At Home on the Range

One important help in keeping entertaining painless is to write down, as far ahead as possible, a complete menu of your planned meal. And by complete, I mean really complete. Not just chicken, rice, salad, dessert. Do it on a large sheet of paper divided into three columns. Write the proposed menu in one column, and what is on hand and the necessary marketing in the other two. For example, the list for the curry supper I have suggested might look like this:

MENU	ON HAND	ORDER
Martinis	Vermouth	Gin
Olives	Olives	½ lb Roquefort
Cheese Pâté	Lemons	1 cream cheese
Cheese Pâté	Chives	Sherry
Curried chicken	Onions	2–6 lb stewing
		chickens
		1 bunch celery
		2 large apples
Rice	Rice	—
Salad	Tomatoes	2 heads lettuce
	Vinegar	2 bunches radishes
		1 cucumber
		olive oil
French bread	Butter	2 loaves French bread
French bread	Butter	(if none, yeast cake for rolls)

Side dishes:

MENU	ON HAND	ORDER
India relish	India relish	—
Cocoanut	—	1 cocoanut
Hard-boiled eggs	Eggs	—
Chutney	Chutney	—
Chutney	Onions	—
Chopped ham	—	½ lb cooked ham or bacon
Chopped onion	Onions	—
Peanuts	—	½ lb salted peanuts
Sliced limes	—	½ dozen limes
Bombay Duck	—	1 tin Bombay Duck
Fruit compote	Oranges	2 grapefruit
		1 fresh pineapple
		1 lb Belgian grapes
		1 box fresh or frozen
		strawberries
Sponge cake	All materials	—
Coffee	Coffee	—
Wine	—	1 small peach brandy
Wine	—	2 bottles wine
Soda	—	6 bottles soda
Coca-Cola	Coca-Cola	—
Beer	—	1 case beer

Do your marketing clutching the list in your hand, and if you are unable to get any particular item, cross off the original and write down the replacement. This done, tear off the menu and hang it up in the kitchen where you can keep an eye on it. All this may seem an effort but once you get in the habit you’ll no longer be discouraged by finding a forgotten plate of appetizers in the icebox long after your guests have departed. For overnight or longer-staying visitors, the same written menus are invaluable. Plan and do the ordering as far ahead as you can, write everything down, and you’ll be saved that “what am I going to give them for lunch?” sensation that otherwise comes like a blow on the head just as breakfast has been cleared away.

As for people who go in for elaborate lists of what they last fed a given group of friends, or what is equally dull, notes on their guests’ likes or dislikes in food, phooie, say I. Any hostess worth her salt should be able to remember what her friends can’t or won’t eat, and as for the things they do like, show me the woman, or particularly the man, who isn’t able to go to town with a favorite food almost indefinitely, while specialties of the house are always looked forward to, no matter how many times they have been served before.

Now back to our CHICKEN CURRY. For twelve people cover 2 cut-up, 5 or 6-pound stewing chickens with cold water. Add 2 peeled chopped onions, ½ cup of celery leaves, and a few sprigs of parsley. Simmer, keeping the meat well covered with water, until it is tender, which only you can tell for it depends on the age and innocence of the bird itself. Start testing it with a fork and add salt to taste after the first 45 minutes. When the fork goes into a drumstick easily, the bird is done. Drain the meat and let it and the broth cool, then remove the skin and cut the chicken into good-sized pieces. No delicate mincing here, this is a sturdy dish. Skim the fat from the broth and put 6 tablespoons of it into a saucepan—a large one for this is going to be the future home of your entire dish—set it over a medium fire, and add 2 cups of chopped peeled white onions, 1 cup of chopped celery, and 2 chopped tart apples that have been peeled and cored. This last is not absolutely necessary, but it does add a certain flavor. Cover and let them simmer until the onions are soft and starting to color. Add the cut-up chicken and enough broth, measuring it as it goes in, to more than cover the meat, say 2 inches above, for you want plenty of sauce. If there isn’t enough broth, add water or half-and-half canned consommé and water. Let things come to a boil and then for every cup of liquid stir in slowly ½ teaspoon of curry powder and ½ tablespoon of flour that have been blended to a smooth paste with plenty of cold water. Simmer it gently for 15 or 20 minutes, taste it for flavor, and add salt or curry powder if you think they are needed. If the sauce seems thin, thicken it with cornstarch dissolved in cold water. Put this in, a little at a time, and let the chicken boil up well after each addition. The finished sauce should be thinner than the usual gravy, yet it should have quite a bit of body. Let it simmer 15 minutes longer. Give it a final taste for seasoning and it’s ready to serve or better still to rest in the icebox overnight, well covered, to let its flavor blend before reheating. Then bring on the boiled rice and trimmings, and when you serve the curry don’t forget to supply your guests with a dessert spoon in addition to the usual fork. That’s the way it’s done in India and the extra utensil is a great help in getting those delicious last juicy bits off the plate. The same sauce made with chicken broth or half canned consommé and half water can be used for cooked meat, shrimps or eggs. Add any leftover meat gravy before the flour and curry powder.

