Two Dinner Parties
Mr. Thorne proved as good as his word, for though he did not immediately
follow up his warning that he would bring home unexpected company to
dinner, he merely bided his time. One morning his wife said that, as she
and Dolly would be out most of the day he need not expect a very good
dinner that night, so that evening he gaily put in an appearance at six
o'clock with two bachelor friends who had occasionally helped enliven
the domestic circle on similar occasions.
Now, the dinner had been planned with an especial view to getting it on
the table without a delay, as Mrs. Thorne could not be certain just what
time she would be at home. The soup was ready to reheat. It was a plain
purée, made with vegetables and water, flavored with a bone and plenty
of seasoning, but there was not enough of it for five, unluckily. The
meat was a Hamburg steak of moderate size, all ready to put in the dry
frying-pan. For vegetables, a half-can of corn was already scalloped
with crumbs, to be browned in the oven, and for potatoes a dishful of
plain boiled ones was at hand, to be heated up in a white sauce. For
dessert there was to be crackers, American cheese, and the usual black
coffee, made in the coffee machine on the sideboard for convenience'
sake.
When Dolly took in the situation and reviewed this menu, she shuddered.
What a company dinner! Insufficient soup, scanty meat and corn, plain
boiled potatoes, no salad and no dessert!
"Really, this time Dick has all but caught us," her sister whispered, as
after receiving her guests with a cordial welcome she excused herself to
put the dinner on. "Hurry, Dolly, and put more plates in the oven to
heat, and get out the big platter and the vegetable dishes and put them
in, too. Then lay two extra places and come out and help me.
"Now, here is the soup," she went on when her sister appeared. "There
isn't half enough. You will have to get a can out of the emergency
closet. Then the steak; isn't it fortunate that I had not put it over to
cook? Now I can flatten it a little and make it larger, so it will cover
more surface. I'll put vegetables all around it, and it will just fill
that big platter and look exactly like a planked porter-house when I'm
done with it. But the corn is hopeless; it is far too small an amount.
Get some peas from the closet, Dolly, and drain and season them and make
them hot. The potatoes won't do, either. Get some raw ones, and peel
them and cut them in good-sized bits. And put on the kettle of fat to
heat; I'll brown them in that."
After the meat was on the fire Mrs. Thorne made a salad by peeling and
slicing in thick pieces three oranges she had bought for the next day's
breakfast, because they happened to be cheap that day. She arranged
these in the salad bowl and stirred up a French dressing to pour over
them. She put the bowl on the sideboard and arranged the dessert by it,
the crackers, a jar of fancy cheese from the closet in place of the
American, and the coffee in the machine with small cups and saucers; she
also set out the salad plates. She filled the tumblers, put on bread,
and the bread and butter plates, with butter balls on them. Then she
added a dish of spiced prunes to go with the meat course. As she was
always certain that the dinner cloth was fresh and her fern dish filled
and pretty, she had no changes to make in the table, and the two extra
places had been laid by Dolly.
When she returned to the kitchen, the steak was ready to be turned and
the potatoes prepared for the hot fat; it took only a moment to cook and
drain them. The soup was put in the heated tureen, and with the hot soup
plates carried into the dining-room. Then dinner was announced.
While the rest were seated at the table, Dolly served the soup from the
sideboard. This plan was arranged beforehand. Whenever the question was
discussed in the family which was the easiest and best plan of managing
this first course without a maid, Mr. Thorne always held that the soup
should be served at the table, and when they were alone this was done;
but with guests there was always the possibility of an accident when
men's unskilled hands passed filled soup plates from hand to hand.
Sometimes in the past they had tried the plan of serving it before the
guests came to the table, but too often the soup had been somewhat
cooled, an unpardonable offence in the eyes of the hostess. Generally
there was the same compromise as to-night, and with guests it was passed
from the sideboard.
After this course the cold plates under the soup plates, which had been
put on when the table was laid, were removed with those above. With a
maid they would have been left on the table and merely exchanged for hot
ones by her, but after many experiments this had been decided on as the
only feasible plan,--to take away the two together and put a pile of hot
ones before the carver and have them passed from hand to hand. It was
not as elegant as the other way, but it did away with the waiting on the
table during the course. So Dolly brought in the large platter of steak
and set it down before the carver. The meat was brown on the outside
and pink within. A strip of suet representing a bone ran down the
middle, and another outlined the edge, making it look like a
porter-house cut. All around it were alternating piles of browned
potatoes and green peas, with sprigs of parsley here and there, so that
it was appetizing to look at and delicious to eat. With this arrangement
there were no vegetables to pass, and the bread and spiced prunes were
passed around without trouble.
