CHAPTER V
SUNDAY NIGHT SUPPER
One Sunday afternoon just as the clock struck three, the Blairs' telephone rang; and after she had answered it, Mother Blair called Mildred, who sat reading by the window.
"My dear," she said, "do you remember hearing Father speak of his old friends the Wentworths, whom he used to know so well years ago? Well, they have come east, and are in town for a day or two, and they want to come out and see us this very afternoon. Now I should love to ask them to stay to supper, but if I do, I shall have to stay with them and visit and can't help you at all; and Norah is out. Do you suppose you three children could get the supper and serve it all by yourselves?"
"Why, of course, Mother Blair," said Mildred, reproachfully. "Of course we can! You don't know how many things your children can do when they try! Now what shall we have? It ought to be something very good, because they have never been here before."
"We were going to have canned salmon," said her mother, thoughtfully; "we might scallop that, and have potatoes with it, and perhaps muffins or biscuits."
"Oh, have muffins, Mother! I have seen Norah make them lots of times, and I'm sure I could, too, if you give me the receipt."
"Well, you may try," said her mother, "but I think you had better have some toast ready, too, in case they do not come out right. And what else can we have? Preserves, I suppose; but, Mildred, all the nice preserves are gone, because it is so late in the spring. But we might have little baked custards."
"Yes, in the cunning little brown baking dishes; those will be lovely! And I'll make some little cakes to eat with them; Norah said there were just cookies for supper."
"But do you really think you can do all that? Don't you think the cookies will do?"
"No, indeed," said Mildred, "not for extra nice company! But little cakes are no trouble to make. And isn't it fun to have company come when you don't expect it? It's so much nicer than to specially invite them!"
Mother Blair laughed. "I hope you will always think so," she said. And Mildred ran away to call Brownie to get her apron and come to the kitchen.
"We will lay the table first, even though it is so early," said their mother. "Brownie, bring me the pile of the best doilies in the sideboard drawer."
"The Wheelers always use a regular big cloth for supper," Brownie said, as she came over with them to the table.
"Many people do, but I think the table looks prettier at breakfast and luncheon and supper with the doilies. And then, too, if anybody happens to spill anything – "
"Jack spilled gravy yesterday, awfully," said Brownie, soberly.
"Well, you see Norah had to wash only one little doily because of that; if we had had on a table-cloth, all of it would have had to go into the wash. But if we had no doilies, I should use a lunch cloth that would just cover the top of the table, and that would be pretty, too. Put one doily for each person, Brownie, and a large one in the middle for the fern dish, and little ones for the tumblers. Now for the silver."
Mildred came with knives, forks, and spoons.
"No knives, because there is no meat," said her mother; "but if we were going to use them, which side would you put them on?"
"Left," said Brownie, guessing.
"Not unless you were left-handed," smiled her mother. "The rule is: put on the right side what you will use with the right hand, and on the left what you will use with the left hand. That is, if there are no knives, all the silver goes on the right, and the fork or spoon you are to use first goes the farthest away from the plate, the next one next to that, and so on; if you remember that, you will never be puzzled as to which fork to use. Now the teaspoons – put those on the right, too; and the dessert spoon or fork may go at the top, across the plate if you like, though I prefer it on the dessert plate itself. Put the napkin at the left, always; and the tumbler goes at the top to the right, and the bread-and-butter plate and knife at the top too, toward the left. There! Doesn't that look pretty?"
Mildred had been getting out the best cups and saucers and arranging a small round tray in front of her mother's place with cream and sugar and the tray bowl, and a place left for the tea-pot; the cups she put at the right, arranging them in twos – two cups on two saucers.
"Mildred, after you pass the salmon, you may put the dish right in front of Father; and the potatoes may go on the table too, as Norah isn't here, though I like best to have them passed from the sideboard. The muffins may stand at the side of the table, half-way down. Now let us carry out all the dishes and begin to cook."
So Mildred took a pile of plates to heat, and Brownie carried a dish for the potatoes, and Mother Blair brought the little custard cups; they arranged these on the kitchen table where they would not be in the way, and then Mother Blair told Mildred to see that the fire was all right. "Always remember to look at that first," she said. "It needs shaking down a little, and to have more coal on; and pull out the dampers so the oven will heat."
