Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

Orange compote depends almost entirely on the good- ness of the oranges, and on the way they are cut. The best plan is to stick them on a fork, and with a sharp - pointed kitchen knife remove, at one cutting, all the peel and all the white. Then, with the sharp point of a knife, cut out all the pieces of orange between the white lines, leaving the white in the middle. Save all the juice, and cut small shreds of the peel without any white, put them into some water with sugar and the juice, and, if the oranges are very sweet, add a little lemon juice. Boil up this syrup, pour it over the pieces of orange, and allow it to cool. This is a good foundation for any winter compote. Apricots, bananas, or pineapple, all can be added, separately or together; and a few dried cherries stewed improve the appearance. Another excel- lent winter compote is made by cutting up a ripe pine- apple (often so cheap), stewing the peel in a syrup, to which is added the juice that runs out of the pineapple, and a little ginger. Strain, and pour it boiling over the pieces of pineapple. A few bananas cut up and added to the pineapple improve it. Two excellent ways of serving cold chicken for small parties or suppers are the following : — Order the day before from a good baker some extra small dinner-rolls, cut off the tops, and take out the crumb. Mince a little DECEMBER 255 chicken and ham or tongue ; it takes a very small quan- tity of either. Mix with well-made Mayonnaise sauce, a little chopped parsley, and a very little onion. Put this into the rolls, and replace the small round top on each. Finger rolls, cut in half and the crumb taken out, can be done in the same way. The other way is to make some little open sand- wiches— we call them Barrington sandwiches — in the following manner :— Butter some moderately thick slices of a good tin loaf, and cut them into medium-sized rounds. Lay across them, in pieces cut quite narrow, some breast of cold chicken, a quarter of an anchovy, and a thin shred of green gherkin. These form narrow bars of green, white, and red across the slices of bread. Trim the edges, and serve on a plate one laid partly over the other, like cutlets. I particularly want to say a last word to housekeepers who are anxious to indulge in hospitality. Hospitality should mean, to my mind, not altering our whole way of living, but giving the best of our habitual food. For this nothing is so telling, whether the dinner be large or small, as the procuring of some special seasonable luxury. It is well worth taking the trouble to get any such luxuries, not from the usual shop in your neighbourhood, but from the very best shop you know of for each speciality, whether fish, game, vegetable, Italian goods more especially, fruit (fresh or bottled), dessert, biscuits, or cake. The really good housekeeper is alert to learn where the best things come from, and to take hints wherever she goes. One should never through idle- ness give up getting the best things. If you go to the expense of entertaining at all, it makes little difference in the way of money whether you deal at a specially good shop or a second-rate one, and the results at your table are very different indeed. 256 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN