And now that the “law’s off” probably hereabouts on quail, you will find them in pretty good condition. Indeed, they are so good that I hope you will just have them broiled after salting a bit, and pin your faith to their own delicious flavor to give delight to your guests. Have them served on toast, if you must, that has been slightly buttered, but forget to serve any jelly with them.
I’ve told you elsewhere all about tomatoes stuffed with celery and mayonnaise, so I won’t go into particulars this time. But tomatoes will not be with us at the prices for which we can now get them a great while longer, and celery is remarkably good in quality and low in price. So there’s a good broad hint for you.
Wine Ice Cream
That wine ice cream which I have recommended is truly a delightful confection. You have a pint of moderately rich cream, and you add to it the yolks of five eggs and three tablespoonfuls of sugar, and then you heat it just a trifle. Next you stir in a gill of white wine, and then you freeze it. When quite frozen stir into it some chopped preserved cherries. Then turn the cream into a mould packed in ice to set till time for serving, when it is to be turned out on a cold dish. Doesn’t that sound as if it would be worth a trial?
You see I’ve simply said grapes in the menu because, as far as that fruit is concerned just now, it is a case of paying your money and taking your choice.
And what will the ladies have to drink? Suppose we say a sip of sherry with the bouillon and a bottle of pretty good Rhine wine to be brought in with the cutlets. And it doesn’t seem to me that it would be overdoing the matter to have a cordial finale—say crème yvette, or crème de cacao à la vanille.
Of course, I will tell you the approximate cost of such a luncheon. With good management it can be served, inclusive of the wines, for twelve dollars for a dozen persons. And that is not bad, now, is it?
Didn’t you just enjoy that cooling little entr’acte we had in July? I did. Let’s have another. We will not have anything sweet in this, however, we will have it cold and savory. Doesn’t that hit you favorably? There are plenty of cold and dainty savories that may come to table as your chief dish at luncheon or at dinner or as an entrée only, at the latter meal, according to the degree with which you manage to put on style.
Cold Chicken Cream
There’s chicken cream, for instance, made from a cold boiled or roasted—well, bird. I don’t know whether it’s chicken or fowl. Perhaps you paid for chicken and got fowl. Perhaps you paid for fowl and wheedled the provisioner into giving you chicken. But we will say chicken, anyway. Pick, then, all the flesh from the chicken, mince and then pound it. Now add to it half a pint of cream stiffly whipped and half a pint of just liquid aspic jelly. Season with salt and white pepper and any other condiment if you like. Then have one large or several small moulds and line them with aspic jelly and fill with the chicken cream. Let set till cold and stiff and then unmould on slices of very thin fried bread. Chop parsley and sprinkle over the creams when unmoulded.