Mildred hunted for the dampers, but could not find any. "I don't believe there are any on this stove," she said, just as Jack came in to see what was going on.
"No dampers! Isn't that just like a girl!" he exclaimed. "See, here they are, tucked under the edge of the stove. You pull them out – so – and then you shut the draft at the top, opposite the coal, and open the one at the bottom, so the air will blow right up through the fire and make it go like everything. And you have to turn the dampers in the pipe, too, to let the heat go up the chimney."
"Good!" said his mother. "I didn't know you knew so much about stoves. Now suppose you shake the fire down and put the coal on – that's a man's work."
"All right," said Jack; "I don't mind things like that; but boys don't cook, you know."
His mother put both hands over her ears. "Jack, if I hear you say that once more, I shall believe you are turning into a parrot! And you are all wrong, too, and some day I am going to give you some special lessons myself. But to-day you may just tend the fire and bring us things from the refrigerator as we need them, to save time. Now, Mildred, we will begin with the custards, because they must be nice and cold. Brownie, you bring the spoons and bowls and such things, and, Jack, you get the milk and eggs."
BAKED CUSTARDS
1 quart of milk.
Yolks of four eggs.
4 teaspoonfuls of sugar.
½ teaspoonful of vanilla.
1 pinch of salt.
½ teaspoonful of grated nutmeg.
Put the sugar in the milk; beat the eggs light, and add those, with salt and vanilla. Pour into the cups, sprinkle with nutmeg, and arrange the cups in a shallow pan. Bake half an hour, or till, when you put the blade of a knife in one, it comes out clean.
It took just a few moments to make these, and then came the next rule:
CURRANT CAKES
½ cup of butter.
1 cup of sugar.
1 cup of milk.
1 egg.
2 cups of flour.
2 rounded teaspoonfuls of baking-powder.
½ cup of currants.
1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
Wash the currants and rub them dry in a towel. Put the flour in a bowl; take out a large tablespoonful and mix with the currants, and then mix the baking-powder with the rest of it. Rub the butter to a cream, add the sugar, then the milk, then the egg, beaten without separating, then the flour mixed with the baking-powder, then the flavoring, and, last, the currants. Grease some small tins, fill them half full, and bake in an oven not too hot.
"You must always mix some flour with raisins or currants to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the cake; but do not add any to the rule – just take a little out from what you are going to use in the cake. Now, Jack, please get me two cans of salmon from the pantry and open them; and we will need butter and milk from the refrigerator, too. It's fine to have a 'handy man' around to help us cook! Now, Mildred, double this rule, because there will be so many at supper."
SCALLOPED SALMON
1 good-sized can of salmon, or one pint of any cooked fish.
1 cup of white sauce.
1 cup of cracker crumbs.
Butter a baking dish, put in a layer of fish, then one of crumbs; sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, and dot the crumbs with butter; then put on a layer of white sauce. Repeat till the dish is full, with the crumbs on top; dot with butter and brown well in the oven; it will take about twenty minutes.
Brownie rolled the crackers for this, while Mildred made the white sauce by the rule she said was so easy it was exactly like learning a bc.
"That is so queer," laughed her mother, "because cooks call it just that – the a b c of cooking! It is the rule you use more often than any other."
WHITE SAUCE
1 rounded tablespoonful of butter.
1 rounded tablespoonful of flour.
1 cup of milk.
½ teaspoonful of salt.
2 shakes of pepper.
Melt the butter; when it bubbles, put in the flour, stirring it well; when this is smooth, slowly add the milk, salt, and pepper; stir and cook till very smooth; you can make it like thin cream by cooking only one minute, or like thick cream by cooking it two minutes.
"Sometimes you want it thicker than others," said her mother, "so I just put that in to explain. To-day make it like thin cream. Now, Mildred, you can put it all together while Jack brings in the cold boiled potatoes and Brownie cuts them up."
