After this may come a cheese fondu. This is a mild and comparatively harmless form of Welsh-rarebit, and is cooked in the inner vessel of the chafing-dish over boiling water. To make it, put in a cupful of milk, a table-spoonful of butter, a scant cupful of fresh bread-crumbs, and two cupfuls of soft American cheese, grated. Add salt to taste, and a pinch of red pepper. Let all cook together, stirring often, until the cheese is melted, and the ingredients well blended. Have ready two eggs beaten light, and stir these in very slowly. Cook two minutes after they go in, and serve.
The salad which follows the cheese dish may be of lettuce with a French dressing, or of tomatoes with mayonnaise, and the making of the dressing may in either case devolve upon one of the guests or the hostess.
The final course may be fruit, or, if it is desirous to have one more chafing-dish dainty, it is easy to prepare a simple dessert. Open a can of preserved peaches or apricots. Split six stale lady-fingers or small sponge-cakes, melt two table-spoonfuls of butter in the chafing-dish, and in this brown the halved cakes on each side. Take them out, arrange them on a hot plate, and on each piece lay a half of a peach or apricot. Add a teaspoonful of cornstarch to the butter in the chafing-dish, blend well, and when the mixture bubbles add to it a scant half-pint of the liquor from the preserve. Stir this until it thickens, pour it over the cake and preserves, and serve. It is good with cream.
A chafing-dish need not be an expensive luxury. Those made of nickel are excellent, and cost from three to five dollars apiece. Still, cheaper dishes are made of agate iron and of block tin, and serve their purpose well.
[BAGGED IN MIDSTREAM.]
BY J. MACDONALD OXLEY.
"What do you say to a paddle down to Oka this afternoon, Ray?" asked Jack Vipond of his chum, Ray Hodgson. "I don't think there's too much wind for the canoe."
"All right, Jack," assented Ray. "Shall we take your canoe or mine?"
"We'd better take yours, I guess," replied Jack. "It's safer in rough water, and we may have white-caps to face on our way back."