CURRIED LENTILS or “DAH” is a domesticated East Indian dish taught me by that famous Baltimore hostess, Mrs. William Bevan, and worthy of her. For twelve people: Soak 2 cups of lentils overnight. Next morning drain and cook them in 8 cups of seasoned chicken broth or the diluted canned consommé until tender, about 1 hour. Drain and save the stock you have cooked them in. Stir 2 cups of sliced onions on a medium fire in 4 tablespoons of butter until very tender but not browned. Add the lentils, 2 tablespoons of curry powder, 2 tablespoons of lime juice, mix well, and then put in just enough of the stock to make a dish that can be easily “spooned out.” Another recipe that takes to an overnight rest and reheating in a double boiler and enjoys chutney and the other curry accompaniments. Any leftover can be put through a sieve and added to the remaining stock for a delicious soup.

I never prepare rice without remembering my first experience with that expanding grain. I had promised my just-married husband his favorite stewed chicken and rice and, making the usual stop at his club before dinner, such was his pride in my cooking that every time he boasted of his coming meal he felt forced to invite one more hungry bachelor to share it. As each phone call announced an extra guest I made more gravy and lightheartedly measured out another cupful of rice, then filled what seemed an adequate pot with water and started cooking it. Soon to my shocked surprise I was frantically hurling the cereal into bigger and bigger containers with more and more water, and, I don’t wonder now that roars of laughter greeted the hysterical bride who was discovered wringing her hands while gazing with wide-eyed horror at a large dishpan heaped full of boiled rice. With this cautionary tale in mind, remember that one cup of uncooked rice will, after treatment, feed three, and for our curry supper for twelve take four cups, put it in a sieve, and wash it well under running cold water to completely free each grain from its starch covering. Have a big pot filled with boiling water, add 1 tablespoon of salt for each quart of the liquid, and then add the rice so slowly that the bubbling never ceases. When the last of the rice is in, give the pot one quick thorough stir down to the bottom and let the boiling continue without any more disturbance. At the end of 15 minutes test to see if it’s done, and if you have allowed the rice to dry thoroughly after its cold bath it shouldn’t take longer than that. When a grain pressed between thumb and finger feels tender all the way through, take the rice off the stove, put it in a colander or large sieve, run more cold water through it and return it in the sieve to the stove for 10 minutes to regain its heat over a little hot water. It can be put in a medium oven for this if you prefer, and if it has to be kept waiting, remember that it is much more palatable cooked just enough and on the cool side than as a hot but overdone gluey mass. What goes over the rice is the article that must be kept at top temperature.

FRUIT COMPOTE is the perfect dessert to follow a rich meal and for twelve people buy 1 fresh pineapple, or use 6 slices of the canned variety. Core and remove the rind of the fresh fruit and cut it or the canned slices into inch cubes. Add the segments of 2 large grapefruit and 4 good-sized oranges, and a pint box of hulled and washed strawberries, or the same amount of frozen ones, with a squeeze of lime or lemon juice. Melt ½ cup of sugar in ½ cup of warm water and sweeten the fruit lightly with this. Arrange the fruit tastefully in your prettiest glass bowl, pour over it a half-cup or maybe more of the best peach or apricot brandy you can buy. Put it in the icebox to chill and when it comes on the table watch your guests sniff appreciatively as they help themselves.

