SIMPLE REFRESHMENTS FOR INFORMAL ENTERTAINMENTS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XII, Issue V, 3 February 1894, Page 118

SIMPLE REFRESHMENTS FOR INFORMAL ENTERTAINMENTS.

It is almost always the case when there are entertainments of any sort that refreshments are served. Whether they should or should not be is a question upon which there has been much debate. It is, however, generally agreed that a simple spread adds greatly to the sociability of the occasion. It seems to break up the atmosphere of angularity and stiffness, gives young people and old ones, too, for the matter of that, an opportunity for a pleasant conversation, makes it possible for the company to move about and distribute themselves more perhaps to their liking than during the earlier part of the evening. When such entertainments come in between other exercises, it is a good plan to precede them by a decided break in the sequence of the events of the occasion. Have it announced that there will be an interval for refreshments, and the company will arrange themselves as best pleases them. Let some one make the first move, encourage a number of the older people to change their positions, and the younger ones are sure to follow ; then, when all have settled down, pass the refreshments in the usual way. Coffee, minced chicken sandwiches with sweet biscuits and cake would be sufficient. Brown bread is very fashionable and is much liked for such occasions. Crisp wafers with coffee ate popular, white bread sandwiches, served with celery or lettuce salad with mayonnaise, may be used. In the absence, however, of a very general knowledge of making mayonnaise and French dressing, one may simply prepare the salad with vinegar or lemon juice, which is better, or any ordinary dressing used in the community. Our hostess in an interior town remote from market served on one occasion coffee, wafers, sardinesandwiches, very finely shredded white cabbage dressed with lemon juice, sugar, and a dust of pepper and salt, and received many compliments for its relishableness. Pieparing refreshments is not, by any means, the difficult task that many people seem to imagine. One woman who bad attained considerable local celebrity for her cream biscuits served these with home-made honey, coffee, and a salad made of cucumber pickles cut in small thin slices and

water-cresses. This involved really very little work, comparatively little expense, as all were products of her own place, and were so excellent of their kind that everybody felt well satisfied.