Common-sense papers on cookery

drawing. I should feel much obliged if they would write and tell if their first attempt was successful. If you want to see these cut flowers in perfection, take a walk down Covent-Garden Market, where, if you choose to pay for it, you can receive lessons in artificial vegetable-flower making. Next stick our flower, whether real or artificial, in the turkey ; the shape of the bird and a little taste will tell you about where. A tongue can be glazed in an exactly similar manner, a curly paper frill tied round the root, and a flower placed on it. So, too, a ham can be glazed. But there is one method of ornamenting a ham which deserves notice. We will suppose the ham ready glazed. Have you ever seen one, the top round the rim ornamented with a white substance which looks like beautiful white fresh butter, or even sugar ? Now, it is very easy to ornament a glazed ham with this composition, and one advantage is, you can put words on the ham, such as “ A Merry Christmas,” or, on the occasion of a child’s birthday, the name of the hero of the feast. The way to do it is as follows : — Get some nice white clarified lard, and melt it in a cup in the oven, and add a little salad oil to it, so as to make it thinner when it is cold. A Nice Little Supper. Next roll up a sheet of fairly stiff note-paper like a cone, and hold this cone near the point in the right hand. Pour a little of the hot lard into the cone, and so regulate the pressure on the paper with the righthand thumb and finger as to allow the melted lard to drop out or run out in a very thin stream at the point. This lard will settle directly it comes out, and turn quite white on getting perfectly cold. I would advise you to practise designs on a black shining tea-tray, as it will scrape off with a spoon and do again. With a little practice and a natural gift for such things — for a clumsy-fisted Mary Ann would make an awful mess of it — it is wonderful what beautiful designs can be formed this way, such as a harp or a rose. In making a spiral border round the edge of the ham, it sometimes looks a little prettier to have a small pink spot in the centre of each circle. This is done by simply colouring the melted lard with a few drops of cochineal. But I would warn you against having too much pink in ornamenting. Just a touch, as in the case of the turnip-flower, is all very well, but it must be but a touch. We wish some persons would bear this in mind in using rouge. Another exceedingly useful supper-dish is well-cut beef sandwiches. If these are cut thin, with just a little butter, mustard, and salt, you will always find TOO Common-sense Cookery. them eaten. But a word about appearances. Have them piled up on a snow-white dinner-napkin, folded, if possible, at the bottom of a silver dish, and well garnished with small pieces of bright double parsley. I need scarcely mention that every particle of crust must be cut off. Just contrast such a dish with what you get, say, at a railway-station refreshment-room the ham — they never have beef — coming out bodily with the first bite, and having a mouldy taste, which makes you regret that you didn’t try either the butterscotch or the Banbury cakes, which generally form the only alternatives.