And what will the ladies have to drink? Suppose we say a sip of sherry with the bouillon and a bottle of pretty good Rhine wine to be brought in with the cutlets. And it doesn't seem to me that it would be overdoing the matter to have a cordial finale--say crème yvette, or crème de cacao à la vanille.
Of course, I will tell you the approximate cost of such a luncheon. With good management it can be served, inclusive of the wines, for twelve dollars for a dozen persons. And that is not bad, now, is it?
Didn't you just enjoy that cooling little _entr'acte_ we had in July? I did. Let's have another. We will not have anything sweet in this, however, we will have it cold and savory. Doesn't that hit you favorably? There are plenty of cold and dainty savories that may come to table as your chief dish at luncheon or at dinner or as an entrée only, at the latter meal, according to the degree with which you manage to put on style.
There's chicken cream, for instance, made from a cold boiled or roasted--well, bird. I don't know whether it's chicken or fowl. Perhaps you paid for chicken and got fowl. Perhaps you paid for fowl and wheedled the provisioner into giving you chicken. But we will say chicken, anyway. Pick, then, all the flesh from the chicken, mince and then pound it. Now add to it half a pint of cream stiffly whipped and half a pint of just liquid aspic jelly. Season with salt and white pepper and any other condiment if you like. Then have one large or several small moulds and line them with aspic jelly and fill with the chicken cream. Let set till cold and stiff and then unmould on slices of very thin fried bread. Chop parsley and sprinkle over the creams when unmoulded.
Another way would be to line the moulds with liquid aspic and a little tomato sauce. When this sets fill with the chicken cream as before. If you like the cream may be omitted from the chicken and when it is unmoulded it may be covered with a French dressing or with mayonnaise.
Any remains of cold meat can be chopped finely, mixed with shredded lettuce or watercress or parsley, capers, stoned olives, a truffle or two and mayonnaise, with enough liquid aspic to stiffen it and moulded in any way.
These do make delicious presentations of old subjects--just a little labor and a little inventive painstaking and you have accomplished wonders. There are so many garnishes that may be used with these cold things to make them more of a delight that it is impossible to go through the list. Sliced tomatoes or cucumbers or some cold cooked vegetable with a French dressing--any quantity of them you see once you begin to cast about for them.