The next course was the salad. After taking off meat plates and platter,
Dolly set the bowl before her sister and put on the table a plate of
thin bread crisps, rolled up slices of bread and butter, browned quickly
in the oven while the plates were warming for dinner. After this third
course Dolly removed everything and crumbed the table. Then came the
crackers, and the fancy cheese which had taken the place of the plain
American variety intended for family consumption only; and with them the
coffee machine was put on, with the cups, saucers, and spoons and a bowl
of cut sugar, and the black, hot, fragrant coffee brought the dinner
successfully to a close.
"I can never catch you," said Mr. Thorne mournfully, when the guests had
finally departed with complimentary remarks to their hostess. "You
always spoil my nice little practical dinner-jokes by your confounded
preparedness! And now I suppose I've got to pay the forfeit."
"What forfeit?" asked Dolly.
"Why, we have an arrangement that Dick can bring any friends home to
dinner at any time, the number not to exceed two at once," explained her
sister. "Then if there is dinner enough, and if it really is good enough
for the occasion, he has to pay me for my extra trouble. Of course, if I
ever fail, I'll have to pay up in my turn, but so far he has been caught
every time. Dolly and I will consider, Dick, what the forfeit shall be.
Matinee tickets, I rather think, this time."
"Well, I'll get them cheerfully, for that was really a good dinner, and
the kind a man likes, which is another matter."
The next day Mrs. Thorne replaced the soup, cheese, and peas she had
taken out of her emergency closet. She had also to buy extra meat for
dinner as there was none left over for a second day's meal, but as the
dinner had been a cheap one for five, she did not grudge the small
amount expended. "But now we must economize in earnest this week," she
said as she added up her accounts, "because next week I want to have a
real little dinner-party. I must have several, in fact, to return the
hospitality shown you, my dear. Luckily it is spring, now; remember
that it is always cheaper to entertain in spring than at any other time
in the year."
"It's a lot cheaper not to entertain at all," Dolly grumbled
rebelliously. "Don't let's have any dinner-parties--they're such a
bother!"
"On the contrary, they are no bother at all, but lots of fun when you
have them as I do, simply and inexpensively. And you really must do some
entertaining in your turn if you do not want to drop out of everything
when you are married, and that would be a most foolish thing to do."
"Who waits on the table?" demanded Dolly.
"Oh, that's the trouble with the dinner-party, is it? Well, I hasten to
relieve your mind--you don't! When I give a company dinner I have in a
young girl whom I have trained. She does all the waiting, and stays and
washes the dishes, and I pay her seventy-five cents for the evening.
Sometimes, when I have a little luncheon I do my own waiting, and of
course in a surprise-party dinner I have to also, but not when I give a
regular invitation dinner. I wait till I have money enough in hand for
the waitress as well as the food and flowers and all, and then I go
ahead."
A few days later the party was arranged for. A young couple and their
unmarried brother were asked, making a group of six to sit about the
round table. This was the menu Mrs. Thorne wrote out:
Cream of beet soup.
Radishes, almonds, olives.
Forequarter of lamb, stuffed; mint jelly; new potatoes; peas.
Lettuce and cheese balls; wafers.
Vanilla ice-cream and sherried cherries; small cakes.
Coffee.
"Doesn't that sound good?" she asked, surveying the paper with her head
on one side.
"Now to make as many things as possible to-day, so we won't get too
tired to-morrow. First, we will salt the almonds."
"Do let me do those all alone! I saw somebody do it once, and I know
exactly how. You just take off the skins and fry them in olive oil."
"My dear, I hate to seem unappreciative or hurt your little feelings,
but the fact is, that is a most abominable way to do them, though it's
common enough. It makes them greasy and streaky, partly brown and partly
white. This is the really-truly way to make them: first you put them in
boiling water till the skins loosen, and then drop them in cold water;
slip off the skins, and dry them and mix them with the half beaten white
of an egg--that is, about half the whole white; then you sprinkle them
with salt and put them on a tin in the oven and occasionally stir them.
They will turn a lovely creamy brown and will be crisp and evenly
colored, and you can keep those you do not use at one dinner and heat
them up to freshen them when you need them, for a second dinner, just as
you do crackers. We will do them that way to-day. Then besides that we
will get the dining-room in order, polish the silver and glass, fill the
salts, and look over the china and table linen, so that to-morrow there
will not be much to do."
The next morning the marketing was done early, so that the things would
come home in good season. At the grocery they bought the beets,--one
bunch of old ones, not the young ones just in market; a can of small
American peas; a head of lettuce; a square cream cheese and a round one
half its size in order to have enough; a little American cheese; two
lemons, and a pint of cream.
At the butcher's they ordered lamb. "Not what you call 'spring lamb,'"
she explained, "but exactly what you have been selling all winter; that
is still nice, and plenty young enough. Now cut off the neck and the
trimmings, and take out the shoulder-blade and make a pocket for the
stuffing to go in comfortably, and send me a bunch of mint with it all."
