Breakfast room

“ The breakfast-room should be a glassed-in porch, and its curtains should be thin yellow silk, through which the sunshine would cast a golden light on the little breakfast table spread with a white embroidered cloth and set with shining silver and china. The coffee percolator would be bubbling, and the grape-fruit in place, and when she came from the kitchen with the plate of muffins Bert would look up from his paper and say, "Muffins again? ”

“ Yes, I walk down these long ways on Sunday afternoons, when they are at their best. Sometimes, if you choose the right hour, you may look into one 'breakfast room'—an apartment half sunken in the earth—after another, and see in each one the table laid for tea, showing the charming order and uniformity that prevail. ”

“ The breakfast-table is left standing well on into the middle of the morning, and sundry plats are kept hot in the oven for Mr. Jack or Miss Mamie, who has been out late the night before. Often the demands of business require the young man to be down in season, but there are no [Pg 29] such claims obliging his sister to quit her couch at a—to her—unseasonable hour. As a consequence, what should be one of the family gathering-places becomes little better than a hotel breakfast-room, where the guests come and go as suits themselves. ”

“ There is nothing so cheerless as a breakfast-room which is cut off from the sun in the winter, by being isolated in the north or northeastern part of the house; it continually exerts a depressing influence on the family at meals.
The dining-room is adjoined by the serving-room, which connects with the kitchen, affording a quick and direct line of service.
[50]
Most dining-rooms need color, which may be introduced in a frieze, as here, or by the use of tapestry. ”

“ Work in the Breakfast-room.—Your work in the breakfast-room generally is to light the fire, clean the stove, fender, fire-irons, and hearth; take up the ashes, sweep the carpet, shake the hearth-rug, and lay it down again; but this is sometimes varied in different families. If you find there are more cinders than you can use for lighting the fire, you should take them down to burn in the kitchen. ”

“ We were wise in our generation, and asked for nothing but bacon, eggs, and tea; and after a smoky bath and a change of raiment we seated at our repast in the coffee-room, feeling wonderfully fresh and cheerful. By looking directly at each other most of the time, and making experimental journeys from plate to mouth, thus barring out any intimate knowledge of the tablecloth and the waiter's linen, we managed to make a breakfast. Francesca is enough to give any one a good appetite. ”

“ For, first, the only prospect which is really desirable or delightful, is that from the window of the breakfast-room. ”

“ A Trip To Newark
Perhaps no factor is more indicative of the type of a home life than its breakfast atmosphere. For, in America, it is only a small proportion, even among the wealthy who ‘breakfast in their rooms.’ And a knowledge of the appointments and customs of the breakfast are often data enough to stamp the status of the household.
In the Embury home, breakfast was a pleasant send-off for the day. Both Sanford and Eunice were of the sort who wake up wide-awake, and their appearance in the dining-room was always an occasion of merry banter and a leisurely enjoyment of the meal. ”

“ If a breakfast room is not used, a small winged table set in a sunny corner, or bay-window recess of the dining room, and used as a breakfast table, is an improvement upon breakfast at the large dining table, and can be arranged in almost any dining room. ”

“ IN hot weather a comfortable room is essential to the enjoyment of a meal. The salle à manger must be cleared of food, the soiled dishes removed, all crumbs brushed up, and the flies beaten out the moment breakfast is over, if the apartment is to be pleasant at noon. If blinds and doors are kept closed, the room may be deliciously cool and fresh by lunch-time.
With such surroundings, good digestion is much more prone to wait on appetite than in a stuffy, fly-infested room, where neither heat nor light is excluded. ”

“ These consisted of a nice little sitting-room, a moderate-sized bedroom for the sisters and a small one for Marion, and a little room on the floor above the sitting-room, which had been fitted up as a kitchen, and the glories of which we will reveal later. They all made their own beds, and dusted their rooms before breakfast. On alternate weeks they took it in turns to get up half an hour earlier, dust the sitting-room, and lay and prepare the breakfast, for which everything was put ready overnight. The breakfast generally consisted of ham, brawn, pressed beef, or something similar. ”

