In foreign kitchens

Italian sweets are almost identical with the French. Ices are the favorite form, and but little pastry is eaten. Special cakes are made for special seasons, but they are all troublesome, and scarcely need more than mention here. The favorite combination is honey and almonds, with flour enough for a dough, and endless variations are made on this. Dessert is, as a rule, fruit and a bit of cheese, and sweets have small place in the daily bill of fare. The rules for tarts, puddings, etc., are almost identical with the French. Fan forte, of Siena. — This compromise between cake and candy is found everywhere in Italy, but Siena claims to make it a trifle more perfectly. Bring to boiling-point in a saucepan one pint of strained honey; add one pound of almonds, dried in the oven and pounded to a coarse meal; three-quarters of a pound of filberts treated in the same way; half a pound of citron, chopped fine; one teaspoonful of powdered cinnamon, and half a one of pepper; half a pound of grated chocolate. Mix this with semolina (about a pint), and let it cool. When cool, turn on the pastry-board ; add semolina enough to make a firm dough ; roll it half an inch thick, and cut in round cakes or in squares, baking them in a moderate oven till brown. A choicer form is to use almonds, roasted and ground fine, instead of semolina. Crocante. — This is a delicious confection and easily made. Blanch one pound of sweet almonds and cut them lengthwise in fine strips. Melt in a saucepan one pound of loaf sugar, with a tablespoonful of water, and add a piece of butter the size of an egg, and the nuts. Boil very slowly, stirring steadily till a golden brown ; then pour into a buttered pan, and cut when cool into small strips. NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH. T ONG ago, in the days when children's ■^^ books were few, — and one sometimes wishes that these days might return, since in them the children knew Scott well and Oliver Optic not at all, — there came a little book, " Feats on the Fiord," read with delight by young and old. It is a well-nigh forgotten bit of work by Harriet Martineau, so true to nature that Norwegians would not believe that it had not been written on the spot, and it held the first picture of Norwegian housekeeping that made much impression on English minds. With Frederika Bremer's " Home " came its pendant for Sweden, and thenceforward the reader of the two remembered pretty fashions of doing things, and wondered what the unfamiliar dishes might be like. Never had the making of butter and cheese a lovelier setting than that given in the story NORWAY, SWEDEN, AND THE NORTH, 99 of Norwegian home-life, nor is there to-day in all the throng of books any truer picture of that wonderful Norwegian scenery. So when the time came that Norway was to become a part of one's personal experience, a certain sense of familiarity went with one, and bits of the little story continuously came up before the mind. Of journey and scenery and all the small adventures of the way, when finally attempted, I say nothing. It is with the first dinner-party that we have to do, — an event charming but most perplexing, since of our band of pilgrims not one knew a word of Norwegian. Yet as everybody spoke French with varying degrees of fluency, and several knew English, intercourse was perfectly possible, though hampered by the fact that the first gentleman brought forward by our host, a shy and blushing little man, affirmed to have English at his tongue's end, began his conversation with, " Good-by, Miss," and continued with equal facility till released by a young lady who saw that something was wrong. It was she who was our guardian angel, and who, when at 8 P. M. the doors of the dining-room were thrown open, followed us, prepared to smooth away all difficulties.