While she waited for her change she told Dolly about this purchase.
"Forequarter of lamb is really the cheapest roast there is. Sometimes
even when we are all by ourselves I buy it and make ever so many meals
of it. I get a big piece, as much as eight or nine pounds, because that
is the cheapest way, and the butcher keeps it for me and lets me have it
as I want it. The roast makes at least two dinners, and there is a lot
left over still for croquettes and soufflés and such things. Then there
are four chops for one or even two dinners more for two people--"
"'With a good filling soup to take off the edge of the appetite first,'
otherwise the four chops would make only one dinner," interrupted Dolly,
quoting freely.
"Exactly. And besides, there are the trimmings and odds and ends for
meat pies and stews, so you see how far it goes."
"Really, I should think you and Dick would fairly bleat!"
"Well, perhaps we might if we deliberately sat down to lamb night after
night, but we don't do anything half so foolish. We have things between,
veal and beef and pork, and as the lamb is practically in cold storage
at the butcher's, it can wait indefinitely, and when we do have it we
live on what I used to think the old Jews wanted to live on in
Canaan,--'the fat of the lamb!' But now's let's hurry home, for there's
lots to do yet."
As soon as their things were taken off and kitchen dresses put on, the
plain vanilla ice-cream was frozen and packed away to ripen. For the
sauce which was to be put on each glass which it was served, a small can
of preserved cherries was opened and drained; the juice was boiled down
to a thick syrup with a small cup of sugar, and the cherries put back in
it to cool, with a flavoring of sherry.
The salad was made next, the lettuce washed and rolled up in a clean
towel and put where it was very cold, to crisp. They rolled balls of
cream cheese, wetting them with a bit of oil to make them smooth, and
adding salt and a dash of cayenne; as each one was made it was rolled in
grated American cheese and then laid away. The French dressing was also
made, and at the last moment was to be poured over the lettuce, and the
golden, white-centred balls laid on it.
The beets for the soup were next chopped and boiled in a pint of water;
as much milk was added, the whole seasoned with a slice of onion, salt
and pepper, and then strained and slightly thickened. This made the
prettiest of pink soups, and one which could be set away and be reheated
at dinner time in three minutes. The mint jelly was also made: a cup of
water was put with the juice of a lemon and heated; when hot, a small
bunch of bruised mint was put in and simmered for two minutes; then this
was strained and a level tablespoonful of gelatine, dissolved in half a
cup of cold water, was put in with a tiny bit of green vegetable
coloring, the whole strained through flannel and put into a pretty
little mould. It would come out a lovely sparkling green, quite
decorative enough to be put on the table, and delicious to eat with the
lamb, Mrs. Thorne assured Dolly complacently.
The peas were turned out of the can, drained, seasoned and made ready to
heat up quickly. The potatoes were boiled and cut up in a very little
thick white sauce, and a spoonful of parsley was minced to be scattered
over them, last of all.
After their luncheon the dinner table was laid. It had a white damask
cloth, and a white, lace-edged centrepiece. There were four glass
candlesticks with yellow candles and shades, and in the middle a bowl of
the yellow jonquils, now in season and inexpensive. At each place was a
pretty plate, which was to remain on till exchanged for a hot one later,
and a small array of silver, with a tumbler and napkin. The latter hid a
dinner roll, so no bread and butter was served at the dinner. The table
was then finished except for the last touch; the small dishes of
radishes and salted almonds, and a few white peppermints, were to be put
on just before dinner, with the dish of mint jelly.
After the dinner was over Dolly confessed her amazement.
"I 'never did,' as the children say. I had no idea you could have so
nice, so pretty a party with so little to 'do' with. Really, we never
missed the fish, or the entrée, or the game or anything else. It was a
lovely and delicious meal, wasn't it, Dick?"
"Modesty compels me to refrain from saying what I truly think, Dolly.
Otherwise I should mention my conviction is that it was as good a dinner
and as nice a party as you'd often find, and your sister is about as
fine a cook and manager as they make 'em. But as I said to begin with,
in my position of host my lips are sealed."
"So little trouble, too," Dolly went on, smiling at him. "I really
thought you were crazy to ask the Osgoods, whom everybody is afraid to
entertain because they have everything in the world, but our dinner was
just as nice as though we had followed in their footsteps and had a
table decorated with orchids, and whitebait and fancy ices and
everything else to eat. Mary, permit me to say I consider you a genius!"
"Nothing of the sort. I am simply a woman, more or less sensible, I
fondly trust, who knows that nowadays nobody cares for long, ten-course
meals, and if what is set out is only good of its kind, that is all that
matters. Then, too, when we are really living on a little and everybody
knows it, either we cannot entertain at all, which means that we cannot
accept invitations, or we must do it in a plain way, in keeping with the
general style of our home life. Anything else would be absurd, snobbish
and extravagant. And to prove that people like to come to simple
dinner-parties like ours, I shall have two more right away."
