MENU - Gala-Day Luncheons: A Little Book of Suggestions - 11

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.

A WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY FAVOUR.

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."