It was a benedict from New Orleans who first told me about lobster with mushrooms. He was a hopeless bachelor when a girl who initiated him into the mysteries of this luscious bonne bouchée promised to forsake spinsterhood for him - and all because she could cook. So if you are anxious to be won, just give this recipe to the only girl, and see what follows. A quart of finely-cut lobster meat is the first requisite. To follow, have a cup of sweet cream, a sweet green pepper with seeds removed and the pulp finely minced, a teaspoon of minced onion, a ripe tomato peeled, quartered, and sliced, and a pint of large, fresh mushrooms peeled and cut up small. Put in the chafing dish a tablespoonful of butter and add the pepper and onion and cook two or three minutes over a brisk flame. Add tomato and mushrooms and toss about until the mushrooms are dark and tender. Then turn in the cream, and when hot add the lobster. Season to taste with salt, and when as hot as can be serve up on toast. The same lady bakes mushrooms, the large campestris, gills up, in a baking dish. The up-turned cups are filled with butter and a slight sprinkling of salt and pepper is added before the baking dish is tightly covered. After baking about ten minutes there should be plenty of juice to form the finest possible sauce for the mushrooms.

SHRIMPSA LACREOLE finishes a trio of recipes from the Bayou. Melt one-half tablespoon of butter with the same quantity of lard in a stewpan, then add a tablespoon of brown flour and stir until smooth. A dozen large shrimps boiled and shelled and a large chopped onion are fried for five minutes, after which a cup of chopped tomatoes, thyme, and parsley to taste are added and the whole is simmered half an hour. Then come three chopped green peppers, salt and cayenne, and a half-hour more of cooking. The Orléans serves the dainty with plenty of nicely cooked rice, and it is a dish fit for the King of the Carnival.