CREAMED POTATOES
Cut eight large boiled potatoes into bits the size of the end of your thumb. Put them in a saucepan and cover them with milk; stand them on the back of the stove where they will cook slowly; watch them so they will not burn. In another saucepan make white sauce as before. When the potatoes have drunk up all the milk and are rather dry, drop them in the sauce; do not stir them; sprinkle with pepper.
"Now for the muffins, for it is after five o'clock. Brownie, you find the muffin pans and make them very hot. Do you know how to grease them?"
"Yes, indeed!" said Brownie, proudly. "This is the way." She got a clean bit of paper, warmed the pans, and dropped a bit of butter in each, and then with the paper rubbed it all around.
MUFFINS
2 cups of flour.
1 cup of milk.
1 rounded tablespoonful of butter.
2 eggs, beaten separately.
1 teaspoonful of baking-powder.
½ teaspoonful of salt.
1 teaspoonful of sugar.
Beat the egg yolks first; then add the milk; melt the butter and put that in, then the flour, well mixed with the baking-powder, then the salt and sugar. Last, add the stiff whites of the eggs. Fill the pans half full.
"Some things, like cake, cannot bear to have the oven door opened while they are baking," said Mother Blair; "but salmon does not mind if you open quickly; so, Mildred, put these in as fast as you can; they will take about twenty minutes to bake. I do believe that is all we have to make except the tea, and that takes only a moment when everything else is ready. I will give you the receipt for it now, and after everybody is here and you have said 'How do you do?' to them, you can slip out and make this, and while it stands you can put the other things on the table. But perhaps you had better make some coffee too; the men may like it."
TEA
Fill the kettle with fresh, cold water and let it boil up hard. Scald out an earthen tea-kettle, and put in two rounded teaspoonfuls of tea for six people, or more, if you want it quite strong. Pour on six cups of boiling water and let the pot stand where it is warm for just two minutes. Scald out the pot you are going to send to the table, and strain the tea into that. Have a jug of hot water ready to send in with it.
COFFEE
1 rounded tablespoonful of ground coffee for each person; and
1 extra tablespoonful.
½ cup of cold water.
1 egg shell, washed and broken, with a little bit of the white.
Mix these in a bowl. Then put in a very clean pot and add
1 cup of boiling water for each person and
1 cup more.
Let it boil up hard just once; stir it, pour in 1 tablespoonful of cold water; let it stand three minutes, strain and put in a hot pot.
Just before the door-bell rang, Mildred went to the refrigerator to look at her custards and found them nice and cold. Then she looked carefully in the oven through a tiny crack, and found the muffins were done and the salmon beautifully brown; so she took up the potatoes, and put them in the covered dish on the back of the stove where they would keep hot, and asked Brownie to lay the hot plates around the table, one for each person. Then she went into the parlor and said "How do you do?" to the guests, and after a moment slipped out again, and put everything on the sideboard, made the tea, filled the glasses, and put butter on the bread-and-butter plates. Then Brownie asked everybody to come to supper.
When they had all sat down, Mildred passed the dish of salmon, offering it on the left side, of course, just as Norah always did; then she put the dish down before her father and passed the potatoes and muffins in the same way, while Mother Blair poured the tea and handed it around without rising from her seat. And then everybody began to eat, and say, "Oh, how good this salmon is!" and "Did you ever taste such muffins?" and "Did you really, really make all these good things yourselves, children? We don't see how you ever did it!" And they ate at two helpings of everything, and Father Blair ate three. And when it was time to take the dishes off, there was not a speck of salmon left, nor a spoonful of potato, nor even a single muffin.
Then Brownie quietly took the crumbs off as she had seen Norah do, brushing them onto a plate with a folded napkin; and as she was doing this, Jack slipped out to the refrigerator and got the custards, all as cold as ice and brown on top, looking as pretty as could be in their cunning cups; each cup was set on a dessert plate and a spoon laid by its side, and the fresh cakes were passed with them.
Soon after supper the company went home, and then Mildred said: "I feel exactly like a toy balloon – so light inside! Wasn't that a good supper? And didn't they like the things we had! And isn't it fun to have company! When I am grown up and have a house of my own, I shall have company every day in the week."
