Salad has come to form part of even the simplest dinners; and certainly cold meat and salad and excellent bread and butter make a meal by no means to be despised even by an epicure, while cold meat and bread and butter sound very untempting. The best dinner salad will perhaps always be white, crisp lettuce, with a simple French dressing, although, to those acquainted with it, escarole runs it hard, with its cool, watery ribs and crisp leaves. Elaborate salads, or those dressed with mayonnaise, are too heavy to form the latter part of an already sufficiently "nourishing meal, but for luncheons and suppers the rich salad is invaluable.

Salad which is to be eaten with game or to form a course at dinner may be a crisp white cabbage lettuce, water-cress, Romaine lettuce, or that most delicious form of endive, escarole.

The dressing should be the simple French dressing, about which so much has been written and said, and which is so easy that perhaps it is one reason why so few make it well. There is nothing to remember beyond the proportions, and so many keep the quantity of oil, vinegar, and pepper and salt in mind, but the manner of using them seems of no consequence ; but it is of so much consequence, if you do not want the vinegar on the leaves and the oil at the bottom of the salad bowl, that, well known as the formula is, I am going pver it again with a few details that may help to fix the matter in mind.

In the first place it must be remembered that a wet leaf will repel oil, therefore the lettuce or other salad must be well dried before it is sent to table. This is best done by swinging it in a salad basket, and then spreading it between two cloths for a few minutes. Now it must be quite evident, if a leaf wet with water will refuse to retain oil, that one wet with vinegar will do the same; for this reason the leaves should be covered with oil before the vinegar is added, or the salad will be crude and very unlike what it should be if properly mixed in the following way:

Take lettuce as the example, although any of those mentioned are made in the same way. Have the lettuce dry in the salad bowl, put in the salad-spoon a saltspoonful of salt, a quarter one of pepper, and, holding it over the bowl, fill the spoon with oil; mix the salt and pepper well with it, and turn it over the salad; toss the salad lightly over and over till the leaves glisten, then add two (if for epicures, three or four) more spoonfuls of oil, then toss again over and over till every leaf is well coated with oil: then sprinkle in a saladspoonful of sharp vinegar. Toss again, and the salad is ready.

One salad less well known than it deserves to be is that made from the grape fruit. This is an especially grateful dish for spring breakfast, when cool, refreshing things are in order. Many tell me they have tried to eat grape fruit, but find it quite impossible on account of the intense bitter.

There is a very slight and pleasant bitter with grape fruit when properly prepared, but if by carelessness or ignorance even a small portion of the pith is left in it intense bitter is imparted to the whole.