Here for you today, madam, is this good recipe to make in your kitchen, for your guests and for your family, as though it came from the finest confec-tioner's shops...

Meringue Simon — it consists of three parts: the pastry, the filling, and the topping.

1 — Meringue Simon pastry

Flour: 2 teacups Butter or Crisco: 1/2 teacup Baking powder: 1/2 teaspoon Salt: 1/2 teaspoon Iced water: 6 soup spoons

• Sift two cups of flour with half a teaspoon of baking powder and half a teaspoon of salt • Add half a cup of butter or (Crisco) and rub it into the flour, either with your fingers or with a fork • Add five or six soup spoons of iced water (one spoon after another) • Continue mixing until the flour becomes a dough that holds together. Knead it until smooth, then roll it out to a thickness of one-eighth of a qirat and set it in its special hollowed mold, taking care to bring the dough up the wall of the mold. Bake it in a hot oven, 450 degrees, for five minutes, until it sets and its color turns golden.

2 — Meringue Simon filling

Water: 2 cups Starch: 4 tablespoons Flour: 2 tablespoons Sugar: 1 cup Egg yolks: 3 Lemon juice: 4 tablespoons Grated lemon rind: 2 teaspoons Salt: 1 teaspoon

• Put the water on the fire to boil • Blend the starch, the flour, and the sugar with half a cup of cold water until smooth • Add to it the lightly beaten egg yolks • Add it slowly to the boiling water, and cook it five minutes,

stirring it all the while • Take it off the fire and add the lemon juice, the rind, and the salt.

Pour it into the heart of the baked pastry.

3 — The topping, or face

Egg whites: 3 Sugar: 3 tablespoons Baking powder: 1 teaspoon

• Beat the whites and add the sugar slowly, continuing to beat • Add the baking powder and beat again • Spread it over the face of the mold, on top of the filling • Bake it in a moderate oven (325 degrees) for ten min-utes, until its color turns golden.

And here now, madam, is a second delicious recipe:

Chocolate cakes

Ingredients

Eggs: 3 Sugar: 1 teacup Chocolate: 2 1/2 squares Butter: 1/3 teacup Vanilla: 1/2 tea-spoon Flour: 1/2 teacup Baking powder: 1/2 teaspoon Salt: 1/8 teaspoon Chopped walnuts: 1 teacup

• Beat two eggs well, then beat a cup of sugar with them

• Melt, over hot water, two and a half squares of bitter chocolate (that is, without milk) together with a third of a cup of butter (a square of chocolate equals three large spoonfuls)

• Add this mixture to the beaten eggs and sugar, then add half a teaspoon of vanilla and beat it all well

• Add half a cup of flour with half a teaspoon of baking powder and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt

• Finally, mix in a cup of chopped walnuts. Spread this

mixture in a mold greased with butter and dusted with flour — let it be spread thin — then bake it in a moderately hot oven, at 325 degrees, for thirty minutes

• Cut it into square pieces while it is still in the mold, before it cools.