The Library of Work and Play: Housekeeping

by Elizabeth Hale Gilman

When the table is set with the exception of the food, the sideboard or serving table, or both should be arranged. On these are put dessert or fruit plates arranged with finger bowls and silver, all the china not to be heated which will be needed for the courses of the meal, any seasonings or bottled sauces which the family are in the habit of asking for, a crumb tray and napkin or scraper, a small napkin or doily with which a spot of gravy or fruit juice could be quickly removed from the tablecloth, a water pitcher and a serving tray. If after-dinner coffee is made on the table, it is convenient to set out all the articles needed for this on a tray on the sideboard. Room must be kept on the serving table for the vegetable dishes which are usually left there during the course to which they belong.

A few minutes before a meal is served is the time to place food such as pickles, jelly, bread, butter and milk on the table or the serving table and to fill the glasses with water. If ice is put into each glass it should be done carefully with a spoon. It adds to the appearance of butter balls and helps to keep them cool if a lettuce leaf is laid in the dish under them. They keep their shape and firmness better if kept in a bowl of water when in the refrigerator. At luncheon or breakfast bread is served on a plate or tray, or the loaf, board and knife are put on the table. At dinner a piece of bread is laid by each place or tucked into each napkin. Hot biscuits keep hot longer if a napkin is spread over the plate and folded over them. Cold bread or crackers, also cheese, are often served on a folded napkin, they look better so than on a plate.

In laying the table, time, steps and thought can be saved by taking as many things as possible from one place at one time. That is, after the linen is on the table. First put on everything needed from the sideboard, then everything needed from the china closet, then everything needed from the pantry. All the articles from each place can sometimes be brought in one trip with the help of a tray. If the flat silver is kept in a basket, it is better to carry the basket from place to place and take out what is needed. This saves steps and some handling of the silver.

When the places where the dishes and silver are to be kept are first decided upon, and when the order in which the table is set is first learned, both should be done with the thought of saving steps and of opening drawers and doors as seldom as possible.

Tables should be set without noise. Not only because it is disagreeable to hear the rattling of dishes but because thumps, and clatter, and jingle mean scars on the table, nicks in the china, scratches on the silver and a lack of that dainty carefulness without which a table is never perfectly set.

Waiting.—"Waiting" requires more "head" than other household employments. One can keep accounts slowly and laboriously, one can sweep without possessing much tact, one can even cook without possessing a great degree of administrative ability, or do laundry work without a good memory. To "wait" cleverly requires all these qualities.

The object of waiting is that the needs and wants of those seated at table shall be supplied without effort, often without consciousness on their part. It also preserves the orderliness of the table, and makes inquiries about people's wishes unnecessary. One occasionally hears the objection made to careful waiting that it makes people thoughtless for the comfort of others. I would suggest that conversation made agreeable and amusing to others requires greater and more continued thoughtfulness than passing the beans and the butter.

The waitress should have in her mind a plan of the meal including not only the food but also the china, silver and linen needed for serving it. If a meal is more than two courses long, it is often better to have the plan written out. This is a little trouble, but saves mistakes, and the necessity of stopping to think when one has not time to think.

The waitress is expected to be in the dining room when the family enter for the meal. She should be ready to serve the first course as soon as they are seated. If this course is oysters or grape-fruit or some such thing, plates containing it are set before each guest. Two plates can be brought at once if there are no plates already on the table; if there are, the waitress can only bring one plate for she must remove the empty plate before she can set the other down. When the plates are all on the table she will then pass anything which accompanies the course. Sometimes various small relishes and biscuits such as are required with raw oysters can be put on the tray and all passed at the same time.