The college football season and the late return from the games through the crisp fall evening always seemed to call for at least one fish chowder party with the soup steaming in my grandmother’s big tureen, plenty of warm pilot biscuits, a big bowl of tart cole slaw, side dishes of pickled beets, mustard pickle and pickled peaches, and for dessert hot baked apple dumplings, cheese and thick cream. Sometimes there was a plate of doughnuts to dunk in the coffee, and on really chilly nights a crock of homemade baked beans and a cruet of tomato catsup followed the chowder. A menu that can be prepared ahead and is guaranteed to thaw a frozen group in record time.

Make the FISH CHOWDER (for twelve again) this way: Buy six pounds of codfish or haddock. Have the fishman skin and bone it, and take the trimmings and two or three fish heads home with the fish. Put the trimmings and heads into a saucepan, add ½ cup of chopped celery and the same of onion, a sprig of parsley, a small piece of bay leaf, and a few whole peppercorns. Cover with 2 quarts of water and let it simmer for 1 hour. Strain out the bones etc., and you have the rich fish stock that chefs call court bouillon. Cut 1 pound of fat salt pork with the rind removed into small dice and fry them in a deep pot until crisp and brown. Add 4 cups of chopped onions and cook 3 minutes more. Now add the fish, cut up into good-sized pieces, and 4 cups of diced white potatoes. Cover this with 8 cups of fish stock, making up any difference with water, pop on the lid, and let everything simmer 20 minutes until the potatoes and onions are tender. In another pot melt ½ cup of butter and blend into it ¾ cup of flour. Stir in slowly 2 quarts of milk, add salt to taste and a good twist of the pepper grinder, and simmer for 15 minutes. When you’re ready to serve the chowder, combine the contents of the two pots, bring it to a quick boil for 5 minutes, and when it comes to the table let it wear a few yellow bits of melting butter and a frost of paprika and chopped parsley. Have big deep bowls, not shallow soup plates, to eat it from and put a warm pilot biscuit in the bottom of each before you ladle out the soup. If pilot biscuit or “sea toast” isn’t available soda crackers make an acceptable substitute. This soup is apt to curdle if kept hot indefinitely, but both parts can be made ahead and reheated before mixing together.

Many of my recipes have a history and baked beans always bring back the Maine woods and the lovely camp that a friend of ours owned on a lake there. Before the summer season and real style arrived, the place was cared for by John, the general factotum, and his wife, Mollie, whose baked beans were deservedly famous. She wrote down her recipe for me one cool June evening, and while she was explaining that the touch of ginger was what made it outstanding, the men were questioning John on the winter’s gossip in the small nearby town. “Well,” said John, “about the only thing that’s happened is that George Brown’s youngest daughter is in trouble on account of that feller that’s been boarding with her folks.” “I guess George didn’t like that too much,” someone put in. John thought a moment and then came out with the typical Maine understatement that has been a byword in our house ever since. “George was pretty dam’ mad for about an hour,” he said.

Here’s the recipe for BAKED BEANS. I cook them in a big brown lidded crock and generally serve them in that, too, but for a change put them in a shallow glass baking dish after cooking and let them get a rich brown again in a hot oven before they go to the table. Take your choice of service but don’t forget Mollie’s advice to deal gently with the ginger. Wash and pick over 1 quart of big white pea beans and soak them overnight in three times their quantity of water. Next morning drain the beans, cover them with fresh water, and simmer slowly until a few picked up in a spoon will burst their skins when you blow gently on them. A remarkable direction, I grant, but the only satisfactory method. While the beans are cooking, scrape the rind of a ¾-pound piece of salt pork, cut it into 3 pieces, and let it stand in boiling water for a few minutes. In the bottom of your bean pot put one small peeled onion and a piece of pork. Half fill with the drained beans and add another onion and piece of pork. Fill the pot to within 2 inches of the top, bury one more onion just below the surface of the beans, and add the remaining piece of pork with its rind just showing. Mix 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 teaspoon of dry mustard, and ¼ teaspoon of ground ginger with 2 cups of the water the beans were boiled in. Stir in 1 cup of New Orleans molasses and ½ cup of tomato catsup and pour over the beans, adding enough of the bean water to fill the pot. Put on the lid and bake in a very slow oven (275°) for at least 6 hours, and preferably overnight. Peek at them every two hours or so to see that the water hasn’t cooked away, add more if necessary, and if they are to cook while you sleep, be sure that the liquid comes well up under the lid before you leave them. Let them brown, uncovered, for half an hour before serving, and if you’re planning on reheating and serving from the crock, allow at least 45 minutes in a 300° oven for them to get hot all through again, keeping the lid on and not letting the liquid get below the beans.

