Chapter 8

SPRING AND AUTUMN BREAKFASTS.

The centerpiece is of moss and ferns with arbutus blossoms peeping out, with a border of green and white fairy lamps mushroom form. Miniature flower beds, marked off with tiny white shells are in each of the four corners of the table. In one lilies of the valley stand upright, narcissii are in another, white tulips in a third and white lilacs wired on a tiny bush make the fourth. The name cards have tiny photographs of a farm with the name of the guests in gilt script. At each place is a tiny May basket of moss filled with arbutus, spring beauties, and wild violets, for a souvenir. The ice cream in flower forms is brought in in a spun sugar nest resting on twigs of pussy willows. The menu is a very simple one and includes grape fruit, the center cut out and filled with a lump of sugar soaked in rum, cream of clams, shredded whitefish in shells with horseradish and cucumbers, filet of beef with mushrooms, new potatoes, new asparagus, mint ice, squab on toast with shoestring potatoes, current jelly; salad of cucumbers, pecan nuts and lettuce with French dressing; ice cream, white cake, and black cake, coffee and cream de menthe.

APRIL BREAKFAST.

April's lady wears the pussywillow for her flower, and this makes a delightful springlike motif for decoration. For the breakfast have round tables or one long table with twig baskets of pussywillows tied with bows of soft grasses, raffia dyed a silvery grey. The table is set with the old-fashioned willow pattern china, quaint Sheffield silver and is unmarked by any of the small dishes of sweets that fill breakfast tables. The name cards are decorated with sprays of pussywillows in the upper left corner and miniatures of famous women writers of this and the past decade taken from magazines: George Eliot, Miss Austen, Miss Mulock, Jean Ingelow, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Felicia Hemans, Louisa M. Alcott, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Mrs. Burton Harrison, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Margaret Deland.

The menu is strawberries in little twig baskets with brown paper caps filled with sugar, planked fish with sliced cucumbers, deviled sweetbreads and mushrooms on toast squares, Saratoga potatoes, hot rolls, brandy peaches, waffles and hot syrup, coffee.

A MAYPOLE BREAKFAST.

This breakfast is given the last week in May and can be copied by the summer hostess substituting different flowers in season. The guests are seated at small tables, each table being decorated with a different kind of flower--the iris, marguerites, sweet peas, roses, mignonette, etc. Before each plate stands a tiny Maypole about the size of a lead pencil, wound with baby ribbon of different colors. These are souvenirs for each guest. For the first course have fresh strawberries served with their leaves and blossoms. Then a cream of celery soup served in cups. Croutons are served with this. The soft shell crabs are served on a bed of water cress and radishes cut in fancy shapes. With them is served a thick mayonnaise on half a lemon; and cucumbers with French dressing. The brown and white bread sandwiches are cut in the shape of palm leaves. Delicious orange sherbet is served in champagne glasses. Then comes broiled chicken with new potatoes, French peas and hot rolls. The fruit salad is served in head lettuce with square wafers accompanying. The ice cream is molded in the form of red and white apples, with a cluster of real apple blossoms laid on each plate. With this is served a white cake with whipped cream and French coffee.

MAY BREAKFAST.

Carry out the May basket idea for a breakfast. By searching the ten-cent stores one can find little imitation cut glass baskets with handles. Use a large cut glass basket or bowl with wire handle over the top for the center of the table and one of the smaller baskets filled with pansies, valley lilies or May flowers at each place. Or make a pretty crystal wreath a short distance from the center by using crystal candlesticks with white candles and shades of glass beads, alternated by the little glass baskets filled with dainty flowers or maidenhair fern. Or use these baskets for green, white or pink bonbons. Another pretty May basket idea is to suspend little baskets of flowers from the back of each chair and use an immense basket of flowers for the center of the table. Suitable toasts for the name cards, which should be little flower baskets cut out of water color paper and decorated, would be sentences describing Mayday in various countries. Or, use sentiments of flowers. Here are some:

The red rose: "I love you." The daisy: "There is no hope." Lily of the valley: "My heart withers in secret." The lilac: "You are my first love." Violets: "I am faithful." You will enjoy hunting for flower sentiments.

