ENTERTAINMENTS
Decorative bar
Three women looking at gelatin
Belindais that lovely lucky creature, the young matron of to-day, setting up housekeeping, not as a daily task, but as a comradely affair. Gone are the walls that used to separate the generations. Belinda is firm friends with her grandmother, and her mother is her clever contemporary. Together they face the world with a friendly affectionate dignity, a reasonable freedom and a healthy ease, that banishes boredom,—lengthens life.
Gone, too, are the cumbrous clumsy methods of housekeeping—basement kitchens, hods of coal, oil lamps and 24-hour bread.... Vanished with the high bicycles and Waspwaists of the “Gay Nineties.”
But the spirit of home-making, the desire to build a pleasant place, and welcome those you love within its walls—remains the same to-day as it has been forever.
Steps leading up to house
That welcoming hearth-warming spirit of unflustered hospitality! Beginning with the dolls’ tea-party, and flowering to graceful perfection in the charming hostess. Belinda knows that no entertainment can be a success, unless the hostess enjoys it herself.
So with the deft adjustment made possible by modern methods, she combines Martha-Service with Mary-Serenity, in a manner entirely her own.
When BelindaBridges
or plays Mahjong, she arranges her tea-party to the taste of her guests. If she is a maidless mistress, she excels in those little intimate parties—“just one or two tables,” where tea is an interlude rather than an interval.
Bright and early Belinda makes her most successful cake and a delectable dish of Turkish delight. Sandwiches filled with some clever paste and rolls of wafer bread and butter are trimmed with their attendant sprigs of parsley, celery, or radish roses. Covered lightly with an inverted bowl, and set in the ice-box till the tea hour, they will be crisp, fresh and dainty at 5 o’clock. The tea table, gay with Belinda’s most attractive tea cups, is set by the fireside, or the open window, to suit the season; and tea can be made in a minute.
For a More Formal Occasion
Belinda sets her table in the dining room, with a non-playing friend or two to pour the tea and coffee. Bright with flowers and attractive with delicious dainties, it has an allure that is never gainsaid. The menu may be—
Woman placing gelatin on table
Such a lovely note of color gleams in these delicate gelatins. The rich glowing raspberry, just the color of the ripe fruit ... strawberry, a ruby in sunlight ... the delicate iridescence of the pure lemon. Moulded fruits gleam through that delicate sparkle. Whipped and piled high in individual glasses, served in any one of a dozen different ways, they give a fairy flavor to Belinda’s party.
Eight for Luncheon
may mean an afternoon party to follow, or merely a pleasant hour of friendly intercourse. It taxes Belinda’s talents as a hostess more, perhaps, than any other entertainment. She is so entirely the builder of the surroundings, the mainspring of the welcome she provides. It is her individual occasion!
The luncheon table demands special attention. The doilies and lunch cloths must be laundered to especial perfection, the silver spotless, the glass and china shining. The decorations of the table should harmonize with the dining room. There must be a distinction about it that can face the daylight.
Belinda Chooses the Menu
with equal care. No two-hour lunches with drawn blinds and lighted candles for the slim smart maids and matrons of to-day! Any of the following menus can be prepared and served with an ease that leaves the hostess free to enjoy the occasion with her guests.
Belinda loves these gelatin desserts, because they always arrive at her table cool, interesting, tender, gleaming with color and distinguished in taste, with an endless variety to add to their charm.... Doesn’t that sound like a description of Favorite Friends? Belinda looks on them as F.F’s ... and loves them also for their priceless power of satisfying her taste for sweets, without adding an inch to her figure. Because—blessed thought—they are not fattening at all!
The Little Dinners
that delight the hearts of men and make the perfect setting for a charming woman ... these are the acid test for the clever hostess.
Belinda has aflairfor these intimate occasions. She gives them an atmosphere.
Two women at table with gelatin
Two kids at table with gelatin
Belinda chooses guests that harmonize, with the same care that she gives to choosing flowers that blend with the gown she wears. Decorative touches on the dinner table perhaps ... gay little place cards or favors, a scented leaf or blossom floating in each finger bowl, tall glasses on twisted stems that give a touch of dignity ... candle light ... comfort.
Whether Belinda cooks and serves the dinner single handed, or has a staff of servants, she follows the rule of good breeding that serves only what can be perfectly cooked and served, without confusion.
The hot things hot—the cold things cold—sounds an obvious rule. But more meals than can be counted have been wrecked by neglect of it.
Belinda has carefully chosen menus for a little dinner that can be served to perfection by a single maid, whose mistress helps with the preparation.
IHors d’oeuvresCream Soup in cups with whipped cream on topIndividual moulds of jellied fish withmayonnaise and cucumbersBroiled filets of beef—peas—French fried potatoesSalad—Green peppers stuffed with cream cheeseCrème Orient—WafersFruit—CoffeeIIClear Tomato BouillonRamekins of Lobster or SalmonCrown of Lamb—Potato CroquettesGravy—Mint SauceString BeansCompote of Fruitswith whipped creamCheese cream on pastry biscuitsCoffee
IHors d’oeuvresCream Soup in cups with whipped cream on topIndividual moulds of jellied fish withmayonnaise and cucumbersBroiled filets of beef—peas—French fried potatoesSalad—Green peppers stuffed with cream cheeseCrème Orient—WafersFruit—CoffeeIIClear Tomato BouillonRamekins of Lobster or SalmonCrown of Lamb—Potato CroquettesGravy—Mint SauceString BeansCompote of Fruitswith whipped creamCheese cream on pastry biscuitsCoffee
IHors d’oeuvresCream Soup in cups with whipped cream on topIndividual moulds of jellied fish withmayonnaise and cucumbersBroiled filets of beef—peas—French fried potatoesSalad—Green peppers stuffed with cream cheeseCrème Orient—WafersFruit—Coffee
I
Hors d’oeuvres
Cream Soup in cups with whipped cream on top
Individual moulds of jellied fish with
mayonnaise and cucumbers
Broiled filets of beef—peas—
French fried potatoes
Salad—Green peppers stuffed with cream cheese
Crème Orient—Wafers
Fruit—Coffee
II
Clear Tomato Bouillon
Ramekins of Lobster or Salmon
Crown of Lamb—Potato Croquettes
Gravy—Mint Sauce
String Beans
Compote of Fruits
with whipped cream
Cheese cream on pastry biscuits
Coffee
completed by a table for cards, and a conversational circle by the open fire!
Belinda thinks that gelatin, with its countless combinations and variations, makes the perfect dessert. Delicious, delicate ... an aid to the digestion rather than a tax upon it. Perfectly prepared, dished, garnished, before the last minute cookery begins.
The Children’s Hour
Gelatin seems to have been invented by some Fairy Godmother who studied children’s tastes and parents’ dietetic duties. And merged them into the delicate fruity crystals that bring protein and growth-promoting elements, to the active little bodies, while actually helping the digestive process.
How the children love them too, these desserts that look like jewels ... fairy bubbles that melt in the mouth ... delectable as the fresh fruit from which their flavors are made!
They “make a party” of the simplest meal ... whipped or plain, with custard or with cream. Raspberry, Strawberry, Orange, Lemon, or Cherry ripe—their very names carry the fragrance of a sunlit garden.
Three women talking