“ This is a very good arrangement where people have one large living room or hall in which they dine and which also serves all the purpose of daily intercourse. This entirely removes any suggestion of a dining-room, as the consoles may be separated and stand against the wall during the day.
Many modern houses are being built without the conventional dining-room we have known so long, there being instead an open-air breakfast room which may be glazed in winter and screened in summer. People have come to their senses at last, and realize that there is nothing so pleasant as eating outdoors. ”

“ On your way downstairs open windows top and bottom in the part of the house which is in your charge, closing them after your breakfast in time for the dining-room to get warm for the family breakfast.
Your breakfast being over, set the family breakfast table, and if there is not time for dusting before their breakfast, quickly put back into place anything that has been put out of order the night before and make the room look comfortable.
If there has been a fire the night before, lay a fresh one ready to light and brush up the hearth. ”

“ In the hands of an ignorant maid they are utterly useless. In careful hands they are a great aid and comfort in the breakfast-room.
A breakfast served in this way gives the following rules:
I—A dining-room must be in perfect order before breakfast is served.
II—A waitress is responsible for the heat of the dishes after they come from the kitchen. If too hot, she must cool them; if not hot enough, she must send them back.
III—Coffee and hot milk must be kept at the right temperature to preserve their best flavor. ”

“ No other dedication can be justified in this world.”
318 XIX TRÉCOURT GARDEN
About nine o’clock we were summoned by a Breton maid to the pretty breakfast-room below, and I was ashamed to go with my shabby clothes, bandaged head, and face the color of clay.
The young countess was not present; Sylvia Elven offered us a supercilious welcome to a breakfast the counterpart of which I had not seen in years—one of those American breakfasts which even we, since the Paris Exposition, are beginning to discard for the simpler French breakfast of coffee and rolls. ”

“ Breakfast is equally simple,—and the "simple life" at close range is apt to lose many of its charms. In the corner of the one windowless room that serves for all domestic purposes stands the earthen pot of black gruel. ”

“ Cleanliness, great convenience, and even elegance, are always combined in them; and a stranger is never invited to eat, sit and sleep in the same room, as in the German inns, in which there are generally only ball-rooms and bed-chambers.
The table-service generally consists of silver and porcelain: the furniture is well contrived; the beds always excellent; and the friendly, flickering fire never fails to greet you.
A detailed description of this morning’s breakfast will give you the best idea of the wants and the comfortable living of English travellers. ”

“ She then washes her hands and face, and puts on a clean apron, &c. so as to be cleanly before the parlour bell rings for breakfast. Directions for setting out the breakfast table will be found in the Instructions to the Footman, as well as for dinner, lunch, tea, &c.
As soon as the family is seated at breakfast, she throws open the bed-room doors and windows, and uncovers the beds to be aired, and placing the bed-clothes across a chair at the foot of the bed, leaves them in that state till breakfast is finished, when she proceeds to make the bed. ”

“ Home is the place where the out-of-date lingers, and where modern conveniences that add to the complexity and the worry of life have no corner. At the modern hotel you are a document in a pigeon-hole—a number, not a person—an accident, not substantive. The chambermaid does not wait on you, but on the room. You get up, breakfast, dine, according to the times fixed by the management. You cannot have your bath before a certain hour, and the bacon is not frizzled until nine o’clock. Luncheon is probably elastic because it is cold, and potatoes can be kept hot without difficulty. ”

“ Imprimis, tea and coffee; secondly, dry toast; thirdly, butter; fourthly, eggs; fifthly, ham; sixthly, something potted; seventhly, bread, salt, mustard, knives, forks, &c. One of the first things that belong to a breakfast, is a good fire. There is a delightful mixture of the lively and the snug, in coming down to one’s breakfast-room of a cold morning, and seeing every thing prepared for us,—a blazing grate, a clean table-cloth and tea-things ”