Cole slaw (page 102) for our hungry twelve will take 3 quarts of finely chopped cabbage and double one of the recipes for boiled dressing (page 102). Let it chill thoroughly and after you put it in the big wooden bowl decorate its edges with quartered tomatoes if you wish, though this homely meal hardly calls for trimmings.

The apples for the dumplings can be peeled, cored and left covered with cold water to which has been added a little lemon juice and salt, but they mustn’t wait too long, and APPLE DUMPLINGS are really better made ahead and reheated. Put 1 tablespoon of brown sugar (or more if the fruit is sour) and ½ teaspoon of butter and a dash of nutmeg in the center of each apple. Roll out thin 6-inch squares of piecrust (page 117) for each one. Fold the corners of the crust over the top of the apple, pinch the sides together and bake on a greased pan in a 350° oven for 45 minutes. Pass the cream and sugar with these. Ice-cold beer goes well with this meal and don’t forget the always welcome coffee.

Although there have been those who wondered how, what with the constant riot and number of guests of all ages continually under foot in their home, our offspring ever had the time and privacy in which to make or receive a proposal, both the children married young. When the second wedding approached we put up a brave front, but both my husband and I were sure that with the fledglings gone the old nest was going to be a grim place. A feeling which was encouraged by certain of our more settled friends who broadly hinted that a frustrated desire for peace and quiet might be the answer to this family epidemic of early matrimony. To our delight we never got time to oil up the wheelchairs to which we had threatened to retire, for the last confetti and rice were hardly cleared away before the children and their friends were back, and even if our house seemed a bit empty in the day and late at night, dinnertime was as gay and noisy as ever.

Sunday was the real evening for a home reunion and my contention that a good dish never palls was vindicated, for every week the same crowd ate chili and to a man—and girl—appeared the next Sunday ready to tackle another round of the identical food. At rare intervals I switched to Spanish rice. Once I remember we had spaghetti and a flag-draped transparency (made of white shelf paper) over the door said sadly in large crayon letters “A Reverdici Giuseppe Jonesetti” for war was in the air and the first of the lads to go maintained that his group at training camp was chiefly Italian. But CHILI was the real Sunday favorite and needless to say I liked it, too, because it could be prepared the Saturday or even Friday before. Here is how I did it, and again twelve seemed to be the right number to look forward to serving. Have the butcher grind 2½ pounds of top of the round, or do it yourself, but don’t, I beg again, buy ready-ground “hamburg.” Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a big saucepan, put in the meat, 6 cups of coarsely chopped onions and 2 chopped cloves of garlic. Cover and let it simmer for 30 minutes, stirring well from the bottom once in a while. Then add 4 cans of kidney beans and 3 cans of tomatoes, salt and pepper to taste, and 3 teaspoons of chili powder, always heeding the warning to go slowly at first with a hot seasoning, adding more later if needed. Let it all just simmer 2 hours and for the last half of that time you will have to watch and stir it fairly frequently lest it scorch. This is really the main buffet dish par excellence. It is delicious, filling, can be made ahead, and if you supply yourself with extra cans of tomatoes and beans the unexpected famished guest can cause no worries. Just dump in sufficient more tomatoes and beans, give them a few minutes to boil up, and while the chili may not be so meaty it will still be very appetizing. Serve cornbread made from a mix, with this. Follow the directions on the package, bake it in thin layers in round cake pans, and keep it coming out of the oven; cut in wedge-shaped pieces. The salad bowl might hold finely chopped celery, bits of hard-boiled egg, and a few cans of anchovies, mixed with its lettuce and French dressing (page 100), and for dessert how about home-canned or brandied peaches (page 133)? A cake, too, if your company is still at that happy calory-unconscious age. Coffee and dry red wine are as good with this meal as with spaghetti, although I have found that youth prefers, and is doubtless better off with the plebeian beer.

