The Cauliflower (Chou-fleur) is, of course, the queen of the cabbage kind, and well deserves our most careful consideration. In plain treatment, what I have said for cabbages generally, holds good for this vegetable a vis. :- draining in salt and water, careful picking, and, if to be boiled, plunging into boiling water, with a tiny bit of soda to preserve the green tint of the leaves. When, boiled, or steamed, which is the better way, you must watch them carefully lest they be overdone.

You can serve cauliflowers with a variety of sauces. Cut the stalk flat so that the cauliflower can sit up, as it were, the flower in the centre, and the leaves round it, pour about it a good tomato sauce, or a plain sauce blanche, bechamel, or sauce piquante, and dust some finely rasped crumbs over the whole.

After having been half-boiled, very small heads may be gently cooked in sauce blanche; or the flower may be divided into sprigs, which can be cooked in clear gravy, or in sauce blanche, and served with an entree. But the great dish to be studied thoroughly is cauliflower "au gratin." This is as practicable with the remains of a cold boiled cauliflower, as with a fresh one. Dispose the pieces of cauliflower in a well-buttered dish that will stand the oven, pour over them some melted butter: dust some grated cheese over them, pepper and salt, bake for ten minutes, and serve.

With a fresh cauliflower you must boil or steam the head first till all but done, which you must test with a skewer, drain it thoroughly; then dissolve two ounces of Parmesan, or any mild grated cheese, in a sauce composed as follows :- one ounce of butter, one and a quarter ounce of flour, one and a half pint of water, pepper, and salt. Next arrange the flower to the best of your power in a neat pie-dish; either whole if large enough, or in pieces with the green leaves introduced between each piece; pour the sauce well round this, dust a layer of cheese over the surface, bake, and serve as soon as the top takes colour. A red-hot iron passed closely over the surface of the dish will brown it nicely.

For those who do not like cheese, the following "au gratin" is to be recommended :- arrange your pieces of cauliflower as before explained, strew over them some fine stale bread-crumbs, with some olives, a few capers, and an anchovy chopped up small; pour over this a cupful of hot melted butter, bake for ten minutes, and serve. Salad oil is better than melted butter, but I fear that my country-men will shrink from such a 'foreign' suggestion.