Ices.
With a patent five-minute freezer (it really takes, however, from fifteen minutes to half an hour to freeze any thing), it is as cheap and easy to make ices in summer as almost any other kind of dessert. If one has cream, the expense is very little, as a cream-whipper costs but twenty-five cents. A simple cream, sweetened, flavored, whipped, and then frozen, is one of the most delicious of ice-creams. By having the cream quite cold, a pint can be whipped, with this cream-whipper, in five or ten minutes. It will require ten cents’ worth of ice—half of it to freeze the preparation, and the other half to keep it frozen until the time of serving. Salt is not proverbially expensive; a half-barrel or bushel of coarse salt will last a long time, especially as a portion of it can be used a second time. In summer, fruits, such as peaches or pears, quartered, or any kind of berries, are most delicious half frozen and served with sugar. The chocolate ice-cream with fruit is excellent. The devices of form for creams served at handsome dinners in large cities are very beautiful; for instance, one sees a hen surrounded by her chickens; or a hen sitting on the side of a spun-glass nest, looking sideways at her eggs; or a fine collection of fruits in colors. One may see also a perfect imitation of asparagus with a cream-dressing, the asparagus being made of the pistache cream, and the dressing simply a whipped cream. These fancy displays are, of course, generally arranged by the confectioner. It is a convenience, of course, when giving dinner companies, to have the dessert or any other course made outside of the house; but for ordinary occasions, ices are no more troublesome to prepare than any thing else, especially when they can be made early in the day, or even the day before serving.