This recipe for SPANISH RICE will serve eight. Heat 6 tablespoons of olive oil until it crackles—no substitutes here for you need the flavor of the real McCoy. Add 3 cups of washed rice, 2 cups of coarsely chopped onions, 1 chopped garlic clove, 2 shredded green peppers (seeds and white pulp removed), and an optional cup of sliced mushrooms, and stir over a hot fire until the rice starts to pop and brown and the vegetables are soft, about 15 minutes. Put in a deep casserole, allowing enough room for the rice to swell to four times its bulk. Add 2 cans of tomatoes, 2 cans of condensed consommé, and season with salt and pepper. Stir well. Cover the casserole tightly and cook in a 350° oven for 1 hour. Do not stir again. Look at it when half done and add 1 cup of consommé if it seems dry, for rice does vary in its absorptive qualities. Serve in the casserole in which it was baked, and pass grated Italian cheese. Sliced Italian ham goes well with this, or have plates of antipasto ready on the table as a first course, and you’ll need nothing else except the warmed, already buttered bread, and coffee.

I usually make my SPAGHETTI WITH MEAT for a more filling dish, although without the meat the sauce itself is delicious. For twelve, take 1 pound of ground top of the round, season with salt, pepper, and ½ cup of chopped parsley, and form into small balls the size of marbles. Brown these with an optional cup of sliced mushrooms in 4 tablespoons of butter. Cover and keep warm. The SPAGHETTI SAUCE is simplicity itself. Soften 1 cup of finely chopped onions and 2 chopped garlic cloves in 4 tablespoons of olive oil. Add 2 cans of tomatoes, 2 cans of condensed consommé and 2 cans of tomato paste. The Italian variety that is labeled con basilico is best. Each can contains a leaf of sweet basil, and if you are unable to find the brand, put in a pinch of the dried herb. Simmer the sauce 15 minutes, stirring constantly, strain it through a sieve, and keep it hot. Cook 1 pound of spaghetti in boiling salted water 10 minutes, if you want what Italians call a la dente, meaning chewy, and 5 minutes longer if you like it soft. Drain and return to the stove over hot water. Serve with the small meat balls and their juice over it, and have the hot tomato sauce and grated cheese in separate dishes.

Our last summer cottage was in a deserted and most unexclusive but cheap section of the coast. Its 2½ bedrooms hardly held all of us, and though really a completely self-sufficient family we do love company. This lack was soon remedied by the discovery in the general store of a fly-specked dozen of picture postals which, though they gave our house the appearance of a Hollywood palace, at least showed how to reach it. We marked our villa with the usual cross, wrote on the message side over our name “Clam Chowder, Beer, Sandwiches and Swimming Every Sunday After Twelve. Guests Please Bring Their Own Bath Towels,” addressed them to friends, and let Uncle Sam do the rest. The results threatened to be overwhelming, but the whole family took turns grinding clams on Saturday afternoons, and Sunday mornings, with everything under control, we’d bet on who and how many would appear that particular day. The CLAM CHOWDER was the Manhattan variety, sniffed at by all true New Englanders, but their creamy style will curdle when kept hot and this won’t. This will serve twelve: Scrub 4 dozen large chowder clams (quahogs) and put them in a big covered pot with 2 cups of boiling water. Let them steam until just opened. Remove the clams, pry open the shells, and take out the meat. Strain and reserve the juice in the pot. Grind the clams coarsely, strain and mix the juices. Remove the rind from 1 pound of fat salt pork, cut it into small dice, and fry until crisp in a large pot. Then add 2 cups of chopped onions and cook 5 minutes. Add 2 cups of diced potatoes, 5 cups of the clam juice (eked out with water if necessary), 1 cup of diced carrots, the same of chopped celery, and 8 cups of canned tomatoes. Season with 1 teaspoon of thyme and ½ teaspoon of pepper. Boil 15 minutes, add the chopped clams, and boil for 15 minutes more.

Our open-faced BATHING SUIT SANDWICHES were deservedly famous that summer. These have as a foundation a buttered slice of pumpernickel or rye bread cut crosswise from a round loaf. On this go layers of lettuce, sliced tomatoes, onion rings, and anchovies, with hand-ground black pepper and a little anchovy oil on top. Needless to say, they are best eaten on a sunny beach with a bottle of cold beer frosting on the sand nearby, but a knife and fork will housebreak them to a degree. SUBMARINE SANDWICHES are a close relation, a little better trained, perhaps, but just as hunger-appeasing. Split and butter long Italian or French rolls and fill them with lettuce, sliced tomatoes, onion rings, sliced Italian salami, and slivers of Provalona or Swiss cheese. A little olive oil, and just a touch of hot Italian red pepper finishes these before they receive their covers. Have the makings and rolls on the table and let the guests, as the family says, loom up their own.

