Kitchen Essential

BREAKFAST

If entertaining guests to breakfast, position the table in the sunniest spot so as to get the day off to a good start. If the weather is bad or you do not have a sunny spot, lay the table with a bright sunny cloth and colourful china.

For a full breakfast you will need cereal bowls, side plates, tea or coffee cups and saucers, cereal spoons, knives and forks or small spoons for boiled eggs, small knives for buttering toast, toast racks, teaspoons and napkins. Grapefruit halves are usually served in small dishes, ready segmented with a knife, with special pointed spoons. Put out milk in jugs (hot to accompany coffee), sugar in a pretty bowl, jars of jam and marmalade, salt and pepper shakers, and pots of tea or coffee.

The breakfast tray

Lay a clean embroidered tray cloth on a large sturdy tray. Lay a place for one with whatever food is to be offered. Arrange a small teapot or coffee pot, milk jug, sugar bowl, salt and pepper, and dish of butter for toast at one side, and at the other a small narrow-necked vase with one or two fresh flowers, any letters and a folded newspaper. It is not really practical to provide hot crispy bacon or fried eggs unless a large tray is used with enough room for a covered dish to keep the food hot!

BRUNCH

If you have a garden and the weather permits, brunch parties in the garden are great fun. Serve Buck’s Fizz or plain orange juice in tall glasses and serve special food, such as devilled kidneys or scrambled eggs with prawns or smoked salmon. The table setting is the same as for breakfast with the addition of flowers in the centre or a large bowl of fruit.

LUNCH

For a family lunch or informal lunch for friends, the table setting will obviously depend on the sort of food being served. The meal might be simply a bowl of soup with crusty bread and cheese, in which case a very simple table setting will be sufficient. A meal of this kind may well be eaten at the kitchen table, but it is nice to arrange the table attractively and with care, using linen or pretty paper napkins and pretty mats — if’ not a table-cloth.

AFTERNOON TEA

This is rather different from the conventional place setting of other formal meals, as the individual settings consist of only a small plate, a folded napkin and a cake fork or small knife, if cakes or hot buttered muffins or tea-cakes, which need cutting, are on the menu. Spread a colourful table-cloth on the table before setting it and place your best cups and saucers, with teaspoons, in front of you, with a jug of milk, a little plate of lemon slices, a tea-strainer, if loose-leafed tea is used, the pot of tea and a jug of hot water, both standing on heat-proof mats. A bowl of white sugar should be handed round as necessary. If sugar-cubes are used, tongs should be provided.

Arrange plates of neat sandwiches, sliced bread and butter, scones, toasted muffins or crumpets around the outer part of the table so that guests can help themselves. Jams and honey should be served in pretty glass or china jam pots with spoons. Antique shops and junk markets are excellent places to find extremely pretty second-hand jam pots, some with silver lids, some with matching spoons. Pretty china jam and honey pots brighten up the tea-table enormously. In the centre of the table place fancy cakes, biscuits, gateaux and fruit loaves, each arranged on a paper doily on serving plates that match or tone with the tea-set.

For an informal tea, when guests sit in armchairs rather than round the table, you should have a low table or trolley beside you with all the necessary tea things and the cups and saucers. Hand a cup of tea to each guest, offering milk, lemon and sugar and make sure that everyone has a small plate and a folded napkin. There should be a low table placed close to each arm-chair large enough to take the guest’s plate and teacup.

The sort of food you offer should be easy to eat without forks and knives and it is a good idea to display sandwiches and cakes on a three-tier cake stand so that guests can see what is still to come. To make the room attractive, lay pretty lace table-cloths or mats over the small tables and place vases of fresh flowers around the room.

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