Cookery for little girls

When dinner is all ready, if there is no maid to help, the easiest way is to have the soup served and placed on the table just before calling out the guests. Then, when ready for the next course, our little cook can remove the soup plates, taking from the right side of each person, and bring on the dinner. When that is over, she must remove all the dishes before each one, clear the table of everything but the water glasses and the decorations, brush the cloth with a folded napkin and a plate to catch the crumbs, and lastly bring in the dessert. Every family has its own way as regards details, but a mother can very quickly get a child into the habit of being neat, careful and quiet about handling dishes. And she must always remember to proffer food on a tray, at the left. CHAPTER XIII The Christmas Dinner Party Our little cook, after her experience at Thanksgiving, will probably be most eager to take part in the preparations for the Christmas dinner. Consult her now, as before; tell her all your ideas, get her suggestions, and then make all plans at least a week beforehand. Holidays should be holidays for the hostess as well as the guest, and can be made so by the choice of a dinner that is good and at the same time easily prepared. The suggested menu following will be found attractive enough for any party, and at the same time it is neither expensive nor very difficult to get ready. Let the little girl again make out the bill of fare and hang up in the kitchen for reference, make out her list for market and grocery, and help in the selection of the goose, the vegetables and the fruits. Thus she will learn the best kinds to buy and what they cost, and incidentally mother and daughter can have a regular little lark out of the expedition and become better chums than in almost any other way. CHRISTMAS MENU MENU FOR CHRISTMAS DINNER Raw Oysters, Horseradish Roast Goose Apple Sauce Celery Mashed Potatoes Lima Beans Tomato Jelly Salad Plum Pudding Fruit Nuts Raisins Coffee The first dish to make, strange to say, is the last one on the list, and the plum pudding is better if made several weeks before it is needed, and then simply steamed up again for a couple of hours just before serving. A fine old recipe that had been in a friend's family for years, was once given me, but as it filled six molds I reduced it to the following proportions, which is ample for a mold large enough for eight people: PLUM PUDDING One-half cupful butter, three-quarters cupful sugar, one-quarter pound suet, two and one-half CHRISTMAS DINNER PARTY cupfuls flour, one-half pound seeded raisins, onehalf pound currants, one ounce citron, three eggs yolks and whites (beaten separately), one-half cupful milk, one-quarter cupful almonds (blanched and chopped fine), one-quarter cupful brandy (or boiled cider if preferred), one-half teaspoonful cloves, one-quarter teaspoonful nutmeg, one teaspoonful cinnamon.