Serve as a separate course, Lettuce cut in thin strips, over which is sprinkled powdered sugar and a plentiful amount of plain cream is poured.
For dessert have a large dish of delicious ripe strawberries.
Following this have plain unsweetened wafers buttered with Roquefort Paste (which is made of Roquefort cheese and butter in equal quantities) and dusted with cinnamon. Then serve Turkish coffee.
A Mid-Summer Dinner.
Have table prettily decorated with a centerpiece of ice and ferns. The ice frozen in a miniature iceberg, and encircled by low, spreading maidenhair ferns and gleaming tiny opalescent lamps. Keep the candles for the lamps in the ice chest all day and they will burn slowly and steadily through the evening. Let cut glass canoes hold the nuts, olives and bonbons. The meat courses should be served in thin white Japanese porcelain, but the other viands are to be served in cut glass dishes. The name cards are made of squares of gray paper simply lettered with the guests' names and the date—the letters formed by icicles. The menu is as follows:
| Clams, |
| Cold Bouillon, |
| Soft Crabs, |
| Mushrooms, Fillets of Beef, |
| Beets, Potato Straws, |
| Tomatoes, Sweetbreads, |
| Chicken Salad a la Prince, |
| Peach Ice, |
| Curacoa Cream, |
| Frozen Melon, Coffee. |
The clams are served in ice shells, lying on beds of crisp cress, and the bouillon, strong and highly seasoned, served in little cut glass bowls. With the fricasseed crabs serve a smooth cool sauce, having lemon and mustard as its predominating flavor. Juicy little fillets of beef, that melt in the mouth, are next brought on lettuce leaves, with fricasseed mushrooms on toast, frozen pickled beets and potato straws. The sweetbreads are parboiled, chopped up with asparagus tips and truffles, and formed into cones with white chaudfroid sauce, then chilled to the freezing point. With them are served tomatoes filled with shaved ice, chopped cress and tartare sauce. But the triumph of cookery is the salad, each ingredient proportioned and blended into a pleasing whole. The white meat of two chickens, cut into small fillets and each dipped into a semi-fluid jelly made as follows: Three hard boiled eggs, an anchovy, one tablespoonful of minced capers, two tablespoonfuls of grated ham, one teaspoonful of chopped parsley and a pinch of chili pepper rubbed through a sieve and mixed well with two tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise and three of semi-fluid aspic. Then small molds are lined with aspic and a fillet—ornamented with strips of beets and cucumbers—put in each; enough aspic to cover poured in and the molds set on ice.
A rich mayonnaise is made, and peas, cut up cucumbers and string beans stirred through it. When the time comes to serve the salad, the molds are turned out on leaves of crinkly white lettuce, with a border of mayonnaise around them. The peach sherbet is served in little fluted cups of ice, set in a circle of fern fronds and pink carnations on cut glass plates. Three drops of cochineal are added to the ice just before freezing to give it a delicate pink hue. After the gelatine is dissolved in a rich custard and begins to thicken, the curacoa and the whipped cream are added, and stirred together very lightly. Individual orange-shaped molds are filled with the cream and put on ice to harden. When turned out of the molds, a little twig and leaves of crystalized ginger are inserted in each orange. Sherry wine is poured in the heart of the melon, and, after it has ripened on ice for two hours, the melon is cut open and the seeds removed. Cut out oval-shaped pieces with a big spoon and set back on the ice till wanted. Take to the table in a deep glass bowl, splints of ice shining among its juicy pink morsels. Then the coffee, the toasted crackers and blocks of frozen cheese.
Luncheon Menus.
There are but few particulars in which a formal luncheon differs materially from a dinner. Fruit or a fruit salpicon is usually preferred to oysters as a first course. The soup or bouillon is served in cups rather than soup plates, and entrees or chops take the place of heavy joints or roasts. The usual hour for a luncheon is between one and two o'clock, and artificial light is considered inappropriate for such an occasion. If the table used is a handsome and highly polished one, the cloth may be dispensed with, if desired. Instead use a handsome center piece with small doilies under the plates and other dishes to protect the table. If there are a large number of guests, they are usually served at small tables, prettily decorated with a few flowers.