For the menu serve: Tomato bisque, wafers; sweetbread croquettes, peas, new potatoes, creamed asparagus, lemon sherbet; spring salad (radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, with French dressing on lettuce leaf), strawberries, served with hulls on and around a paper cup or mound of fine sugar; white cake with chocolate icing.

AN AUTUMN BREAKFAST.

If one loves the reigning color, brown, give a brown breakfast in which all shades from seal to orange are used in pretty combination. A flat wreath of brown foliage extends inside the plate line. In the center of the table is a pyramid made of the tiny artificial oranges, buds and blossoms that are shown in the milliners' windows. From this pyramid radiate streamers of light brown tulle in wavy lines across the table to the wreath at the edge. Yellow candles with autumn leaf shades in yellows and browns are placed inside the space between the center and the wreath. The name cards are placed inside little boxes decorated with pyrographic work and suitable for jewel boxes. The creamed lobster is served in cups covered with brown tissue paper, the browned chops, browned fried potatoes, and browned rice croquettes are served on plates decorated with a design of brown oak leaves and acorns. The ice cream is chocolate frozen in shape of large English walnuts and the little squares of white cake bear the design of a leaf in tiny chocolate candies.

A MUSICAL ROMANCE.

Have it for entertainment at breakfast with prizes for the one who answers best. Each question is answered by the name of a song.

Questions.

1. Who was the lover? 2. Who was his sweetheart? 3. In what country were they born? 4. On what river was his home? 5. What was his favorite state? 6. Where did he first meet her? 7. What part of the day was it? 8. How was her hair arranged? 9. What flower did he offer her? 10. When did he propose to her? 11. What did he say to her? 12. What was her reply? 13. When were they married? 14. Her maid of honor was from Scotland; what was her name? 15. The best man was a soldier; who was he? 16. When in the civil war did the groom and best man become acquainted? 17. A little sister of the bride was flower girl; what was her name? 18. In what church was the ceremony solemnized? 19. In the thoroughfares of what foreign city did they spend their honeymoon? 20. What motto greeted them as they entered their new dwelling? 21. Who did the bridegroom finally turn out to be?

Answers.

1. Ben Bolt. 2. Sweet Marie. 3. America. 4. Suanne River. 5. Maryland, My Maryland. 6. Comin' Through the Rye. 7. In the Gloaming. 8. Her Golden Hair was Hanging Down her Back. 9. Sweet Violets. 10. After the Ball. 11. Won't You Be My Sweetheart? 12. If you Ain't Got No Money You Needn't Come Around. 13. In Springtime, Gentle Anne. 14. Annie Laurie. 15. Warrior Bold. 16. While We Were Marching Through Georgia. 17. Marguerite. 18. Church Across The Way. 19. Streets of Cairo. 20. Home, Sweet Home. 21. The Man That Broke The Bank at Monte Carlo.

The answers to the above should not be arbitrary. There are many songs that afford quite as good answers as those given above, and the score should credit anyone that makes a reply which fits the question.

A RED ROSE BREAKFAST.

"I find earth not gray, but rosy, Heaven not grim, but fair of hue."

Here is a pretty breakfast for the month of June.

Have for the centerpiece a huge bowl of jacque-minot roses. Use long sprays of the leaves and arrange the flowers very loosely in the bowl.

Have for the boutonnieres at each cover a bunch of red rose buds tied with scarlet ribbon.

The place cards are also red roses cut to the required shape from rough drawing paper and appropriately colored.

Of course the red touch will be introduced as frequently as possible into the menu. Serve tomato soup, salmon salad and claret water ice. Cakes must be glazed in red, and the ice cream, served in artistic little baskets of spun sugar, to take the form of red roses.

Have side dishes filled with pink coated almonds and candied rose petals.

Then, during the dessert course, introduce what is called a Rose Shower.

This will be on the order of the literary salads that were so popular some time ago, but it is newer.

The idea is this: Cut from red tissue paper a couple of dozen little leaf shaped pieces to be crimped and creased and coaxed into representing rose petals. On each petal write a familiar quotation relating to the rose.

These leaves are to be passed around the table, each guest taking one, and when done with it, passing it on.

Prizes will be offered to the guests who are able to name the authors of the largest number of quotations.

Here are some of the verses:

That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet.

--_Shakespeare_.

