Ingredients:

• 2 cups soft bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 tablespoons minced onion
• 1 pound chopped beef
• 1/2 pound pork sausage meat
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• butter or margarine
• mushroom soup

Soak bread crumbs in milk 5 minutes. Add onion, meat, seasonings and egg, and blend well with hands. Form small balls with floured hands and saute in small amount of butter or mar­garine, just enough to keep meat from sticking to pan. Dilute condensed mushroom soup with same amount of milk, in sauce­pan. Stir over low heat until blended and hot, but not boiling. When meat is well browned on all sides cover with hot mushroom soup. Cover and let simmer over low heat for 5 minutes. Yield: 20-25 small balls.

• ¾ cup butter or margarine
• ¾cup flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ⅛ teaspoon pepper 4 cups hot milk
• 3 pints oysters
• 2 cups diced raw celery
• ¼ cup minced green pepper paprika or parsley

Melt butter or margarine. Blend in flour, salt and pepper, and stir in hot milk gradually while cooking over low heat. When sauce thickens, add oysters, celery and green pepper. Continue cooking over low heat until edges of oysters curl. Serve on hot toast, between split biscuits or in patty shells. Sprinkle with paprika or minced parsley.

Yield: 12 servings.

Add fine strips of cooked chicken, tongue or ham for chef’s salad.

Place small balls of cream cheese flavored with chives or rolled in ground nuts on top of salad bowl.

Add shreds of cheddar or Swiss cheese before tossing salad.

Garnish salad with filets of anchovy and toss before serving.

Allow 8 to 12 Cherrystones per portion for a main dish; 4 clams for each appetizer service. Have the clams opened at the fish market and packed on the half-shells.

Sauce:

Heat the oven to 450.

Remove clams from shells and discard the juice. Bed the shells firmly in a baking pan, surrounded by crumpled alumi­num foil to keep them upright (rock salt is fancier, if you have it).

Cream butter and anchovy paste, distribute evenly among the shells. Insert a clam in each shell and sprinkle with lemon juice.

Combine chopped pepper, pimiento, onion, salt and pep­per, and distribute among the clam shells. Top with bacon bits, and bake until top browns: about 20 minutes.

• 1 ½ pounds cleaned large raw shrimp
• ½ cup olive oil
• ½ cup minced parsley
• 4 minced garlic cloves
• 2 minced shallots or scallions
• ¼ tsp oregano

Sauté shrimp in olive oil for 5 minutes over high heat, shaking or stirring briskly until cooked. Season with salt and pepper and remove to a hot ovenproof platter, draining off the oil.

Add remaining ingredients to olive oil, sauté over medium high flame for 3 minutes, shaking the pan briskly. Pour sauce over shrimp and broil for 2 minutes.

For each serving,

• Half a hardboiled egg
• 1 slice of salami
• 2 or 3 drained sardines
• ¼ tin of tuna fish, drained and sprinkled with lemon juice
• A cooked cold vegetable: asparagus tips, green beans, beets
• Tomato slice
• Celery stalk
• Radishes, green and black olives, Greek olives
• Pimiento section, crisscrossed with 2 anchovy fillets
• Lentils, or chickpeas (Garbanzo beans) – 1 T draine

Arrange the components attractively, starting with a table­spoon of lentils in the center, covered with pimiento and anchovy fillets, and surrounded by sardines next to salami, and tuna fish next to tomato slice, with the egg, celery, and gar­nishes used for color accents, and so on.

Beef tenderloin on toast, with a traditional sauce.

Cook 4 toumedos in butter, place on small slices of but­tered toast (crusts removed), add 2 or 3 tablespoons of Béarnaise sauce on top of each tournedo—and serve extra Béarnaise sauce in a warmed sauce boat.

Sauté onions in butter until soft but not brown, add toma­toes and simmer 15 minutes. Add sugar, salt, pepper, and milk, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Prepare soup bowls with a teaspoon of butter and 2 table­spoons of cream in each. Pour hot soup into bowls, and garnish with minced parsley.

The same general process works equally well with almost any local sun-ripened vegetables: fresh green peas, asparagus tips, tiny Brussels sprouts, little carrots or lima beans, fresh corn kernels or tiny string beans.

Sweetbreads atop ham, atop toast, and covered with a rich cream sauce.

Heat the oven to 450.

Saute pepper, shallots and mushrooms in butter gently un­til soft (about 5 minutes). Do not brown.

Combine 1½ tins cream of chicken condensed soup with % cup of heavy cream in a double boiler top. Add sauteed vegetables and simmer sauce gently, adding a little milk if needed to thin sauce. Prepare the buttered toast strips; place them in a buttered shallow baking dish. Top with a neat slice of ham, and place half a sweetbread on the ham. For ease in serving, make four distinct portions—or prepare in individual ramekins.

Pour sauce over the ham-sweetbread mixture, sprinkle with parsley, and bake for 10 minutes or until lightly browned.

Because of their delicate flavor, wine can overpower sweet­breads, and no more than a tablespoon or two should ever be used in the sauce.

Baked chicken with olive-tomato sauce.

Nice is a southern French city; its cooking is closer to Italy than Paris. For this dish, brown chicken parts in a mixture of 2 T olive oil and 2 T butter. Remove to an ovenproof dish with ¼ cup of fat, and bake tender in a 375 oven for about 15 minutes, basting once or twice, using pan juices.

Meanwhile, prepare the sauce, as follows:

• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 24 pitted black olives
• 8 small tomatoes, peeled and coarsely cut
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 4 T tomato sauce
• ½ crumbled bay leaf
• 1 pinch each: rosemary, summer savory, tarragon
• 2 T flour
• 4 cooked artichoke hearts, coarsely cut

In a separate pan, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil and brown onion and garlic; sprinkle with flour and cook gently until golden brown, adding a little more olive oil if needed. Add the wine, tomatoes, artichoke hearts and olives; season with herbs, and simmer over lowest possible heat for 20 min­utes.

Pour the sauce over chicken and return to the oven for another 10 minutes before serving.