Books and My Food: With Literary Quotations and Original Recipes for Every ..

HE might as easily have heard the bacon sputter in the frying-pan, if his mother had placed there half a dozen slices when the pan was hot. To make fried bacon delicious, remove, when beginning to curl up at the edges, ^5 to a hot dish, and fry half a pound of mushrooms, steamed, washed, and peeled, in the bacon fat left in the pan. Pour them over slices of toast, arrange over them the bacon and serve hot. APRIL lOTH "To feed on caviare and eat anchovies." — ^Randolph ("Muse's Looking-Glass "). SPREAD on delicate slices of toast anchovies from which the heads and backbones have been taken: the best are those packed in bay leaves ?ind spices. Lightly scramble five eggs, in which are stirred one large tablespoonful of butter, four of cream, salt and pepper. When the eggs begin to thicken turn on to the toast. A cupful of tomatoes cut in bits is an addition much liked by many, or stewed tomato may be used if more convenient. APRIL iiTH "The sweets shook and trembled, till it was quite impossible to help them." — Charles Dickens ("Sketches by Boz"). FOR a pleasant and wholesome dessert, orange charlotte is well adapted. Soak one-third of a box of gelatine in a third of a cup of cold water ; when dissolved pour on a third of a cup of boiling water, the juice of a large lemon and one cup of sugar. Strain and add a cup of orange-juice and pulp and a little of the grated rind. Cool in a pan of ice-water; when cold add a cup of cream whipped stiff. Line a mould with lady-fingers or stale cake and pour in the orange mixture. APRIL I2TH "A bam-door fowl Wliich does not awe you with its claws and beak. But which in cackling sets you thinking of Your eggs to-morrow at breakfast, in the pause Of finer meditation." — ^Mrs. Browning ("Aurora Leigh"). EGGS fried in sweet-oil make a pleasant variety and are more delicate than the usual fried egg. Put about two tablespoonfuls of oliveoil in a hot spider; when the oil is hot break in one egg, then another; by the time the second egg is in the pan the first will be ready to fold over. By the time the second is folded the first is ready to take out. Repeat until enough eggs are cooked. APRIL 13TH "This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers or very honest men." — ^Isaak Walton ("Complete Angler"). BROBBED mutton" is a dish that would answer to the gentle angler's description. Remove all the fat from a loin of mutton and cut it into chops or steaks. Dip these into the yolks of three eggs and sprinkle over them bread-crumbs seasoned with salt and pepper and summer savory. Place them together as before they were cut and tie them in shape. Roast them in a quick oven half an hour, basting with butter and the juices of the meat. Make a gravy by adding to the liquid remaining in the pan after the meat is cooked a tablespoonful of flour and a teacupful of tomato catsup. APRIL 14TH "You'd find sandwiches and sherry in plenty if you were to search his carriage." — ^Trollope ("Phineas Finn"). A DELICIOUS sandwich to eat with wine is made of Jordan almonds, pounded in a mortar, sprinkled with sugar, moistened with rich cream, and spread on thin slices of Boston brown bread. APRIL 15TH "These procure quiet sleep, violets; lettuce, especially boiled; syrup of dried roses; saffron; balm: apples, at our going to bed." — Bacon. PICK apart a head of lettuce, wash carefully, and put into a steamer over a kettle of boiling water (a steamer may be improvised by using an ordinary colander and a pot of boiling water), cover closely, laying a thick folded cloth upon the lid. Boil hard for half an hour, then drain and lay the lettuce leaves upon a hot dish; salt and pepper, and if this dish is not eaten at bedtime to "secure quiet sleep," it will be much improved by pouring over it a sauce piquant. APRIL i6th