But earthlier happy is the rose distilled Than that which, withering on the virgin thorn Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

--_Shakespeare_.

The rose is fairest when 'tis budding new; And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears. The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew, And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears.

--_Scott_.

'Tis the last rose of summer Left blooming alone.

--_Moore_.

You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.

--_Moore_.

He wears the rose Of youth upon him.

--_Shakespeare_.

As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.

--_Keats_.

She wore a wreath of roses, That night when first we met.

--_T. H. Bayley_.

The rose that all are praising Is not the rose for me.

--_T. H. Bayley_.

Loveliest of lovely things are they On earth that soonest pass away. The rose that lives his little hour Is prized beyond the sculptured flower.

--_Bryant_.

Flowers of all hue and without thorn the rose.

--_Milton_.

A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she.

--_Tennyson_.

Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds before they be withered.

--_Bible_.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, Old time is still a flying; And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow wille be dying.

--_Herrick_.

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk.

--_Shakespeare_.

And I will make thee beds of roses And a thousand fragrant posies.

--_Marlowe_.

These, of course, will be only about half enough, but the hostess can add others to them.

The prize for the best list of answers should suggest roses in some way.

CHRYSANTHEMUM BREAKFAST.

The time ten o'clock. Invitations, to be on a large sized visiting card, this wise:

Mrs. ---- At Home, Wednesday morning, November Seventh, Nineteen -- ---- ten o'clock, 340 ---- Street, Please reply. Breakfast.

Enclose card in envelope to match.

Have three schemes of color for decorations--white chrysanthemums for parlor, pink for library, and yellow for dining-room.

Serve at small tables, with rich floral center pieces, and handsomely draped with Battenburg, or linen center piece and plate tumbler doylies.

Place cards, two and one-half inches by six in size, should be decorated with a spray of chrysanthemums on a shaded background in water colors, leaving sufficient blank for a name and outlining the top card with cut edges of leaves.

FIRST COURSE.

A small cluster of grapes served on dessert plates.

SECOND COURSE.

Baked apple--(Remove the core and fill with cooked oat meal; bake and serve with whipped cream over the whole.)

THIRD COURSE.

Chicken croquettes, scalloped potatoes, buttered rolls, celery, coffee.

FOURTH COURSE.

Fruit and nut salad, served in small cups on a bread and butter plate, with a wafer.

FIFTH COURSE.

Ice cream, in chocolate, pink and white layers; angel food, and pink and white layer cake.

Have a dish of salted almonds on each table.

POND LILY BREAKFAST.

White and green are the colors for a September breakfast. Have the dining room decorated with luxuriant ferns and dainty, fragrant water lilies, the fireplace banked with ferns, the lilies scattered carelessly over the mantel.

In the center of the table have a miniature rowboat heaped high with the lilies. For the souvenirs have very small oars which could afterwards be used for paper knives; besides clusters of lilies.

Harp music is the most in harmony with our ideas of lilies and the lily naiads, so the soft strains will form a delightful accompaniment to the breakfast.

This is the menu:

_Cream of Lettuce Soup_ _Steamed White Fish_ _Hollandaise Sauce_ _Potato Balls_ _Maitre de Hotel Sauce_ _Jellied Chicken_ _Cauliflower, Creamed_ _Asparagus_ _Cheese Salad_ _Metropolitan Ice Cream_ _Small Cakes_ _Niagara Grapes_ _Coffee_

CREAM OF LETTUCE SOUP.

Break the outer green leaves from two heads of lettuce. Place neatly together and with a sharp knife cut into shreds. Put them into one quart of white stock and simmer gently for half an hour. Press through a colander, return to the fire. Rub together one tablespoonful of butter and two of flour, add two tablespoonfuls of hot stock and rub smooth, add this to the soup, stirring constantly until it thickens. Add a level tablespoonful of grated onion, one cupful of cream and a seasoning of salt and white pepper.

When ready to serve, beat the yolk of one egg lightly, pour into a tureen, turn the hot soup over it and add a heaping tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley.

The fish is garnished with cress.

CHEESE SALAD.

