For safety place your chafing dishes on metal trays and do not fill the lamp too full. Many hostesses prefer to have their ingredients on the table in bowls which will not break and on Japanese trays and use wooden spoons for stirring as they do not become hot, and do not scratch the dishes. As food is served directly from the chafing dish to the plates and the object is to have everything very hot, garnishings are not necessary. The water pan placed under the cooking pan will keep things hot after the flame is extinguished. Two chafing dishes come in very handy in keeping the toast and hot water hot while the main dish is being prepared.
Have a pile of hot plates at hand and have someone place the toast on the plate and hand it to the hostess who serves from the chafing dish. While she is doing this, have someone at the other end of the table mix a plain French dressing and toss the lettuce leaves in it in a large bowl and serve the lettuce salad, or serve the potato salad which should be already prepared on small fancy plates. If coffee is made at the table assign this task to one guest and appoint two or three waiters to see that the sandwiches, coffee, salad and the chafing dish product are handed about. Dill pickles are popular for chafing dish suppers, and so are wienerwursts, rye bread and Swiss cheese. The main idea of such a supper is to keep everyone busy helping and seeing that the supper does not lag.
A Chafing Dish Party.
Hey diddle diddle, the cat's in the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see the sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
Start in with a spelling match and spell each other down in good old-fashioned style. As soon as any one misses two words he or she is dropped out. Finally when only one is left, award a prize, a little water color, painted by the hostess, and framed passe-partout, to the "unabridged dictionary" as the winner might be called. The one who fails and retires first from the field receives a toy chafing dish. In the dining room the polished table is daintily set with doilies under the olive and almond dishes, and under the plates and glasses. The supper is a very simple one. Make creamed oysters in the chafing dish and serve them in home-made pate shells. Then have celery sandwiches made of thin slices of bread rolled around tender splintered stalks of celery, and dainty lettuce sandwiches with the lettuce crisp and cold and the mayonnaise of good stiffness and small cups of coffee.
To divert the attention while the hostess is cooking the oysters put at each plate a large oyster shell with a verse painted upon it in the form of a recipe which brings out little characteristics of each one of the guests. One man who is very clever and a dabbler in verse may receive the following:
"For this wonder culinary
Take a pound of dictionary,
Philosophy, perhaps a cup—
Beat three epics, mix them up,
With a measure of blank verse
Season with oratory terse,
Sprinkle in a bunch of rue
—— looms into view."
A girl who has a record of alleged broken hearts to her account, is exploited in this style:
"Take an ounce of fickleness,
Remorse, perhaps a grain or less;
Stir this into ready wit,
A Siren's smile to leaven it;
A laugh of wondrous catchiness
This is little ——"