"I shall make a point of coming every other day at least," said Father Blair. "I'm so proud of my family to-night! Those Wentworths may be staying at the very best hotel in town, but I know they don't have such suppers there."
"Don't you wish you could cook, Jack?" inquired his mother, with a twinkle in her eye. And then everybody laughed, and said: "Dear me, what good times we Blairs do have together!"
CHAPTER VI
MILDRED'S SCHOOL PARTY
One day early in June, Mildred ran up to her mother's room as soon as she came home from school. She tossed her hat on the bed, and dropped her books in an arm-chair. "Oh, Mother!" she exclaimed, out of breath, "do you suppose I could have twenty girls here some afternoon for a little bit of a party! I do so want to ask them right away, before exams begin. They are my twenty most particular friends, and some of them are going away just as school closes, so, you see, I have to hurry."
"Of course you may have them," said Mother Blair. "But only twenty particular friends, Mildred? What about the rest of the class?"
Mildred laughed. "Well, I mean these are the girls I happen to know best of all, and I want to have a kind of farewell before summer really comes. What sort of a party shall we have, Mother? I mean, what shall we have to eat?"
"I should think strawberry ice-cream would be just the thing, with some cake to go with it, and something cold to drink; is that about what you had thought of?"
"Just exactly, Mother. But do you think we can make enough ice-cream here at home for twenty people? Wouldn't it be better to buy it?"
"Oh, I am sure we can easily make it, and home-made ice-cream is so good – better, I think, than we could buy. We can borrow Miss Betty's freezer, which holds two quarts, and as ours holds three, that will be plenty. We count that a quart will serve about seven, – more cooking arithmetic, Mildred! If one quart will be enough for seven people, how many quarts will be needed for twenty?"
"The answer is that five quarts will be just about right," laughed Mildred. "Perhaps some of them will want two helpings. But, Mother, if we have the party on Saturday, Norah will be very busy, and who will make the cream?"
"We will all make it together, and Jack may pack the freezers and turn them for us. And Norah may make the cake for you on Friday, so that will be out of the way."
So, early on Saturday morning, Mildred and Brownie began to hull strawberries for the party and put them away in bowls on the ice. Then they made the table all ready on the porch, putting a pretty little cloth on it, and arranging plates and napkins; glasses, for what Brownie called the "nice-cold drinks," were set out too, and little dishes of the candy which Father Blair had brought home and called his contribution to the party; and in the middle of the table they put a bowl of lovely red roses.
After an early luncheon, everybody went at once to the kitchen. The berries were put on the large table, and the cream and milk brought from the refrigerator. The two freezers stood ready in the laundry with a big pail for the broken ice, a heavy bag, a wooden mallet, and a large bag of coarse salt.
"Come, Jack," his mother said, as he stood picking out the biggest berries from the bowl and eating them, "here's some more man's work for you! We want you to break the ice and pack these freezers for us."
"What do I get for it?" Jack asked, pretending to grumble. "If the girls are going to eat up all the ice-cream, I guess I won't bother freezing it."
"No, indeed, they are not going to eat it all up," said Mother Blair. "I am counting on having ever so much left over for dinner to-night; and you shall have two helpings."
"Make it three and I'll think about it," said Jack, choosing the very biggest berry of all.
"Three then," said Mildred, disgustedly, taking the bowl away. "Boys do eat so much!"
"This cream is going to be so good that you will want three yourself," laughed Mother Blair. "Now, Jack, this rule is for you. Some cooks think that all you have to do in packing a freezer is to put in layers of broken ice and salt, and then turn the handle; but there is a right way to do it, and if you follow this, you will find the cream will freeze ever so much more quickly than if you are careless in packing."
PACKING A FREEZER
2 large bowlfuls of broken ice.
1 bowlful of coarse salt.
Put the ice in a strong bag and pound with a mallet till it is evenly broken into bits the size of an egg. Put the ice in a pail till you have a quantity broken, and then measure; add the salt quickly to the ice and stir it well; then put the empty ice cream tin in the freezer with the cover on, and fasten on the top and handle. Pack the ice all around the tin tightly till it is even with the top. Then stand it away, covered with a piece of carpet or blanket, in a dark, cool place, for half an hour. There should be a thick coating of frost all over the inside when the cream is put in.
