group in the centre and mayonnaise in a stiff spoonful on top. The cake served with the cream should be what is called sunshine cake, an angels' food to which the yolks of the eggs has been added.

Another Easter luncheon may be arranged in green and white, which is even more beautiful and stately than this in yellow. For this, have a centrepiece of Easter lilies in a tall slender glass vase, or have three such vases down the table, if it is an oblong one, or several grouped around one larger one in the middle if it is round. Have guest cards painted with Easter lilies, and use only white and green decorations of bonbons on the table, – ribbon candies are pretty, or candy baskets in green filled with white candies. If you use candles on the table, have the shades represent lilies, inverted. The little cakes may be iced in green, and the colours carried out in the ice cream, which may be purchased in beautiful forms of lilies, the flower being of lemon ice and the leaves of pistache cream. Or, if the cream must be home-made, you may have it of the pistache and serve it in a bed of whipped cream in rounded spoonfuls. Or, by way of still another method, have a plain white cream and serve it with a spray of maiden-hair fern on each plate.

A SHAKESPEARIAN LUNCHEON

By a curious coincidence, Shakespeare's birthday and the day on which he died are the same, – the twenty-third of April; so this date is peculiarly appropriate for a luncheon to a literary club, or a group of literary friends. There is ample scope here for all sorts of Shakespearian suggestions, from views of his home, or sketches of Anne Hathaway's cottage on the cards, to quotations taken from one play, or from many; for reminders of some one heroine, or suggestions of some historic event. One might have a Rosalind or Juliet luncheon, or carry out in one of half a dozen ways some play which a class has been studying.

The flowers should certainly be English, either roses or primroses, and the decorations should be rather simple, as in keeping with the classic nature of the presiding genius of the day. The cards might bear a cut of his head, or each guest might have a small plaster bust, preferably one of the odd coloured ones which are sold in Stratford; the plain plaster ones are easily coloured; or, if these little busts are not easily procured, get the small Japanese masks which are so artistic; they cost but a few cents each, and the expressions will convey the idea of comedy and tragedy.

Strawberries will be in market in cities by the latter part of April, and these will make a first course.

Strawberries

Bouillon

Soft-Shell Crabs

Broiled Mushrooms on Toast

Chops. Peas. French Fried Potatoes

Chocolate. Lemon and Peppermint Ice

Tomato and Lettuce Salad. French Dressing

Cheese Straws

Coffee Mousse. Cakes. Bonbons

The strawberries should be served with their hulls on, with a spoonful of powdered sugar on each plate; this may be moulded in a pyramid by pressing it into a little paper horn Of course finger bowls should be placed on the table at each plate.

The mousse may be either in a melon form or in slices, as is more convenient, but a little whipped cream served with it is an improvement in either case. Having this dessert, coffee is not offered at the close of the meal, as is usually done, but a cup of chocolate is passed with the chop course. The mousse is made by whipping sweetened cream, strongly flavoured with black coffee, until it is perfectly stiff, and packing it in a mould and burying it in ice and salt for at least four hours before it is needed.

If a breakfast is desired for this Shakespeare celebration, as possibly may be if given for a club or class, this luncheon may be easily transformed into one. Breakfasts and luncheons differ principally in the hour at which the meal is served, a breakfast being at twelve and a luncheon at one or half after one. It is also customary to begin a breakfast with fruit, and often, though not always, the meal concludes with cheese and coffee rather than with a sweet. This menu might be altered to cover these requirements, for as it begins with strawberries there need be no change until the final course, except that the chocolate should be omitted. Instead of the mousse serve crême Gervaise; that is, a slice of cream cheese about one inch by three, with a spoonful of whipped cream on it and a spoonful of gooseberry jam by its side. There is a variety of French preserved gooseberries called Bar-le-Duc which is particularly delicious. Sometimes before serving this dish the cheese is beaten with a little olive oil or cream to make it soft and light, and then it is pressed into shape again before it is cut into pieces for serving. If this is the final course at breakfast, serve coffee with it.

There are an unlimited number of Shakespearian quotations for the cards, but for a woman's meal they might be taken either from the words of Juliet, Katharine, Portia, Rosalind, Hermione, Ophelia, Hero, Celia, Imogen, and Helena, or else the familiar ones which are given below; in case this luncheon or breakfast is given for those interested in study, a guessing contest might be introduced, with or without prizes, as to the context of these quotations: —

"Daffodils, that come before the swallow does."

"Thou shalt not lack the flower that's like the face,
Pale primrose."
"I could wish my best friend at such a feast."
"Things won, are done. Joy's soul lies in the doing."
"I have been so well brought up that I can write my name."
"You have no cause to hold my friendship doubtful;
I never was nor never will be false."
"Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."
"My heart unto yours is knit
So that but one heart we can make of it."
"Loving goes by haps;
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps."
"Of good discourse, an excellent musician."
"My affection hath an unknown bottom."

Still another menu may be given for those who cannot obtain some of the articles suggested, such as strawberries, crabs, or fresh mushrooms.

Grape Fruit

Bouillon

Sardines on Toast

Mushroom Patties

Chops. Peas. French Fried Potatoes

Chocolate

Lettuce Salad with Shredded Bananas

French Dressing

Coffee Mousse. Cakes. Bonbons

In this menu the patties are to be filled with canned mushrooms, cut in bits and creamed. The salad is made by cutting bananas in halves, and then cutting each half into strips no larger than a knitting needle; these are to be arranged on lettuce with French dressing poured over the last thing before serving.

A beautiful decoration for an April luncheon may be arranged with crocuses, flowers seldom or never seen on our tables, and therefore especially desirable by way of novelty. Have a large flat basket in the centre of the table filled with moss, and in this stick crocuses of all colours with their leaves, crowding as closely as possible. Repeat the colours in your candle-shades, if you use candles, having them delicate lilac with yellow touches on the edges, and use ribbon candy in lilac, yellow, and white. Serve yellow ices, or white ones in lilac baskets, and lay some of the crocuses on the plates with the finger bowls which appear with the coffee.