Sex and the Single Girl: The Unmarried Woman's Guide to Men (20 page)

1/4 pound butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

¹
/
₂
cup bread or cracker crumbs

2 hard cooked eggs, diced finely

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

¹
/
₄
clove garlic, minced

4 tablespoons white wine

2 tablespoons catsup

salt and pepper

Melt butter in a skillet. Add all other ingredients and cook about 5 minutes over a low heat. Pour sauce over cooked artichokes.

2 large beefsteak tomatoes

¹
/
₄
cup butter

2 cups cooked rice

¹
/
₂
green pepper, finely chopped

¹
/
₂
onion, finely chopped

³
/
₄
cup piñon nuts (or other nuts)

Do not peel tomatoes. Cut a slice off the stem end and remove all the pulp. Turn tomato upside down to drain. Sauté the onions and green pepper in the butter until tender. Add the nuts and cook one minute more. Add the rice and toss thoroughly. Remove from heat. Stuff the tomatoes with the rice mixture. Place in a baking pan and cover lightly with foil. Bake at 350° F. for 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake an additional 15 minutes. Serve hot.

Make croutons by cutting good-sized cubes of French bread and sautéíng them in butter and minced garlic until golden brown. This should be done way in advance and refrigerated. Tear chilled romaine lettuce into medium-sized pieces and place in salad bowl. Combine
³
/
₄
cup good olive oil or soy oil,
¹
/
₄
teaspoon salt, freshly ground pepper,
¹
/
₂
tablespoon Worcestershire sauce,
¹
/
₂
cup lemon juice,
¹
/
₂
teaspoon dry mustard and mix thoroughly. Pour over the greens. Break one coddled egg (boiled one minute) over greens and toss well. Sprinkle with
¹
/
₄
cup grated Parmesan cheese (preferably fresh from your local Italian delicatessen) and croutons, toss again and serve immediately. Garnish with anchovies.

Meringue Shell
:

Beat 3 egg whites with a beater until foamy. Add 1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar and a pinch of salt and beat until they stand in soft peaks. Add gradually
³
/
₄
cup sifted sugar and beat until very stiff. Fold in
³
/
₄
cup finely chopped pecans and 1 teaspoon vanilla.

Turn the meringue into a buttered 9-inch pie plate and make a nestlike shell, building up the sides
¹
/
₂
inch above the edge of the plate. Bake in a slow oven (300° F.) for 50 to 55 minutes and cool the meringue after it is removed.

Filling:

Place 4 ounces sweet chocolate and 3 tablespoons strong black coffee in a saucepan over a low flame. Stir until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Cool and stir in 1 teaspoon vanilla. Whip 1 cup heavy cream, fold in the melted chocolate, and turn it into the meringue shell. Chill the pie for two hours.

Stuffed Lobster Tails

Pepper Steak España

Rice Marguery

Hot rolls

Marinated Vegetables

Spiced Cherries

Cheese and fruit

Coffee

Chocolate Cookies

Try to purchase cooked lobster tails from a poultry or fish market and ask that nice gentleman behind the counter to scoop out the lobster meat and then put it back in the tail. Allow one lobster tail per eater. You can buy your lobster tails a day before your party but no earlier. Then the morning of your feast you can prepare this dish and have it ready in the refrigerator.

Scoop out the lobster meat into a bowl. To it add some finely diced celery, several hard-boiled eggs, chopped, and a small amount of finely diced pimiento. Then add Louis Sauce and mix. Scoop the contents back into the lobster tail, piling it high and garnish with a sprig of parsley or watercress. This can be served as a first course at the table but my preference is to serve it with cocktails in the living room, thus eliminating that dreadful chore of playing waiter at your own party and having to clear away between courses.

1 cup mayonnaise

³
/
₄
cup French dressing

¹
/
₂
cup catsup or chili sauce

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

salt and pepper

several drops of lemon juice

Combine and mix well.

