Many women give great thought to dinner parties, and are more dis-tressed by them than pleased, for fear that some slip betraying poor manners might escape them at the table.

The best thing you can do when you are at the dinner table is not to be nervous. If you make a mistake in some matter, rest assured that no one will notice that mistake unless you call people's attention to it by your confusion and agitation.

And if the table brings you together with people you do not know, no blame attaches to you if you draw your neighbor into conversation without prior acquaintance.

Do not sit far from the table and then lean over it.

Do not drink soup from the tip of the spoon, but from its side.

Do not eat with a spoon what you can eat with a fork.

If you talk at the table, let your talk be pleasant and light-hearted, and beware of speaking of death, illness, and calamities, and of everything that embarrasses people at mealtime.

Do not talk with your mouth full of food. And do not rest your elbows on the table.

The Meal

1 – Sausages 2 – Lenten okra 3 – Sambousek 4 – Ghraybeh 5 – Genoise cake 6 – Fruit 7 – Coffee.

Cut up the okra; then fry the onion in oil and chop tomatoes over it. Then arrange the okra carefully in the mold with the salt, and set a plate over it so that it keeps its shape; then squeeze over it the juice of about two sour lemons.

Sambousek

Cheese: one uqiyya Eggs: 2 Ghee: 1 spoonful Flour — parsley.

Chop the parsley with the cheese and add a little salt to it.

Sambousek dough

Knead two uqiyyas of flour with two eggs, a spoonful of salt, and a spoonful of ghee. After it is ready, leave it for a little while; then roll it out, fill it with the filling you have prepared, and fry.

Ghraybeh

White flour: one uqiyya A glass of sugar Milk: 6 uqiyyas Two uqiyyas of semolina with a little orange-blossom water.

How to knead

Mix the flour with a little water and the salt and knead well; while kneading, beat it against the marble slab so that it becomes smooth. Then coat the dough with oil, cut it into small pieces the size of a walnut, and put them in a vessel containing oil.

Ghraybeh filling

The filling is prepared the day before, or in the morning.

Cook the semolina with a little milk, water, and sugar. After it is done (cooked through), pour it into a vessel and leave it to cool. Then take those small pieces of dough and roll them out until