Take the cauliflower out of the pot as soon as it begins to feel tender to the touch. Pinch it with your fingers to feel whether it is tender or not. The cooking of the cauliflower will continue for some minutes after it has been taken out of the water, thanks to the heat stored in it.

Cauliflower thus cooked may be served with white sauce, or au gratin.

To make cauliflower au gratin take one ounce of butter and a little more than one ounce of flour; hold them in a saucepan over the fire for two minutes; then add one and a half pints of water, two pinches salt, three pinches pepper; put on the fire and boil for ten minutes, stirring all the while with a wooden spoon. Then you add a good ounce of grated Parmesan cheese and a good ounce of grated Gruyere, and reduce the whole for five minutes. (By "reducing" we mean applying very hot fire to the saucepan in order to bring about rapid evaporation, and so reduce the liquidity of the mixture. "Cooking," on the other hand, is produced by a slow and continuous fire.)

Next you take a shallow dish of porcelain or of crockery which will resist heat, the same dish in which the cauliflower will be served when cooked. You place a layer of cauliflower in the bottom of the dish, and spread over it a layer of the sauce. Then you pile up the rest of the cauliflower, pour over it the rest of the sauce, sprinkle another ounce of grated Parmesan and a spoonful of cracker-crumbs, and pour over the whole three quarters of an ounce of melted butter. Then you put the dish in an oven with fire above and fire below, and in twenty minutes it will be as brown and golden as a picture by Titian, a joy to the eye and a delight to the palate.

N.B. - If you use salt butter reduce the quantity of salt in your first sauce.

Cauliflower boiled as above may be eaten cold with oil and vinegar as a cold vegetable, or employed as an ingredient in vegetable salads.

Another simple way of serving it is saute with butter. In this case you must not boil the cauliflower quite so much. Take it out of the water while it is still quite firm ; break it up into small branches; place in a saucepan with butter; sprinkle on it some seasoning herbs or simply finely chopped chervil and a little pepper; cook over a brisk fire, shaking the saucepan from time to time, and serve.

Asparagus should be grown carefully, and gathered when the head is violet or tinged with violet. The stalks should be very white. You prepare it by scraping the stalks, so as to remove the pellicule which has been in contact with the soil; wash each piece; cut the stalks of equal length, say six or eight inches; tie them into bundles of eight or ten sticks, and put them to cook in a caldron of boiling salt water, with a lump of sugar. The water should be salted at the rate of one quarter of an ounce of salt per quart of water for a quantity of asparagus varying from thirty to forty sticks, according to the thickness of the sticks. As soon as the asparagus begins to feel soft take it out of the water immediately. According to the quality of the asparagus the time of cooking will vary from ten to twenty minutes. If you leave the asparagus in the water a second after the cooking is finished it will suck in the water, become flabby, and be spoiled.

For cooking asparagus conveniently and satisfactorily a special caldron is necessary. The bundle of asparagus is laid on a drainer, which fits into the caldron, and enables you to lift the cooked vegetable out of the water without bruising or breaking the heads. This caldron has a lid, and may be covered. In cooking asparagus there is no question of preserving color.

Asparagus may be served warm - not piping hot - or tepid, or even cold. Warm aspar-agus should be served with white sauce Hol-landaise, the sauce being served apart in a sauce boat, and not poured over the whole dish. The asparagus, after having been well drained, should be served in a dish on the bottom of which is placed a napkin neatly folded. The object of serving the asparagus on a napkin is to insure perfect draining; the napkin absorbs whatever water may still cling to the stalks. In some unenlightened districts asparagus is served on a layer of toast, which fulfils the same object as the napkin and absorbs the water. If you do find asparagus served on toast, do not offer to eat the toast, any more than you would offer to eat the napkin.

Silversmiths and crockery-makers have invented various kinds of drainers and special rustic dishes for serving asparagus, but I have not yet seen one that approaches perfection. In table service, as in cookery, simplicity seems always more desirable than complexity.

Serve the asparagus on a long dish, arranging the bundle longitudinally on the napkin, just as it came out of the caldron.

For serving asparagus, broad silver tongs are made.

To eat asparagus, use your fingers. Grasp the stalk boldly; dip the head in the portion of sauce that you have taken on your plate; bite off the head and as much of the stalk as will yield to the pressure of the teeth.

Warm asparagus may also be eaten with a simple sauce of melted butter.

Tepid and cold asparagus requires a sauce of oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt, which must be served in a sauce boat apart. At a dinner without ceremony each one can mix this sauce for himself on his plate. But whether a small or a large quantity is mixed, the process is the same: you mix up the salt and pepper in a small quantity of vinegar; then you add five or six times as much oil; stir up and use, dipping each stick of asparagus into the sauce on your plate before conveying it to your mouth. ______

Artichokes are cooked in the same way as asparagus, and served with the same sauce-warm, with white sauce; cold, with oil and vinegar. N.B. - You must use your fingers to eat artichokes, and a silver knife only to separate the flower from the heart, ox fond.

In spite of cooks and cook-books I feel convinced that neither asparagus nor artichokes are so good cold as they are when just tepid; freshly cooked and allowed to cool down so as to be just not cold, both these vegetables are peculiarly delicate when eaten with a sauce of oil and vinegar, mixed on your plate at the moment of eating.