“ After breakfast, it is customary for the ladies to adjourn to the drawing-room, where they converse, or read the papers, or receive early visiters, while the chambermaids are putting the bedchambers in order. 106Some who are not accustomed to hotels, go immediately from the breakfast-table to their own apartment, sitting there among the flue and dust during the whole process of bed-making and room-sweeping; afraid to trust the chambermaid alone, lest she should steal something. ”

“ The three chief meals of the day are breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
In what I shall call the English hotels, almost everybody maintains the good old English custom of coming down to the salle-à-manger to breakfast; but foreigners, consistently with their home practice, take their meagre breakfast or cup of coffee, scarcely to be designated breakfast, in their bedroom. English people cannot get reconciled to the idea of taking meals in a room in which they sleep. ”

“ After breakfast I go into my own room and remain there quite undisturbed the whole forenoon. At twelve o'clock Mrs. W. H. sends me up a second breakfast, bread and butter, a glass of iced milk, oranges and bananas. You see my dear heart, I am not likely to suffer from hunger. At three o'clock they dine, and there may be a guest or two to dinner. In the afternoon my good hostess takes me out somewhere, which is in every way agreeable to me.
The evening is nevertheless the flower of the day in this family, (ah, in how many families is the evening the heaviest part of the day!) ”

“ There were no special morning regulations: One could have his breakfast at any time and at almost any place. He could have it in bed if he liked, or in the loggia or livingroom, or billiard-room. He might even have it in the diningroom, or on the terrace, just outside. Guests—there were usually guests —might suit their convenience in this matter—also as to the forenoons. The afternoon brought games—that is, billiards, provided the guest knew billiards, otherwise hearts. ”

“ If possible give your guest an opportunity to breakfast in his room. So many people nowadays want simply a cup of tea, and to wait until noon before eating a heavy meal; so many desire to eat steaks, chops, toast, eggs, hot cakes, and coffee at nine o'clock, that it is difficult for a hostess to know what to do. Her best plan, perhaps, is to have an elastic hour, and let her people come down when they feel like it. In England the maid enters the bedroom with tea, excellent black tea, a toasted muffin, and two boiled eggs at eight o'clock, a pitcher of hot water for the wash-stand, and a bath. ”

“ In more than one household, a twelve or one o’clock breakfast has proved both hygienic and satisfactory. Coffee and rolls are served to those who want them at eight or nine o’clock, if they come into the dining-room. At noon the family sits down to a simple breakfast—fruit, broiled chicken, creamed potatoes, hot bread and coffee, for example. ”

“ I take my breakfast alone, before the other members of the family are up, and unless you choose to rise early and join me at the seven o'clock table, you need not be surprised if you do not see me until dinner, which is usually at half-past six. If you require anything that has not been supplied in your room, do not hesitate to ring and order it. ”

“ "He has gone, mamma," she said, as she entered the breakfast-room. "And now we'll go back to our work-a-day ways; it has been all Sunday for me for the last six weeks." ”

“ When you visit a friend’s newly finished Home you will be shown through all the Bath rooms, but when you leave you couldn’t, to save your soul, tell [Pg 143] where the dining room was. They seem to kinder want to camouflage or hide that nowadays. There is such little eating being done in the Homes now that a dining room is almost a lost art. Breakfast is being served in bed, Dinner at the Cabaret with dancing attached, and Lunch—no up-to-date Man would think of going anywhere but to his Clubs for lunch. ”

“ When the breakfast-bell rings, we all go in to breakfast, each one to a separate room, (which are all numbered, one thousand in all;) every man's breakfast is ready for him in his room,—one pint of coffee, with plenty of meat, potatoes, and rye bread. After one hour, the prison opens again, and we work in a similar manner till twelve—dinner hour—when we go in again. Dinner is set ready as before,—an ample quantity of meat, potatoes, and bread, with a cup of water, (the best beverage in the world—would to God I had never drank any thing else, and I should not have been here;) ”

“ Breakfast is carried to the cabins, if required; but every person who is able prefers breakfasting in company. On rainy mornings, it is a curious sight to see the company scudding across the green to the public-room, under umbrellas, and in cloaks and india-rubber shoes. ”