Planning Menus for An Easter Luncheon

An Easter Luncheon in 1916

      The decorative possibilities of Easter time are numerous as tradition makes hares, doves, chicks and butterflies, as well as lilies and spring flowers, appropriate attendants upon the festival. Of late years little kittens, squirrels and ducklings have been added to the list and are sometimes given for variety's sake as favors at Easter luncheons and dinners instead of rabbits and chickens. Butterflies, emblematic as they are of the awakening of spring, make particularly appropriate favors, says the New York Tribune.

Bunnies prefer cake eggs for Easter dining.

      large yellow butterflies as favors, with a centerpiece of spring ferns and catkins, make a delightful color scheme, for Easter time. The catkins are usually a mass of feathery yellow blossoms. As far as may be, a pale green should be the predominating color, the yellow in the favors and catkins being merely attractive high lights. The china may be white and gold or white, with delicate decorations on it in green.

      The menu should as far as possible be suggestive of spring or, in other words, seasonable and not in any pronounced color that will be out of harmony with the green and yellow tints. Lamb loaf, decorated with squares of mint jelly, makes an attractive piece de resistance at a simple luncheon, or slices of lamb may be masked with mint aspic allowed to harden into a nice mold and then served upon boiled "artichoke bottoms," seasoned with French dressing, and finally arranged around a mound of peas or asparagus dressed with mayonnaise. Tiny sprays of mint may decorate the dish or if preferred, the mint sprays may appear in a plate of mint sandwiches. 

      For a dinner a stuffed breast of veal with watercress is attractive or a crown roast of lamb with mint jelly. A salad of spinach, peas or asparagus may be served in paper cups. 

      A pistachio ice cream, tinted a delicate green and ornamented with snowy whipped cream, may be used. At this season some hostesses may not care for a dessert. In that case a delicate grapefruit sponge may be served. It is made by adding a beaten white of egg to a grapefruit jelly just before it congeal. The pale green of the jelly may be brightened by adding a little green coloring matter. Add a little extra sugar, so that it may be appropriately served with ornamentations of whipped cream, cream hardly being appropriate with a sour jelly.

      A genuine diplomatic pudding is also an attractive dessert. It is like the ordinary diplomatic pudding except that a white Bavarian cream is masked by a green jelly, each flavored appropriately. The dessert should be prettily decorated with pistachio nuts and angelica and whipped cream.

 Stephanie Rose presents Balducci's

 Easter Lunch Demo for WUSA-9 TV.

Easter Menu from Balducci's, 2007

Creamy asparagus soup 

Crab cakes

Slow Roasted Chicken in Wine and Herbs

Fingerling Potatoes Tossed with Garlic and Rosemary

Three Pea Salad

Beet Salad

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