MENU - Gala-Day Luncheons: A Little Book of Suggestions - 37

The tomatoes are to be cut into baskets with handles and filled with the clam cocktail just before serving. The crabs are to be boiled, removed from their shells, well seasoned, and wet with a little cream, put back into the shells with bread crumbs and bits of butter over them and browned in the oven. The chicken livers are to be stewed, cut in halves, and put on the small skewers with bits of bacon between the pieces and turned in the frying-pan until they brown in the bacon fat; they are to be sent to the table on strips of toast. The ducklings should be young, and a thick slice of breast or the second joint served to each person before the plates are sent to the table; the potato should be browned in the oven and passed.

The salad is made by cooking cauliflower, breaking it into bits, and serving on lettuce with mayonnaise. The Nesselrode pudding is made in various ways, most of them very elaborate; probably the simplest is a caramel cream with preserved figs and marrons cut up fine in it, with a flavouring of wine. It is also made by putting marrons into a plain rich white cream, flavouring it with the wine and serving it on whipped cream; in any form it is always a delicious dessert.

This menu omits the sherbet and gives a rather solid meat course; it may be varied by substituting chops for the duckling and adding a course of frozen oranges and bananas in lemon ice.