3 lbs. beef tenderloin, sliced thin

3-4 tomatoes, quartered

¹
/
₂
cup butter or margarine

¹
/
₂
cup tomato paste

1 pound fresh mushrooms

1 teaspoon oregano

3 green peppers, cut in large strips

1 bay leaf           

³
/
₄
cup sherry wine

salt, garlic powder and freshly ground pepper to taste

Brown meat in 2 tablespoons of butter; add seasonings and cook until tender. (This depends upon the kind of meat you buy. If it’s fillet, 3 to 5 minutes on each side is plenty. For best results, ask the butcher. I do.) Have your green pepper, mushrooms and tomatoes waiting for you from an early-morning cutting; sauté for 5 minutes in the remaining butter and add to the meat along with the tomato paste. Heat thoroughly and let simmer until the green peppers are cooked the way you like them but no more than 10-15 minutes. Add sherry and serve at once.

¹
/
₂
cup butter

2 cups white rice

1 onion, chopped           

2 8-ounce cans undiluted consommé

1 pound mushrooms, sliced

3 cups water

Melt butter in skillet. Sauté onions and mushrooms for 5 minutes. Set aside. Wash rice and drain well. Place rice in skillet in which mushrooms were sautéed. Brown and add consommé, then combine with water, adding the mushrooms and onions. Bring to a boil, cover and simmer about 25 minutes until the liquid is absorbed and rice is tender. Serve at once.

If you have a many-divisioned dish or a Lazy Susan, use as many different kinds of vegetables as you have compartments. Otherwise, set the vegetables in beds of lettuce on a large platter.

In your grocery store select small-size cans of vegetables such as artichoke hearts, celery, baby carrots, miniature onions, string beans, cauliflower and others. Drain the cans and marinate vegetables separately in French dressing for at least 4 hours in the refrigerator. Drain off the excess dressing and serve.

(Spiced fruit goes beautifully with almost any entree. Here is a recipe for cherries. If you’d prefer not to “spice” yourself, your market will have cans of spiced fruit such as peaches, pears, crabapples, etc., which will do nicely.)

1 28-ounce can large Bing cherries, drained

1 cup drained juice

 l 1/3 cups sugar

2/3 cup vinegar

cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon whole cloves

Place fruit in a shallow pan. Combine remaining ingredients in a saucepan. Boil 5 minutes. Pour over cherries, then allow to cool. Refrigerate several hours at least. This is a good dish to make the night before for the overnight chilling is preferable.

Rolls can be homemade, bakery-bought or “brown ’n serve.” Any of these will be delicious; just be sure they’re hot. I like to end all dinners with a big platter of fresh fruit (many grapes) and assorted cheeses and have suggested it for these dinners. The more lavish the fruit tray the more gasps of pleasure from guests already overwhelmed by your cooking. Pass little glass plates and fruit knives if you have them.

Something chocolate goes well with nearly everybody, especially men. If you don’t want to bother with a soufflé or chocolate angel pie, something chocolate, gooey and deadly from the bakery will serve. A platter of rich chocolate cookies—probably store-bought—are suggested for dinner number 3. The idea of a double dessert—one healthy, one immoral—makes every dinner seem ultra lavish.

For a gay flourish, add a cinnamon stick to everyone’s cup of coffee.

Peaches and champagne

Breakfast steak topped with exquisitely fried egg

Golden brown potatoes

Watercress

One basket of Swedish Breads

One basket of heated Danish Coffeecake

Sweet butter

Lots of coffee

Peel a fresh peach and place it in the bottom of a glass. A Pilsner beer glass would be fine but any glass not too large will do. Fill the glass with chilled champagne (a domestic variety is all right—it’s the spirit that counts!). Refill glasses several times—the peach takes up quite a bit of room. Provide spoons to eat the peach eventually.

Buy one small steak per person—they should not cost more than a dollar apiece—and broil it quickly to be piping hot but not overdone. On top of it lay gently an elegantly, perfectly fried egg. Eggs are fried this way by cooking them slowly-slowly in a covered skillet. Let guests add their own coarsely ground pepper.

