Prepare and Serve a Meal and Interior Decoration | Page 6

she should always have an extra plate, one more than the number of individuals to be served. She will need it.
A salad served with meat, at an informal dinner, is placed on the right side, from the right, the exception to the rule of serving from the left.
Vegetables, once served, are taken back to the kitchen, to keep them warm. If a second serving is desired, the mistress rings. Suit yourself about having the serving silver placed on the table before the dish to be served is carried in. The latest wrinkle--and it is a time and step-saving one--dictates that the silver be brought in on a platter. The soup, to be served hot (it should always be served in soup plates at dinner and never in bouillon cups) must be brought in after the family have taken their places.
A family dinner may be served quite comfortably even without a maid. The table set and the service laid, the younger members of the family should attend to her duties. One may bring in the soup, hot, in individually heated plates. Another may fill the water glasses, pass butter or sauces and remove dishes between courses. The most convenient way of serving vegetables, under these circumstances, is for some member of the family next the carver to attend to it, as soon as meat has been laid on the plate. It saves extra passing. See to it that too many things--butter, salt, pepper, cream, sauces, etc.--are not traveling about the table at once. All the formal features of the more formal meals may be dropped or modified to suit individual needs or circumstances in the informal home dinner.
TWELVE MENUS FOR GOOD FAMILY DINNERS
1. Corn Mock Bisque. Roast Chicken with Bread Stuffing, Giblet Gravy. Boiled Rice. Saute Egg Plant. Stuffed Green Peppers. Prune Pudding. Black Coffee.
2. Onion Soup. Fried Smelts, Sauce Tartare. Broiled Porterhouse Beefsteak. Maitre d'Hotel Butter (1/4 cup butter, 1/2 teaspoonful salt, 1/8 teaspoonful pepper, tablespoonful lemon juice, 1 ditto parsley, fine chopped; work butter in bowl with wooden spoon till creamy, then add other ingredients slowly). Potato Strips. Creamed Turnips. Steamed Chocolate Pudding, Sterling Sauce.
3. Carrot Soup. Braised Beef. Boiled Potatoes with Butter and Parsley. Fried Parsnips. Onion Souffle. Spiced Apples a la Lyman (6 large apples, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 teaspoonful cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoonful salt, 1/4 cup water: arrange cored and pared apples in baking dish, mix sugar, salt and cinnamon and fill cavities. Add water, bake till apples are soft, basting repeatedly with syrup in dish. Remove, cool, pile meringue on top of each apple. Back to oven and bake for eight minutes. Chill and serve with sugar and cream). Black coffee.
4. Huntington Soup and Celery. Braised Leg of Mutton. Mashed Sweet Potatoes. Beets, Sauce Piquant. Stuffed Tomato Salad, Boiled Dressing. Cream Jelly.
5. Onion Soup. Beefsteak a la Henrietta Saute Potato Balls, Mashed Turnips. Cheese Salad. Coffee Sponge.
6. Corn and Chicken Soup. Braised Fowl, Chestnut Stuffing. Duchess Potatoes, Fried Tomatoes (Parmesan). Honeycomb Pudding, Creamy Sauce. Coffee.
7. Brown Soup with Macaroni Rings. Creamed Mushrooms. Roast Leg of Veal. Mashed Potatoes. Brussels Sprouts with Celery. Asparagus Salad. Fruit Tapioca. Coffee.
8. Clam Bouillon. Boiled Leg of Mutton, Caper Sauce, Mashed Potatoes, Fried Cucumbers. Peach Cabinet Pudding. Crackers and Cheese. Black Coffee.
9. Broiled Fish, Cold Slaw in Cabbage Shell. Stuffed Hearts with Vegetables. Potatoes Goldenrod, Almond Pudding, Whipped Cream. Assorted Fruit. Coffee.
These are samples of what is possible in the way of tasty combinations for the informal family dinner.
CHAPTER VI
THE FORMAL DINNER
From the informal dinner in which the family waits on itself, to the formal dinner, at which two waitresses attend to the comfort of the diners, is but a step. Yet it is a serious one for the hostess who gives the latter form of dinner. The cook often requires extra help (dishwashing, etc.); and where a chambermaid is available, she has to be drafted as a second waitress or an extra waitress engaged. There must be a helper on duty in the pantry, for there must be no hitch in any detail of the formal dinner service. So the extra pantry-hand must serve soup and pour coffee, see that there is crushed ice always ready, stack up soiled dishes, open wine bottles (yes, this is still done!) and be prepared to do anything else which will help make the dinner a success.
THE WHAT'S WHAT OF A FORMAL DINNER
The fine damask tablecloth is a feature--though the table is set practically as though for a formal luncheon--and large-size dinner napkins are the rule. The parsnips of circumstance are not buttered at the formal dinner, though the bread and butter plate sometimes shows its face as a serving convenience for bread, celery, olives and radishes. Wineglasses still appear in formal dinners given _in private_. This provides for quite an array of glassware. At the point of the knives, in the following