The chowder, beer and sandwiches were served, before or after swims, and we sped our guests with hot coffee and cinnamon bun. This last was often bought, to my shame, but procuring, opening and grinding the clams took almost all Saturday and to really cook for a crowd on summer Sundays is too much to ask.

In the days when that evening bore the blessed title “cook’s night out,” every Thursday all one winter was “milk toast night,” too. It started when a friend dropped in on my husband, who had been advised to stick to a light diet for a few days, and said he also liked the nursery dish. It may have been nostalgia for a lost youth that seems to affect so many of our generation, but a surprising number of guests began appearing and extra milk and cream on Thursday, with a baking of bread on Wednesday, became the rule.

The “setting” was a toaster at each end of the table and a bowl and spoon for each guest—period! The “menu”—plenty of half-and-half milk and cream kept hot in a double boiler, 2 loaves of bread, a dish of butter, salt, pepper, and a castor of flavored salts—garlic, onion, and the like—was an equally effortless preparation. Each guest sliced his bread and adjusted the toaster to his liking and the arguments that went on as to whether the true gourmet preferred light or dark toast, eaten crisp, or after softening with milk, the amount of butter, and the best mixtures of seasonings, would have done credit to a meeting of a wine and food society. Sure proof that the simplest food can make a “party” for congenial folk.

Here is a list of further main dishes that are all excellent for buffet suppers, with the references to the recipes for preparing them. Increase the quantities as necessary:

Virginia ham	pg. 157
Meat loaf	pg. 53
Deviled mutton	pg. 50
Crab Imperial	pg. 80
Shrimp Florentine	pg. 80
Scalloped oysters	pg. 76
Chicken Cacciatore	pg. 51
Lamb stew	pg. 55
Beef and Kidney pie	pg. 56
Veal and Ham pie	pg. 57
Deviled clams	pg. 77
Salmon mousse	pg. 79

Decorations for the table, and entertainment after the guests have enjoyed a well-cooked meal should go right along with the careful beforehand planning of the menu, for like a well-arranged parsley or watercress garnish they add the perfect finishing touch.

Thank heaven the time has gone when bunches of stiff expensive flowers cut off from view the other side of the table. A few blooms in a low container are easier on our modern eyes, and with all the books that are available on simple flower arrangement even the most unskilled nongarden-clubber ought to be able to achieve an attractive result. Snoop around secondhand shops for odd and unusual “vases,” my pride in this connection being a brown Bennington kitchen soap dish. It cost twenty-five cents but, filled with colorful flowers, it elicits comment far above its lowly origin. Keep an eye out for odd bits of silvery Britannia ware too. Dull their surfaces may be in the dusty shop but if the lines are good an inexpensive replating will restore the finish, and an ancient metal spoon holder trailing the sheen of ivy is much more charming for a simple informal table decoration than all the orchids the florist could supply. Marigolds, zinnias, petunias, and many other flowers are easily raised from seed and a place should be kept in the smallest garden for these never-failing friends of the dining-room table.

Let the younger members of the family join in holiday preparation. We looked forward to helping grandmother stuff the Christmas turkey just as much as hanging up our stockings, and “putting in the stuff ” is still an eagerly awaited moment for my own grandchildren. In most homes there exist equally pleasant traditions that should never be allowed to lapse. But besides the big holidays don’t forget the many less important ones that can be turned into a “party” too, if only by serving Irish stew or green frosted cake on St. Patrick’s Day or passing hatchet-shaped cookies with the Twenty-second of February dessert.

When our daughter-in-law to be first appeared for family dinner after her engagement, we had a flower-bedecked rather gruesome glove form sporting a tremendous gleaming “diamond,” on the proper finger, in the center of the table, and she still cherishes it.