While Jack was working in the laundry, Mildred and Brownie were reading the receipt their mother gave them, and getting out the spoons and sugar and other things they would need.
"Are the berries washed?" asked Mother Blair. "Yes, I see they are; now, Brownie, you may put half of them at a time into this big bowl, and crush them with the wooden potato-masher till they are all juicy. And, Mildred, here is the rule for making one quart of plain white ice-cream; all you have to do is to add any kind of fruit or flavoring to this, and you can change it into whatever you want."
"Just like a fairy's receipt!" said Brownie.
"Exactly!" said their mother. "Now, Mildred, multiply this rule by five."
PLAIN ICE-CREAM
3 cups of milk.
1 cup of sugar.
1 cup of cream.
Flavoring.
Put the cream, milk and sugar in a saucepan on the fire, and stir till the sugar is melted and the milk steams, but does not boil. Take it off and beat with the egg beater till it is cold; add the flavoring and freeze.
FRUIT ICE-CREAM
1 quart of fruit, or enough to make a cupful of juice.
1 small cup of sugar.
Mash the fruit, rub it through a sieve, add the sugar, and stir into the cream just before putting it into the freezer.
"You see what an easy rule this is. You can use fresh raspberries or pineapple or peaches in summer-time, and in winter you can use canned fruit. If the fruit is sour, of course you must take a little more sugar than if it is very sweet. And when juice is very sour indeed, like currant or cherry juice, do not use it for ice-cream. And when you want to make chocolate ice-cream you put in – "
"Do let me write that down, Mother, please, because I perfectly love chocolate ice-cream," interrupted Mildred.
CHOCOLATE ICE-CREAM
Make the plain ice cream as before; while still on the stove add
3 squares of unsweetened chocolate, grated.
¼ cup of sugar.
2 teaspoonfuls of vanilla.
Put the vanilla in last, just before freezing.
It took only a little while to mix the cream and cool it, and then Brownie had the berries all ready to go in; so Mildred called to Jack to know if the two freezers were ready. Jack was reading "Treasure Island" in a corner of the laundry, and it took three calls to rouse him.
"The freezers?" he asked; "the freezers – oh, yes, they are all ready. At least I suppose they are, they've been standing so long. I've been having a great time with old Silver in the stockade!"
"Well," said Mildred, doubtfully, "if you've been off on one of your treasure trips, I don't know whether the freezers will be ready or not."
But when they looked inside, there was the thick frost all over the tin. "Perfect!" said Mother Blair. "Now you will see how quickly the cream will freeze. It makes all the difference in the world whether or not it is ice-cold inside." Then they poured in the cream and shut the freezer tightly, and Jack began to turn the handles, first of one and then of the other, with "Treasure Island" open before him on an upturned pail, though he very soon found that the freezers needed all his attention. He was devoting himself to his task with grim determination when Mildred peeped in at the door and stood watching him for a moment before she asked, mischievously, "And what is old Silver doing now, Jack? I believe you're really going to deserve those three plates of ice-cream, after all."
"Come, Mildred!" called her mother, "we will make something perfectly delicious to drink," and she handed a fresh receipt to the girls.
GRAPE-JUICE LEMONADE
4 lemons.
1 quart of water.
2 large cups of sugar.
1 quart of grape-juice.
1 orange.
Put the water and sugar on the fire and boil them two minutes. Roll the lemons and squeeze the juice; when the water is cool, add this and stand it away till you need it. Then add the grape-juice, and put it in a large bowl with a good-sized piece of ice; slice the orange very thin and cut into small pieces and add last. Serve in glass cups.
"That is so easy anybody could make it," said Brownie. "I guess I'll make some for us all on the next hot night."
"Oh, goody!" said Mildred. "Think how lovely it would taste out on the porch just before bedtime!"
"Specially if there was a moon," said Brownie.
"Yes, indeed! especially if there was a moon! You won't forget, will you?"
Brownie promised faithfully she would not.
