This style-conscious summer even the baba adopts a new look, gets a new flavor. Here from California are babas traveling four to a tin, built like Mary Anns with a depression in the center to hold whipped cream or ice cream, or dip in the fresh fruit. The only preparation required is to turn the tin upside down for ten minutes before opening to allow the syrup collected in the bottom to drip back over the cakes. After opening, arrange the syrup-soaked sweets on dessert plates, one to a portion, and decorate to your fancy.
The babas come sauced in two flavors. One is peppermint-scented, a proper base for ice cream, then hot chocolate sauce. One comes flavored with curaçao, the orange-tinctured liqueur; try this served with a soft custard or whipped cream and fresh strawberries. Dark, glossy brown these French cakes, tender of texture, moist of the syrup in which they are packed.
Ask for the La Ville brand, made by Bertauche of San Anselmo, California, selling in New York City at Vendome Table Delicacies, 415 Madison Avenue, among other spots. Tin of four, 85 cents.
It's the same Vendome, in its off-premises grog shop right next door to the headquarters for table delicacies, that is cooperating in an experiment with wine expert Frank Schoonmaker. There has been recent talk among the distributors about the need for more of the in-expensive wines, more vins ordinaires, if America is going to develop as a wine-drinking nation. If there were more wines that cost about the same as beer, the average consumption would multiply manyfold.
For those interested in trying a mixed case, Vendome offers a sampler assortment of a dozen bottles at the special price of $11.90. For the twosomes, there is a “baby” case of a dozen half-bottles for $6.50. Each case contains reds and whites and offers an excellent cross section of what leading American wine-growers are producing today. Mail orders will be accepted for expressing anywhere in New York State. To Westchester and Long Island the store will pay the expressage, but to other points in the state, express charges are extra.
Ring cake circling a flowering rose tree is the different idea sponsored by Robert Day-Dean's, caterers to New York society weddings, and offered mail order. The 15-inch bride's cake is made in ring form, decorated in the formalized style of the wedding band. With the cake goes a wire tree to fit the center of the ring, this to be flower-trimmed. The flowers may be of your choosing, but white or sweetheart roses or lilies of the valley are the most used. The cake costs $22.50, the wire stand $2; address your order to Robert Day-Dean's, 6 East 57th Street, New York City.
Rings aren't to your liking? This venerable firm will ship you any type of cake, square or round, one tier or three tiers, light or dark fruit beautifully decorated; the bridal figures sent separately to place tiptop. Don't worry that the cake will be marred en route. This house has a special packing technique used through the years that insures their fragile creations safe journey anywhere.
BACK IN TOWN:
Pamper the palate with the smoked breast of the Hungarian goose, heavily smoked. Slice it thin, serve it cold on fingers of dark bread spread thick with sweet butter, pass with cocktails. The breast is pink-meated, fine-textured, the flavor reminiscent of the once-upon-a-time Westphalian ham, price $3.50 a pound, whole breast averaging 1 ½ to 2 pounds. No refrigeration is needed. Sold by Charles and Company, 340 Madison Avenue, New York.
Waiting at Charles' is Bass and Company's pale ale, bottled in London; also George Younger's Scotch stout, brewed and bottled in Scotland, and Scotch ale, all 39 cents a bottle.
Back comes the Schweppes line, this on the shelves at the R. H. Macy Grocery. See what we see: the lime juice cordial, the orange and lemon squashes, the sugarless ginger ale, the inimitable ginger beer. Again Macy's have their Marceau brand of French pâté de foie gras, the first in five years, packed in five sizes. Here's the Marceau brand of truffles, fine as any ever packed to send out of France.
The heavy, rich, and extremely aromatic Mocha-Java coffee can be found again. Wanamaker's have it in their New York and Philadelphia stores in three grinds, all-purpose, drip, and steel-cut, 75 cents a pound.
Bell Bates, 44 Dey Street, New York, sell the genuine Arabian Mocha from the province of Yemen, 59 cents a pound, mail order if you wish. Something else to consider is their superb jasmine tea of the exquisite fragrance at $2.50 a pound. Postage is extra on these two.
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