g housekeeper; company
to lunch and nothing in the house. But there is generally a dainty
luncheon in every house if you know how to prepare it; there certainly
always will be if you keep your store-room supplied with the things I
have named. Let the table be prettily laid at all times, then if you
have potted meat and preserves, have them put on the table. Are there
cold potatoes? If so cut them up into potato salad, if they are whole;
if broken, warm them in a wineglass of milk, a teaspoonful of flour,
and a piece as large as an egg of _maitre d'hotel_ butter. Have you
such scraps of cold meat as could not come to table? Toss them up with a
half cup of water, a slice of glaze (oh, blessed ever-ready glaze!) a
teaspoonful of ravigotte, or _maitre d'hotel_, and a teaspoonful of roux
or blanc, according as your meat is light or dark, season, and serve. Or
you have no meat, then you have eggs, and what better than an omelet and
such an omelet as the following? Take the crumb of a slice of bread,
soak it in hot milk (cold will do, but hot is better), beat up whites of
four eggs to a high froth; mix the bread with all the milk it will
absorb, _no more_, into a paste, add the yolks of eggs with a little
salt, set the pan on the fire with an ounce of butter. Let it get very
hot, then mix the whites of eggs with the yolks and bread lightly, pour
in the pan, and move about for a minute; if the oven is hot, when the
omelet is brown underneath, set the pan in the oven for five minutes, or
until the top is set; then double half over, and serve. If your guests
have a liking for sweets, and your potted meats supply the savory part
of your luncheon, then have a brown gravy ready to serve with it. Put
into a half cup of boiling water a slice of glaze, a spoonful of roux,
and enough Harvey sauce, or mushroom powder, to flavor. If your omelet
is to be sweet, before you fold it put in a layer of preserves.

The advantage of the omelet I have here given is that it keeps plump and
tender till cold, so that five minutes of waiting does not turn it into
leather, the great objection with omelets generally.

Potatoes for luncheon, as I have said, should always be prepared in some
fancy way, and snow is a very pretty one. Have some fine mealy potatoes
boiled, carefully poured off, and set back of the stove with a cloth
over them till they are quite dry and fall apart; then have a colander,
or coarse wire sieve made _hot_ and a _hot_ dish in whi