MENU - Gala-Day Luncheons: A Little Book of Suggestions - 25

The soup is made by stewing chopped beets until they are tender and adding them to hot cream, seasoning, thickening, and straining, and pouring into the bouillon cups onto a spoonful of whipped cream. The beets should be the dark red ones, and only enough should be used to give a pretty pink colour to the soup. Frogs' legs, fried and served with a bit of lemon make a very good course for luncheon, and one liked by almost every one. The salad is made by stoning California cherries and covering them with French dressing to which a little chopped parsley has been added, and laying them on a leaf of lettuce.

The sherbet is a lemon ice flavoured with the syrup of preserved ginger, with a few bits of the root added. The cheese soufflé, which may be placed before the sherbet, if desired, is made by grating a quarter of a pound of cheese and mixing it with two tablespoonfuls of flour, butter the size of a walnut, salt, and a little red pepper, and the beaten yolks of three eggs. Just before putting in the oven add the stiff whites of two eggs, and bake in buttered paper cases, or in small tin moulds. They must be eaten as soon as they are taken from the fire or they will fall.

The ice cream is a plain white one, served in a large cake of angels' food which has had the top carefully cut off, the inside scooped out, and the cream packed firmly in. The cover is then put back and the whole iced, or covered with powdered sugar, and decorated on top with candied cherries. It is to be cut exactly as though it were simply an ordinary cake, and served in slices.

A SCHOOL-GIRL LUNCHEON

A luncheon for a young girl should be of the simplest character, both in decorations and menu, but there is no reason why it should not be pretty. The most appropriate flower to use is the primrose; pots of these may stand on the table, one in front of each guest, tied up with crêpe paper and ribbons. If these are of two or more shades of pink, the effect will be more elaborate than if they are all of the same shade. In the centre may be a large pot with a number of the plants closely planted in it. If candles are used, the shades may be of plain cardboard with a wreath of the same flowers on the edge, either artificial ones sewed on, or painted in a simple pattern. Or, hyacinths may be used for the flowers, either pink ones or pink and white alternating. If the school-girls are beyond the time when the gift of a pot of flowers gives pleasure,—and there is a period when they would scorn such an offering as undignified,—let the decoration be a long, narrow box of the growing hyacinths in the centre of the table, which will make a beautiful window-box after the luncheon is past. The menu given above might be modified for this meal, as it is unnecessarily elaborate.