April, 1920 
49 
The Buffet Breakfast 
For a tete-d-tete breakfast, the table is set with Royal Minton china. The linen 
cloth is hand-hemstitched in a Greek key design. The tiny pepper shaker and salt 
dish are a miniature silver quail and swan. A Sheffield silver dish holds the fruit 
Of course, this is devastating to 
service and one such week-end is 
enough to cause the entire staff to 
send in its notice. England, hav¬ 
ing eaten breakfast much longer 
than America, hit on a scheme 
which solves all difficulties. For¬ 
tunately, in our country houses, 
this idea is generally being'adopted. 
Buffet breakfasts. Every facility 
is given to expedite ser¬ 
vice; in fact, the guest 
serves herself. On the 
buffet is the coffee perco¬ 
lator or urn with a low 
heat keeping the coffee 
warm. Cream and sugar 
and plenty of cups and 
saucers are placed close 
by. In the centre is a 
silver dish with two com¬ 
partments in which a 
cereal and eggs may be 
kept hot by means of an 
alcohol lamp. The flat 
silver and the plates are 
on the buffet. 
Many interesting de¬ 
signs in old buffet silver 
can be found, and our 
American manufacturers 
have provided us with 
excellent material from 
which to choose. With 
our table grills and 
toasters, electrical egg 
{Continued on page 84) 
silver coffee um, with 
cream pitcher and sugar 
Ijowl to match and a 
small covered toast dish 
that will also serve for 
cereals or eggs. 
The Tray 
'I'he arrangement of 
the breakfast tray is of 
prime importance. Per- 
liaps we have foniied 
the hal)it of associating 
breakfast trays with in¬ 
valids and have always 
taken care to make them 
attractive. Certainly 
there is no excuse for 
having them unattrac¬ 
tive, because there are 
scores of fascinating in¬ 
dividual breakfast sets on 
the market, which come 
at reasonable prices, and 
in the furniture shops 
will be found many kinds 
of tables built especially 
to hold the breakfast 
tray. 
The individual set 
shown here has an attrac¬ 
tive pheasant design on 
a simple white enameled 
tray. The cover is nat¬ 
ural colored embroidered linen with 
napkin to match. In the illustra¬ 
tion one will note the most con¬ 
venient and smartest way to serve 
strawberries, in a little tray ar¬ 
ranged in a glass compote, the 
centre of which holds the sugar. 
It is not necessar}" for the hostess 
to confine the linen to a natural 
color; indeed, some of the most in¬ 
teresting breakfast sets can be of a 
linen dyed to match a color of the 
decoration on the china and em¬ 
broidered with a pattern taken from 
the china. Canary yellow enibroid- 
: ered with blue sounds an interesting 
' combination — it will remind the 
: breakfaster in bed of the blue sky 
outside her bedroom window and 
I the splashes of yellow sunlight 
I across the very bedroom 
floor. 
While some hostesses 
( have a happy custom of 
placing flowers on the 
breakfast tray, one al¬ 
most invariably finds 
that the flowers get in the 
road. For a matter of 
fact, it requires a skilled 
hreakfaster to manage a 
tray in bed and she really 
appreciates only the es¬ 
sentials. The tray should 
not be so overloaded that 
one is in constant fear 
lest something tip over. 
The Maid 
One more figure is 
needed to complete the 
palatable breakfast tray, 
and that is the maid who 
serves it. Reams could 
be written on this sub¬ 
ject. I believe that Rob¬ 
ert Burns even wrote a 
Attractive china of a pheasant design is used on this tray. The 
cover is of natural colored linen embroidered, with a napkin to 
match. Strawberries are arranged in a glass compote with a 
sugar bowl 
it wasn’t 
on 
A simple service for breakfast for two shoivs a Sheffield silver coffee urn, with cream 
pitcher and sugar bowl to match and a small covered toast dish, which may also be 
used for cereal or eggs 
quite on that. 
Anyway, she should have 
that crisp, cool, clean ap¬ 
pearance that is so desir¬ 
able in the tray itself. In 
the early morning, when 
she serves breakfast, she 
will wear a print dress 
that, later in the day, will 
be changed to dark gray, 
blue or black mohair. 
In the small household 
where such changes are 
not possible, black mo¬ 
hair for all occasions is 
the best choice. The 
apron, collars, cuffs and 
cap to go with this will 
match, of course. 
A certain writer in the 
Atlantic Monthly recent¬ 
ly said that breakfast was 
an art of contemplation 
and should be eaten 
alone. This sentiment 
may not meet with gen¬ 
eral favor, but, as the 
average hostess knows, 
men prefer to eat break¬ 
fast alone. It seems that, 
before breakfast at least, 
the male of the species 
is far more deadly than 
the female. The wise hostess 
therefore will not insist on her 
guests all coming down to break¬ 
fast at a certain stated hour. She 
may set limits for it, but guests 
should be able to drop down when 
they are ready and find breakfast 
awaiting them. 