By the time this was done and ready to put away in the refrigerator to get very cold, Jack was shouting for somebody to come and see if the cream was frozen. "It turns awfully hard," he complained, rubbing his arms.
His mother wiped off the edges of the tin very carefully so no salt could get in, and then lifted the cover, and, sure enough, the cream was firm and smooth, and a beautiful pink color. Mildred watched her carefully and took the second freezer, doing exactly what her mother did to the first one. They slowly pulled out the dashers, scraping them off as they did so, and then packed the cream down hard; the covers were put on again, each with a cork where the dasher-top had been. Meanwhile Jack had been told to break more ice and mix it exactly as he had before. When this was ready, the plug at the side of each freezer was pulled out and the water drained off, and then the cans of cream were buried in the fresh ice so that neither of them could be seen, a piece of carpet was laid over each, and it was put back in its dark corner.
"There!" said their mother, when it was all finished. "Ice-cream has to stand at least two hours after it is packed before it is quite good enough to eat. Thank you, Jack! You are really learning lots about cooking, aren't you? And now we will cut the cake and put it on plates in the refrigerator to keep fresh, and then we will all go and dress for the party, because it is three o'clock."
The refreshments were perfectly delicious, everybody said, and the girls said the pink ice-cream, and the sponge-cake, and the grape-juice lemonade were "the best ever." When everybody had gone, Mildred took a big plateful of ice-cream over to Miss Betty.
"Oh, how good that is!" she said as she ate it. "How beautifully good! So good to look at, I mean, as well as to taste. Would you like to have some more strawberry ice-cream receipts to go with it?" Mildred said she would love to, so Miss Betty began to write:
FROZEN STRAWBERRIES
1 quart of water.
2½ cups of sugar.
2 quarts of berries.
Juice of 1 lemon.
Crush the berries and press through a sieve; there should be two cups of juice; if not, add a few more berries. Boil the water and sugar one minute, cool, add the berry juice and that of the lemon, cool and freeze; serve in glass cups.
"You can see, Mildred," went on Miss Betty, as she finished this, "that a pretty way to serve this is to put each cup on a small plate and lay a few fresh strawberry leaves by it."
"Sweet!" said Mildred, and Miss Betty began the second receipt
ICE-CREAM AND STRAWBERRIES
1 quart of plain ice cream.
1 quart of large strawberries.
½ cup of powdered sugar.
Cut the berries in slices and lay them on a dish, and sprinkle the sugar over them. Take some tall glasses, put in a layer of ice cream, then a layer of berries; let the cream be on top, and put two or three whole berries on top of all. Or, if you can get little wild strawberries, use those whole both in the layers and on top.
"Those are both just perfect," sighed Mildred. "Now haven't you one more receipt, dear Miss Betty? Three is a lucky number, you know."
Miss Betty thought a moment "Well, here is something I think is just delicious, and it's so easy that Brownie could make it alone – or even Jack! There is no turning of the freezer at all, only the ice to be broken. But it must be made in good season, for it has to stand awhile, as you will see. And when you turn it out you can put a row of lovely big strawberries all around it and sprinkle them with sugar."
PARFAIT
1 cup of sugar.
1 pint of cream.
1 cup of water.
Whites of 3 eggs.
1 teaspoonful of vanilla.
Put the sugar and water on the stove and boil gently three minutes without stirring. Lift a little of the syrup on the spoon and see if a tiny thread drops from the edge; if it does, it is done; if not, cook a moment longer. Then let this stand on the edge of the stove while you beat the whites of the eggs very stiff and slowly pour the syrup into them, beating all the time. While you are doing this, have somebody else beat the cream stiff; when the eggs and syrup are beaten cold, fold the cream into them, add the flavoring, and put in a mold with a tight cover. Put this in a pail, cover deeply with ice and salt as before, and let it stand five hours.
"You see how easy that is," said Miss Betty. "That's all the receipts to-day. But, Mildred, if you and Jack, and Brownie will all come to luncheon next Saturday, I'll have something else made out of strawberries for you."
"Oh, Miss Betty!" cried Mildred, rapturously, "we'll come – indeed we will!"
"Very well; and tell Jack he can have three helpings of everything!"