The I Hate to Cook Book (29 page)

Slice an onion as thin as humanly possible. Then cut thin slices of bread into rounds, using a cooky cutter, butter them, put an onion slice on each, sprinkle grated cheese on top, and heat them slowly under the broiler until the cheese bubbles.

The next two hors d’oeuvres are for those rare occasions when you feel you must be teddibly teddibly. The rest are for any time when you feel duty-bound.

     CAVIAR     

Serve it ice-cold in its little pot, surrounded by hot buttered Melba toast. Or plain Melba toast. Or, for purists, water crackers. And if you are feeling so included, fill little dishes with chopped hard-boiled eggs, yellow onion (chopped fine), and sour cream (low-fat is okay, too).

     SHRIMP LEAVES     

Simmer an artichoke in salted water, which also contains a cut garlic clove and a drop of olive oil, for forty minutes. Cool it.

Then carefully remove the best leaves. On the tender edible end of each leaf, put a dot of mayonnaise very slightly flavored with curry. Now put a wee shrimp on the wee dot, and arrange the leaves on a platter.

     THE DIP     

If you have a package of cream cheese in the house, you always have a dip in the house, because you can thin it a bit with whole milk, canned milk, or cream, and add

salt

pepper

lemon juice

grated onion

and there you are. Just keep on tasting.

You can proceed from there, if you like, and add some minced clams and a little Worcestershire. Or, if you haven’t been clam digging, use chopped anchovies or sardines.

If, in addition to the cream cheese, you have some sour cream in the house, and an avocado, these proportions work nicely:

     FLORIDA DIP     

1 large ripe avocado

3-ounce package cream cheese

½ cup sour cream

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

dash of Tabasco, salt, pepper

2-ounce can anchovies, diced (optional)

Mash the avocado till it’s lumpless, then blend in everything else.

Note:
When you use a hollowed-out red cabbage to hold a dip, it looks rather festive, and there’s no bowl to wash. On the other hand, when you use a bowl to hold a dip, there’s no cabbage to hollow out. You may take your choice.

     CLASSIC CALIFORNIA DIP     

(In case someone hasn’t heard.)

Combine a pint of sour cream with a package of onion-soup mix.

     NEOCLASSIC CALIFORNIA DIP