Here are some contests for a valentine tea. Call
on each one for an impromptu valentine. Award a
book of rhymes for the best. Turn down the lights
and require each man to propose to his partner. Pre-
pare red cardboard hearts and write fortunes on them
with baking powder and water. Ask each guest to
select a heart and hold it to the fire when the writing
will appear. Provide a fish pond with comic valentines.
Provide a long table, sheets of fancy paper, flowers,
pictures, paste, scissors and watercolors and ask each
to make an original valentine. The game of hearts,
the auction of hearts and the auction of valentines are
old but excellent ways of amusing a company. For the
auction of hearts the girls are in a separate room and a
clever auctioneer calls off their charms and merits and
knocks them down to the highest bidder, who does
not know who he has bought until all are sold. A
fancy dress party, each girl representing a valentine, is
a delightful entertainment for the evening. A small
boy may be used for Cupid and blindfolded. He takes
a man from one side of the room and presents him to a
girl on the other side of the room.
70 Breakfasts and Teas
CHAPTER IX.
A Grandmother's Tea Party.
One of the newest suggestions for an original hos-
pitality is "A Grandmother's Tea Party." If you have
an "at home" day, as every busy woman should, and
you want to serve tea to your guests, offer it to them
as it was offered fifty years or more ago.
First of all, collect all of your antique table service.
Every family has some dear old treasures of the kind — ■
tea cups, old linen, flower vases, silver epergns, etc.
You probably have somewhere laid away a wonder-
ful old damask cloth which dates back at least half a
century. Cover the table with this and scatter over it
a handful of carnations, allowing them to fall at
haphazard.
The centerpiece will be in the form of a huge cake
placed on a high glass dish. This confection might be
resplendent in a design of blossoms and turtle-doves
carried out in variously tinted icings as the old-time
cakes so often were.
On either side of the cake dish are placed tall epergns
— veritable antique pieces built high with pyramids of
fruit. Bonbons — they should be called sugar plums in
this connection — must be old-fashioned sweets quaintly
wrapped in fringed papers.
Often the tall glass lamps will also be procurable
in a pattern of fifty years ago.
This will produce a thoroughly charming little table
Breakfasts and Teas 71
with a quaintness and a touch of femininity that every-
one will enjoy.
The woman who is looking for a new way to serve
tea on her day at home couldn't do better than to at-
tempt this. It is easy to do; it costs little, it is pretty;
it is feminine.
An April Fool Tea.
Page 28
Presented as published in 1907. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
Here are some contests for a valentine tea. Call on each one for an impromptu valentine. Award a book of rhymes for the best. Turn down the lights and require each man to propose to his partner. Prepare red cardboard hearts and write fortunes on them with baking powder and water. Ask each guest to select a heart and hold it to the fire when the writing will appear. Provide a fish pond with comic valentines. Provide a long table, sheets of fancy paper, flowers, pictures, paste, scissors and watercolors and ask each to make an original valentine. The game of hearts, the auction of hearts and the auction of valentines are old but excellent ways of amusing a company. For the auction of hearts the girls are in a separate room and a clever auctioneer calls off their charms and merits and knocks them down to the highest bidder, who does not know who he has bought until all are sold. A fancy dress party, each girl representing a valentine, is a delightful entertainment for the evening. A small boy may be used for Cupid and blindfolded. He takes a man from one side of the room and presents him to a girl on the other side of the room.
70 Breakfasts and Teas
CHAPTER IX.
A Grandmother's Tea Party.
One of the newest suggestions for an original hospitality is "A Grandmother's Tea Party." If you have an "at home" day, as every busy woman should, and you want to serve tea to your guests, offer it to them as it was offered fifty years or more ago.
First of all, collect all of your antique table service. Every family has some dear old treasures of the kind — ■ tea cups, old linen, flower vases, silver epergns, etc.
You probably have somewhere laid away a wonderful old damask cloth which dates back at least half a century. Cover the table with this and scatter over it a handful of carnations, allowing them to fall at haphazard.
The centerpiece will be in the form of a huge cake placed on a high glass dish. This confection might be resplendent in a design of blossoms and turtle-doves carried out in variously tinted icings as the old-time cakes so often were.
On either side of the cake dish are placed tall epergns — veritable antique pieces built high with pyramids of fruit. Bonbons — they should be called sugar plums in this connection — must be old-fashioned sweets quaintly wrapped in fringed papers.
Often the tall glass lamps will also be procurable in a pattern of fifty years ago.
This will produce a thoroughly charming little table
Breakfasts and Teas 71
with a quaintness and a touch of femininity that everyone will enjoy.
The woman who is looking for a new way to serve tea on her day at home couldn't do better than to attempt this. It is easy to do; it costs little, it is pretty; it is feminine.
An April Fool Tea.