White, Graham, brown, or whole-wheat bread may be used in turn, with an occasional roll or biscuit to still further vary monotony. Egg sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, sweetbread sandwiches, sardine sandwiches, minced ham, tongue, ham and chicken, chicken and bacon sandwiches—their name is legion.
But some one may object, one does not want _all_ sandwiches. True enough, but they are the _pièce de résistance_ of the lunch. They may be supplemented, however, by a piece of cold fowl, by, once in a while, a broiled bird, by a few pickled oysters, by deviled and plain hard-boiled eggs, by salads without number, by olives, cheese, and pickles. And for desserts are there not the little dishes already suggested, to say nothing of cake, cookies, ginger-snaps, apples, oranges, mandarins, bananas, pears, grapes, and other fruits? For school children there are such simple dainties as bread or rolls spread with jam, jelly, marmalade, or apple-sauce. And are not crackers and cheese always at hand, and almost always popular?
While all this may at first seem to impose additional labor upon the housekeeper, she will soon find, when the habit is once established of providing regularly for the lunch, that she feels it no more of a burden than she does to cater for the other meals of the day. Let her keep on the alert for new fancies, and they will come to her more rapidly than she can utilize them.
These _menus_ for simple home lunches, given as were those for breakfasts—ten for each season—are not designed to serve as exact guides, but merely as suggestions to the housekeeper. They may easily be improved upon or altered. To some they will doubtless appear much too simple, while others may condemn them as being too elaborate. Certain selected recipes will accompany them.
Baked Cheese Omelet. Toasted Crackers. Strawberry Jam. Cocoa.
_Baked Cheese Omelet._—Two eggs, two cups milk, one small cup grated cheese, one small cup fine bread-crumbs, salt and Cayenne pepper to taste, one tablespoonful melted butter. Soak the crumbs in the milk, in which you have dissolved a _tiny_ pinch of soda; beat the eggs light, and add to the bread and milk; stir in the butter, the seasoning, and, last of all, the cheese. Bake in a well-greased pudding-dish, and eat at once, before it falls.