Mother’s Day with its bathos is always a field day for our unsentimental family and their prize effort was undoubtedly sneaking into the house a readymade cake on which a surprised Whistler’s “Mother,” looking as though she had had a hard night, was startlingly depicted in chocolate icing. A close second was when, after my always ill-tempered week of putting away winter clothes, a May Sunday morning found the hall ceiling trailing a huge sheet banner on which remarkable winged creatures gamboled amidst the letters of “Moth-er, we love you!”

Father’s Day calls for equal celebration, and the man in question having supposedly lurid taste in clothing, his gifts of dime-store lightning-struck neckties and passion-flowered shorts, not to mention campaign buttons bearing more or less disrespectful filial sentiments, would undoubtedly call forth a record outburst from the head of the family in Clarence Day’s play.

Try the oft-repeated and not difficult admonition to remember the birthdays and anniversaries of your friends. It’s a worthwhile effort and a calendar kept up to date and consulted every so often helps. A sudden shower of unexpected gifts may embarrass the recipient, but a candlelit homemade cake appearing at the end of a meal, with just one package, can never fail to touch his or her heart. The same cake, topped by small figures of bride and groom bought from a baker, will charm an old or newly married pair. On these occasions, something inexpensive but funny or appropriate, produced from its hiding place at the right moment, calls forth laughter and appreciation that a hurriedly purchased or expensive gift may miss.

An engaged couple and their wedding party will enjoy mixing the wedding cake after a buffet supper much more than taking part in just another “shower.” Arrange with the local caterer for the baking and have ready beforehand the measured but not prepared ingredients for a fruitcake (page 114). After the table has been cleared cover it, and the floor too, with newspapers or clean dustcloths. Give each guest an apron—these may be souvenirs or your own kitchen coveralls—and let them all go to work by pairs on a prearranged schedule of beating eggs, slicing citron, and sorting raisins and currants. When everything is done the helpers should assist in the mixing, with the bride and groom giving a last stirring “for luck.” Next morning take the batter to be baked in one large and one smaller layer, and give the date of the wedding so that it can be iced and delivered on that day, with the formal bridal figures placed on the summit of the pyramid. Some sentimental brides like to serve only the larger bottom cake to their wedding guests, and have the smaller one well wrapped after the reception to be saved for their first anniversary. This party can be given long before those usually hectic weeks immediately preceding the wedding, for once baked the cake is better the longer it is kept. Your dining room may appear a mild shambles after the mixing party, but their enjoyment at the moment and the interest and professional pride the amateur caterers show later when the imposing tower of cake finally greets their eyes is worth a few crushed raisins on an easily cleaned rug.

In the same mood is a plum-pudding party, with all hands after supper helping to prepare their share of the holiday specialty. Use the recipe on page 116.

The real secret of successful after-dinner entertainment lies in the careful choosing, beforehand, of congenial guests. Not necessarily all close friends, for a few strangers add spice to any group, but serious bridge players hardly relish being forced to join in wild seven-card stud poker. And the couple whose idea of a good evening is a rousing ping pong tournament won’t enjoy the sedate pencil and paper games of the intelligentsia. Any party goes better if the implements for the evening’s entertainment quietly appear before the after-dinner lull sets in and conversation reaches too dull a level. Of course, there are plenty of people who really like to talk all night, and these blessed groups rate having the evening refreshments, be they highballs, beer or Coca-Cola, brought out a little early, for in helping the flow of thought a tinkling glass, like a bird, in the hand is worth two somewhere else.

Household crises can be taken in stride and turned to advantage, too, as witness the farewell spur-of-the-minute picnic, long remembered by those who attended, that took place in our empty house when we were about to move to another city. Packing cases were the chairs and tables, and the hilarious meal was served on paper plates and cups after being cooked in the fireplace. And perhaps our most successful party was the direct result of a hard-hearted paperhanger’s refusal to change the appointed date for doing over our first floor. The necessity of clearing the grimy walls of their camouflage of pictures didn’t leave rooms that looked at all prepared for entertaining, and out-of-town friends were due for a suddenly announced but long-awaited visit. Unconcerned, we presented each guest after dinner with a large package of colored crayons and allowed them to satisfy the wicked urge that we all have to deface a blank surface. Even next morning’s early rising to forestall the paperhanger’s crew and erase some of the more realistic efforts couldn’t spoil the memory of twelve supposedly grown-up, settled people having a completely uninhibited and uproarious evening.