About a pound and a half of halibut, at eighteen cents the pound, will be required, and it should be boiled till tender enough to flake lightly; then, if you have a rather deep dish, with a border of mashed potato about the inside, all will go smoothly. Into the bottom of the dish put a layer of white sauce made of half a pint of boiling milk, three ounces of butter and a little salt, thickened with flour; sprinkle in flakes of the fish, then a layer of the sauce, adding a little milk if it promises to be too dry, and so on till the dish is full, having a layer of sauce on top. Then scatter grated Parmesan over all, and brown to a tempting shade.
With ducklings tender and toothsome, as they should be in this month, it is plainly seen that the next course is capable of being a _pièce de résistance_ at a far more stately affair even than the one which we are considering. But if they are roasted in the ordinary way known to every housekeeper in the land, stuffed with bread crumbs, highly seasoned, and have a giblet sauce, quite an extraordinary flavor will be given them if, just before serving, half a pint of pitted and quartered olives are added to the sauce. It's only a trifling addition to the old way, you see, but the improvement is so great you will wonder that every one doesn't know of the gastronomical harmony existing between duck and olives. Now, the flavor of the ducks is so rich and altogether satisfying that it takes only the simplest and mildest-flavored vegetable to complement this course. And nothing will answer the purpose better than cauliflower. If they are cut into pieces of uniform size, they cook in a much more satisfactory manner, and they should boil as gently as possible; do not add the salt to the water till they are nearly tender. When taking them up, drain well, and over all pour melted butter thickened with browned bread-crumbs, and send to table. I fancy you will find them more to your liking served in this way than in the old rutty way of so many cooks, namely, with a white sauce, which varies in different households from a fair quality of flour paste to a very rich and fairly cloying concoction of cream and melted butter.
There is nothing like a simple salad to prepare one's palate for the sweets which come at the last, and with hothouse cucumbers now in evidence and lettuce always with us, the making of a salad is a delight in more ways than one. It is not so many years ago that we had to pay from thirty-five to fifty cents each for cucumbers at this season of the year, but the large number of cucumber hothouses near every city is fast bringing this desirable vegetable to a state where it will be known as an all-the-year-round commodity.