The cannelons are to be served with the poached eggs and tomato. And the directions for preparing the latter dish are to be found elsewhere in this book.
The macaroni with cheese you know all about, I dare say. Is this your way of doing it? Break the macaroni into two-inch lengths and drop into boiling salted water. When it is quite tender pour cold water over it, drain and stir about in plenty of melted butter till each piece is well covered, then put into a baking-dish, strew grated Parmesan cheese over it and let brown in a hot oven. Just a little bit of cayenne added to the cheese improves the flavor wonderfully, to my thinking.
You can find green string beans at the provisioner's yet, or you can get them tinned, as you choose. I shall not presume to advise you as to that, but for the cooking of them I will say a word or two. Boil them till perfectly tender, then drain well and place them in a pan with a tablespoonful or more of fine herbs (minced chives or minced shallot and parsley), with pepper, salt and lemon juice and two ounces of butter; toss them over the fire till the butter is melted and serve.
Perhaps this isn't the place to go into a discussion of the circumstances that have landed us as a nation at a point where we think we must have turkey on Thanksgiving Day, or be accused of showing a disrespect for the Declaration of Independence. But some time the matter will be attacked by somebody who will spend a decade or so in the Astor Library or the Boston Athenæum to discover who said "turkey" first and where they said it. Evidently it was said in one of those voices that are heard around the world and its echoes have not begun to diminish, so far as my ear can detect, even yet. So turkey it is, I suppose.
But this little talk shall be of the addenda of the dinner. Know what addenda means, don't you? Well, call them "fixin's," then. Nowadays grape fruit is a hard and fast "fixin'" of a Thanksgiving Day dinner. Before the soup it comes on cut in halves with the seeds removed and also all of the white pith in the centre of each half with a pair of sharp scissors. Then by the taste of them it is evident that about an hour before they were put on the table they had a lump of sugar and a teaspoonful of rum put into each half, after which little refection they reposed on the ice till wanted. Don't go on the principle that if a little rum is good more must be better and try to float the fruit in--that would have been hailed as a rank outrage even by Captain Shaddock himself--but just be content to see how potent a little bit of rum can be in good company.