Miss Parloa's new cook book and marketing guide

Small rolls or sticks of bread are served with soup. Potatoes and bread are usually served with fish, but many people prefer to serve only bread. Butter is not served at the more elegant dinners. Two vegetables will be sufficient in any course. Cold dishes should be very cold, and hot dishes hot It is a good idea to have a dish of sliced lemons for any kind of fish, and especially for those broiled or fried. Melons, cantelopes, cucumbers and radishes, and tomatoes, when served in slices, should all be chilled in the ice chest. Be particular not to overdo the work of decorating. Even a simple garnish adds much to the appearance of a dish, but too much decoration only injures it. Garnishes should be so arranged as not to interfere with serving. Potato-balls and thin fried potatoes make a nice garnish for all kinds of fried and broiled meats and fish. Cold boiled beets, carrots and turnips, and the whites of hard-boiled eggs, stamped out with a fancy vegetable cutter, make a pretty garnish for cold or hot meats. Thin slices of toast, cut into triangles, make a good garnish for many dishes. Whipped cream is a delicate garnish for all Bavarian creams, blanc-manges, frozen puddings and ice creams. Arrange around jellies or creams a border of any kind of delicate green, like smilax or parsley, or of rose leaves, and dot it with bright colors — pinks, geraniums, verbenas or roses. Remember that the green should be dark and the flowers small and bright. A bunch of artificial rose leaves, for decorating dishes of fruit at evening parties, lasts for years. Natural leaves are preferable when they can be obtained. Wild roses, buttercups and nasturtiums, if not used too freely, are suitable for garnishing a salad. What to set before guests at the table, or. indeed, before one's own family, is sometimes a perplexing matter for housekeepers to decide, and a few bills of fare are given on the following pages as an aid. The number of dishes can readily be increased or diminished. Any of the company dinners can be prepared at home almost as easily as an ordinary dinner, success depending not upon a great number of dishes, but upon a few well cooked and well served, and a hostess apparently free from care. A great part of any company dinner can be prepared the day before. The vegetables can be prepared and put in cold water, the game or meat be larded, the meat or fish cooked for croquettes and salads, the salad dressing made ready, and jellies, creams and cold puddings be made. If a clear soup (and that is always best) is to be served, it also should be made. In the morning the bread and cake can be baked, and the fish and other dishes prepared. Early in the afternoon freeze the creams and sherbets. Make a list of the principal dishes. With each dish have a list of the vegetables, sauces or other things to be served, and the time for serving. This will insure the dishes being ready at the proper moment. Have the plates and other dishes counted and ready to warm — and, by the way, arrange to have these and the silver washed where the noise cannot reach the guests.