"Dolly, I do think you are crazy! Corned beef and cabbage and mince pie! Do you want your husband to expire in agonies that very same night? Never have mince pie with a heavy meat. I might almost say never have it at all, because it is so hearty it ought to be a meal all by itself. If you ever do have it, put it after the lightest things you can find, and have green salad or apple sauce, or something of the sort, to counteract it."
"Well, I'll cut the pie out. But what is the matter with corned beef and cabbage? I thought those went particularly well together."
"If you do not cook them in the same pot, but prepare the cabbage as I told you, in such a way that anybody can digest it, even a child or a confirmed dyspeptic, you can have it with any meat. But never cook anything with corned beef, except a slice of onion to season it. As for dessert, what will you have instead of mince pie?"
"Oh, canned blueberry tart; eggs and butter are dear in January. You see I do know something."
"Very good. Now make a second dinner and use the left-overs of this one."
| "Split pea purée. |
| Creamed corned beef, baked; string beans; mashed potato cakes. |
| Steamed fig pudding. |
| Coffee." |
"That menu is really a success. You made the purée of the water the corned beef was boiled in, I see, and used up your half-can of string-beans for a vegetable; and of course the potato cakes were the mashed potatoes reheated. But why that particular pudding?"
"Fred ate up all the blueberry tart the night before; not a scrap of it was left, because it was so good," said Dolly demurely.
"Well, I don't blame him. Now I think you understand the game, and you can go on and practise it as you get time. Making out a whole set of menus for a year, four or five for each month, would be excellent practice for you, Dolly. But that is all for to-day."