P.S. Tenderize the meat if you think it needs it. A druggist friend of mine says it also tenderizes the lining of your
stomach
but let’s don’t worry about that
now
!

Peel and cut up five or six potatoes. Slice them thin. Fry them in gobs of butter or margarine until they are crispy and brown. Put big sprigs of watercress around the potatoes on their serving plate.

Possibly there is no Scandinavian bakery in your town but just get the most wonderful, bakery-fresh (not grocery shelf) bread you can. Ideally you would serve limpa, pumpernickel and Swedish rye. Cut these in half pieces easy to handle. The heated coffeecake, served in a separate basket, should be cut in about the same size pieces as the bread.

Cut sweet (unsalted) butter in squares and place tiny smidge of parsley in center of each one or make butter balls with wooden paddles.

Serve gobs of piping hot coffee.

The peaches can be fixed ahead of time. Potatoes take about 25 minutes so start them first. Near the finish fry the eggs, broil the steaks, and heat the coffeecake.

All dinners and the brunch would be served buffet style from your dining-room table or bar or any flat surface. Then guests take their plates to an already set TV or card table or to the dining table if you haven’t used it to serve from.

If you have no reason to cook an elaborate dinner or brunch like the ones outlined but would like to try your hand at
one
dish guaranteed to get you raves, this is it—Marilyn Hart’s Herb Bread. It will glorify the simplest meal (even a TV dinner) and is so good guests will think you crumbled the yeast, raised the dough and did the whole assembly yourself. Why tell them you didn’t?

1 loaf sliced sourdough French bread

2 cubes sweet, unsalted butter

1 teaspoon each: garlic salt, Beau Monde seasoning, celery powder

¹
/
₂
teaspoon each: summer savory, rosemary, thyme, basil, oregano, chevril

3 teaspoons of parsley

6 teaspoons of sage

Soften the butter at room temperature. Add the spices. (If you don’t have all these, you could leave out a couple.) You will now have greenish-looking butter. With a knife, spread it between the slices of bread. Really sop it on. Spread the remaining mixture on top. Now wrap the bread up in foil paper. (You can do this a day in advance.) Bake the bread half an hour in medium oven (350° F.). Time it to come from the oven right at dinner time, so it can be rushed to the table. The crust will be crispy, crunchy, the inside moist and fragrant. Nestle the bread in a cloth napkin inside a wicker basket or on a silver bread dish.

W
HAT YOU FEED HIM AND
them bears no resemblance to what you should be feeding
you
when they aren’t around—to keep you sexy, vibrant and unmorose about being single.

I’m sure you’ve been talked to before by a health nut or two about breakfast, protein and blood sugar, and you’ve yawned right through the lectures! “Normal” eaters always wonder why us health nuts can’t just take our yogurt out under the banyan trees and leave
them
in peace and quiet with their Danish.

But single girls
need
lecturing. You are the world’s
dumbest
about nutrition!

And can you think of
anybody
who needs her glossy hair, waxen skin, stalwart nails, shiny eyes, peachy cheeks, glassy tongue (sick tongues are furry), bouncy step and racy blood
more
than a single woman? What you eat has only just
everything
to do with them.

Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?

Your entire body … muscle, bone, brain tissue, blood vessels, red blood cells, hormones and enzymes … just about every squiggle of you … needs protein every day to renew itself and go on living.

The nutritionists say you also need minerals, vitamins, a little fat, some smidges of carbohydrates (natural ones like the sugars and starch in fresh fruits), and that’s about
it.
No expert has ever got a good case going for corn chips or Monte Cristo sandwiches or any of the other tissue-paper, blotters, and fluff a single girl is apt to subsist on.

Very likely you eat
some
of the good stuff every day, but that won’t shine your eyes. When you fill up even
part
of you on hamburger buns, root-beer floats, sauces béarnaise or vegetables with the life cooked out of them, you take up valuable space that’s needed by the
builders.
And it takes a mess of builders to keep you running efficiently.