Mash very fine the cold yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, and rub with them a coffee cupful of finely grated cheese, a teaspoonful of mustard, a saltspoonful of salt and one-half as much white pepper. When all are well mixed, add two tablespoonfuls each of oil and vinegar, alternately. Heap this upon fresh lettuce and garnish with the whites of eggs cut into rings, and a few tips of celery. Serve with hot buttered crackers.

The ice cream is served on lily leaves. The cakes are white, with green icing.

This is the music selected:

Solo--"To a Water Lily" _McDowell_ Old Song--"Lily Dale" Vocal Solo--"Row Gently Here, My Gondolier" _Schumann_

A TULIP BREAKFAST.

A pretty idea is a tulip breakfast. The centerpiece is a large basket filled with tulips of different colors. A pretty course is strawberries served in real tulips lying on fancy plates with the stems tied with narrow ribbon the same shade as the tulip. The ice cream is served in shape of a tulip, and the salad is in a cup of green tissue paper imitating four tulip leaves. This is the plan for finding places. The name cards are decorated with tiny landscapes. On the back of the card is written the title of a song and the guest finds her own name in the title. For example a guest named Mamie will find her place by the words "Mamie, Come Kiss Your Honey Boy," one named Alice will find hers "Oh, Don't You Remember Sweet Alice, Ben Bolt;" Mollie in "Do You Love Me, Mollie Darling," etc. The menu is:

_Fruit Cup (Strawberries, Oranges, White Grapes with Whipped Cream)_ _Bouillon, Wafers, Radishes_ _Escalloped Fish, Wafers, Pickles_ _Veal Loaf, Whipped Potatoes, Green Peas_ _Hot Rolls, Pickles, Sherbet_ _Fruit Salad, Wafers_ _Ice Cream in Shape of Tulips, Strawberries Served in Real Tulips_ _White Cake, Bonbons_ _Coffee_

A GRAPE BREAKFAST.

May the juice of the grape enliven each soul, And good humor preside at the head of each bowl.

Nothing could be prettier nor more appropriate for September than a grape breakfast. If possible, have the design of the lunch cloth in grapes, and use a pyramid of purple and white grapes for the center of the table. Lay perfect bunches of grapes tied with lavender ribbon on the cloth for decoration. Serve grapes in some fashion with each course, single, in tiny bunches, or the leaves decorating the plates. Mold gelatine in a grape mold and color with grape juice. Use white grapes for the salad and grape juice to drink. Serve grape jelly with the meat course.

WOMAN'S CLUB BREAKFAST.

Have the table of honor a round table with a large round basket of white flowers and everything corresponding in white. Use roses, carnations or any white flower you choose. Have oblong tables radiating from the center table with place for four on each side and two at the outer ends. This leaves no guest seated with her back to the honor table. Have the oblong tables decorated in pink. Have name cards with carnations thrust through the corner, at each plate. Make the breakfast a daylight affair, unless the day is a dark one.

Serve chopped fresh sweet cherries sweetened and with a little rum or white wine poured over them; let stand for several hours in the refrigerator and serve in stem glasses. Chicken croquettes molded in form of small chickens, or broiled chicken with water cress; creamed potatoes, sliced cucumbers, hot rolls, spiced peaches served in champagne glasses; whole tomatoes stuffed with cooked cauliflower and nuts set on branch of cherry or strawberry leaves; cheese sandwiches made very thin; ice cream molded in form of strawberries, small cakes frosted, (place half of a large strawberry on top of each piece of cake before serving).

BREAKFAST AL FRESCO.

A breakfast al fresco is just the thing to entertain a party of young girls. Have the tables on the porch. At each plate have a cluster of flowers answering a conundrum. Give each girl a card containing the conundrum and ask her to find her place at the table by the flower answering the questions. These questions will not be hard for a hostess to arrange and will of course depend on the flowers she can secure. Here are a few sample ones given at a recent breakfast: Who will attend our next entertainment? Phlox. What happened when Gladys lost her hat in the lake? A yellow rose (a yell arose). What paper gives the most help in decoration? Justicia (just tissue). What will the Far North do for you? Freesia. For what hour were you invited? Four o'clock. What is the handsomest woman in the world? American Beauty. Use pink and green for the color scheme and add a little touch of these two colors to everything served. Tie the skewers of the chops with pink and green ribbons and have the ice cream one layer of pistachio and one of strawberry.