"Three cheers," said her husband calmly.
The next morning the sisters added up their accounts and set down the
dinner menu and what it cost in a little dinner-party book which was
often used for reference by them. This is what the dinner proved to have
cost:
Soup, milk and beets $.15
Lamb 1.40
Lettuce, one head, cheese balls, French dressing .30
Cream, ice and salt for freezing .30
Cakes, home-made .10
Almonds, radishes, olives, mint jelly .50
-----
$2.75
"That is all, except the flowers, which were forty cents, and the
cherries, which I made myself last summer and paid for then, so I did
not have to put their cost in now, you see. The little bottle of olives
cost ten cents; so did the radishes. The Jordan almonds were forty cents
a pound, and I got half a pound and have some over for next time. With
the flowers, that makes the dinner $3.15; say $3.25, to allow a liberal
margin for little bits of butter, sugar, salt and so on used up in
cooking, and $4, including the pay of the waitress. I call that a cheap
party."
As soon as finances permitted and small economies had made the two
sisters feel comparatively rich, they gave a second dinner. This time
they found some pink tulips at a small florist's, and these they used in
making a lovely table. They stuck them one by one into a very shallow
dish filled with sand, the leaves put in and out also, and the edge of
the dish concealed with moss; this gave exactly the effect of a little
bed of growing flowers.
The menu was quite different from the other dinner:
Cream of almond soup.
Olives, radishes, salted nuts.
Maryland chicken with cream gravy; new potatoes; corn fritters.
Lettuce and cherry salad; crackers.
Vanilla ice-cream with strawberries.
Coffee.
The soup was made by chopping a quarter of a pound of almonds and
simmering them in a pint of milk; then the other pint was put in with
the seasoning, and it was slightly thickened, strained, and at last
beaten up well with an egg-beater to make it foamy. The chicken was cut
up and the best pieces dipped in batter and fried in deep fat; a rich
cream gravy was passed with this. The corn fritters which were the
necessary accompaniment of the dish were made of canned, grated corn.
The salad was very cheap at this time of year. Large California cherries
were stoned, laid on lettuce, and a French dressing poured over all. The
ice-cream was a nice vanilla, and on each glass was put one fine large
strawberry. The next day the remains of the chicken appeared at dinner
in the shape of croquettes, with a rice border, and the rest of the box
of berries came on also. This materially reduced the expenses of that
meal, and the difference went on to the cost of the party dinner, to
help out. The account was like this:
Soup, milk and almonds $.20
Chickens, two 1.75
Potatoes and corn .25
Lettuce and cherries .30
Cream and berries .30
-----
$2.80
Adding the little things as before, the flowers, nuts, olives, pay of
the waitress, and a margin, brought this up to a trifle over four
dollars.
"That is too much," said Mary soberly, as she set down the figures. "I
mean to keep strictly within a four-dollar limit. So our third dinner,
Dolly, must be less than these and even things."
This was the third dinner:
Clear soup with tapioca.
Salted nuts, radishes, almonds.
Roast of veal, stuffed; fresh mushrooms; potatoes.
Lettuce with chopped nuts; French dressing.
Strawberry ices.
Coffee.
"That is a good, sensible dinner," said Dolly. "No frills, unless you
count the mushrooms."
"It is the cost of the waitress that makes these dinners so expensive,"
said her sister. "It provokes me to have to put money on that, yet I
will do it at a real dinner-party. But as for the rest, this ought not
to be a costly affair."
The soup was made of very ordinary materials, but it looked and tasted
well. The roast was crisply browned and juicy within, and the delicious
stuffing and broiled mushrooms were substantial and good. The salad was
lettuce covered with chopped almonds put on after the French dressing.
The ices called for no cream and so were inexpensive. The figures showed
this result:
Soup $.15
Veal 1.20
Mushrooms, quarter of a pound .25
Potatoes, radishes, almonds, etc. .35
Lettuce, nuts, dressing, crackers .20
Ices .20
-----
$2.35
"Ah, that's better," said Mary, when she saw the total. "Then the
flowers were the same as before, only red instead of pink tulips; the
waitress, too, and the margin--only $3.25. I feel relieved."
"Of course roast veal is not quite as good as Maryland chicken," said
Dolly, "but the mushrooms made it seem quite elegant; broiled mushrooms
are certainly food for the gods. It is quite a saving to have an ice
instead of an ice-cream, isn't it? And Mary, did you see what a big, big
piece of roast was left over?"
"That is one of the good things about veal, that there is so little
waste. I am sure we can easily make two dinners out of it, and that will
save ever so much. And when we can get ahead at all, Dolly, we must
hurry and have our luncheons."