Perhaps there are some housekeepers who will think I should suggest an
entrée to follow the goose, but at this season of the year I am
trying to live up to the golden rule, and as at this point I should
vastly prefer a punch or a sorbet to anything else, I am going to
recommend that you be guided by my preference. You may take one quart
of lemon water ice to which has been added the whites of three eggs
beaten to a froth, a gill of kirsch and half a pint of champagne, and
send to table in some of the pretty punch cups which formed one of
your Yule-tide gifts. You may also serve cigarettes at the same time,
and, my word for it, your guests at table assembled will have a keener
appetite for the next course than if you had sandwiched in some rich
entrée.
With about nine out of every ten suburbanites raising pigeons in these
days it is very easy to understand why the squabs in the market are of
such good quality and are sold at such a reasonable price. And under
these circumstances don't you think they will be excellent for the
next course if broiled to a turn and accompanied by a salad of chicory
or watercress?
After the squabs the sweets. Few housekeepers will think a Christmas
dinner complete without mince pies and plum-pudding, but I cannot
suggest a way in which to make them, for truth to tell, I never
prepared either, and I'm above offering you any recipes which I've not
tried, no matter how true they may be. Consult your cookery books if
you've not a favorite method of your own for preparing these aids to
indigestion, and select those that seem least harmful.
Of course, there will be upon the table till dessert is served celery,
olives stuffed or plain, salted almonds or pecans, etc. I know that
you know this, but had I neglected to mention it more than likely you
would have accused me of being ignorant of the necessity of having
these side dishes at a dinner.
After the sweets the biscuit, cheese and coffee, and if the cheese is
to be of a particularly rich flavor, such as Camembert, Roquefort, or
Brie, then by all means serve with it some of the little Bar-le-Duc
currants, both red and white.
Are you to have wine? Then make it sherry with the soup, champagne
with the goose, and the very best burgundy to be had to accompany the
squabs.
I fancy there is nothing more that I can suggest that will add to your
happiness or that of your guests, who will probably feel very
grateful to you for spreading for them a feast "delectable to eat and
to behold." For yourself, you will probably feel very grateful that
Christmas comes but once a year.
* * * * *
You shall not be put off with any side issue in these very last pages,
but shall have dished up for your critical examination a list that I
promise you shall be a hodge-podge, a mélange, or, if it please your
sense of the fitness of things better, a macédoine of the best edibles
the market affords.
Doubtless when you have been in Western cities you have dined many a
time and oft at those sky-high restaurants overlooking one of the
Great Lakes, and have had the waiter, with an air of honesty made
perfect by practice, point out to you the very spot where the
whitefish you were at the minute admiring had been pulled in scarcely
three hours before. If so, you know the delicious and unapproachable
flavor of the fish in their purest and best estate. And yet they reach
eastern markets in a remarkable state of freshness and are inexpensive
enough to warrant any one in trying them for a change from the kinds
that are more common here.