INSIDE THE STARS' HOMES

Irene Dunne is your hostess at formal dinner, and for the first time divulges her favorite recipes from soup to demi-tasse

                                               BY

                                      Betty Boone 

Lovely Irene, one of Hollywood's most hospitable hostesses, likes to plan her own menus for her dinner parties, and tells you here just how she does it. Above, Irene herself places violet corsages at every feminine guest's place.

COLONEL, a huge police dog, met me at the door of Irene Dunne's stately Spanish home. He seemed tremendously excited about my ring of the doorbell, and could scarcely contain himself until the maid had unfastened the latch. But after his first wild rush at me, he walked off, tail dragging.

 "Poor Colonel!" sighed my beautiful hostess. "He's a one-man dog and that one man is my husband. Since his master left for New York the other day, Colonel has been inconsolable. He keeps looking in all the closets, peering under the beds, leaping up when the doorbell rings, greeting every new step with hope. I suppose he thinks he has been deserted, or that I have done away with my husband in some dark manner.

 "There, there, Colonel, don't howl so! Anita, won't you put hin out in the garden?"

 Anita, the maid, coaxed the animal out into the gardens that stretch form the terrace beyond the sun-room at the back of the house to the far wall of the grounds. 

 There are gardens in front as well as in back of the red-roofed dwelling, with walled-in patios, pools, fountains, and such tropical flowers as hibiscus and bougainvillea making brilliand splashes of color against the white walls.

 The living and dining rooms, the hall and stair with their grille work, archways Oriental rugs, heavy furniture and velvet drapes seem the background for a smouldering-eyed Latin, instead of the cool, slim, poised loveliness of Irene Dunne. Only the sun-room, in clear yellows and white, gives her the right setting. This room seems to brighten the red-gold of her hair, to warm the blue of her eyes.

 She wore a turquoise-blue dinner gown with a feather trim, most becoming in shade and silhouette.

 "See what I'm using for corsages," she said, picking up a cluster of pale lavender-and-white violets. "I had never seen the variegated flowers before and thought my guests would like them.

 "If this dinner were being given in New York, I should probably make it more elaborate, for there a fish course seems indicated for some reason; but here in Hollywood where everyone either diets or keeps a wary eye on the figure, I find that a three or four course dinner is appreciated. If a hostess in Hollywood serves a heavy meal - topped off, say, with strawberry shortcake or plum pudding - her guests will probably eat it, because it's there and they like to eat, but they will be uncomfortable. They'll have that 'Oh, what have I done? I'll have to give up lunches for a week!' feeling.

 "So, if I serve soup, I omit seafood cocktail; if I have a fruit cocktail perhaps there will be no soup course.

 "I usually order a clear soup for myself, but sometimes I have cream soup if I know certain guests prefer it. Consomme Mary Stuart is on the menu tonight.

CONSOMME MARY STUART

 Heat six cups of clear consomme and add to them one cup cooked small peas and one cup cooked diced carrots.

And excellent cream soup is

CORN SOUP, SOUTHERN STYLE

3 ears corn or 1 can corn

1 quart milk

2 tabelspoons butter

1 large spoon flour

3 onions

1 stalk celery

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

 If corn is on the cob, grate it, heat milk and turn in corn, blend butter and flour, add to soup after it has been cooked 1/2 hour, very slow. Cook onions and celery in a little water 1/2 hour, strain and put into stock. Cooking this seperatel gives a different flavor. Serve with a dusting of parsley and grated nutmeg. If you can get popcorn, throw four kernels into each plate with a fins strip of green pepper, which makes a pretty dish.

 "Men usually like Filet Mignon if asked for a preference in meat courses," mused my hostess. "I serve it often. Then there's chicken - most people think chicken is just chicken, but my cook serves such a dish as you might dream of, melting in your mouth. But her recipe is a guardes secret. Even I don't know how she does it.

 "Don't smile, for I do know something about cooking, though I get no time to practice it now. Once upon a time I won a prize in a cooking contest. The prize was for doughnuts, I remember. Imagine offering a Hollywood woman guest a doughnut! She would slay you.

 "Then there's the meat course with potatoes and two vegetables. If we are alone, there will be one vegetable, but I find that so many of the women guests pass by the potatoes that I must have two other dishes. However, if I am having aspargus, I do not bother with a salad course. If there is to be salad, it is usually quite simple.

 "Then perhaps there will be an elaborate dessert. This need not to be fattening. My cook makes the most marvelous dessert, called Chocolate Roll, made without flour, and to be served as a matter of fact tonight. She will tell you about it. It can be as simple or as elaborate as you please, according to the sauce used."

CHOCOLATE ROLL

6 eggs

1/2 lb. sugar

1/2 cup Ghirardelli's chocolate

 Beat the egg yolks well, then add the sugar and beat again, add the chocolate, which has been dissolved in very little hot water. Fold in well beaten egg whites, stir the mixture together and pout into a long baking sheet. When baked, fill with whipped cream and roll like a Jelly roll.

 "You can fill it with strawberries and whipped cream, if you prefer," added Irene, "and you can, if you aren't dieting, serve a thick chocolate sauce with it, topped with whipped cream. But when we are alone, we usually have it covered with powdered sugar and chopped nuts."

POTATOE SOUFFLÉ

2 cups mashed potatoes

2 tablespoons melted butter

3 eggs

1 cup milk

salt, pepper, cayenne

 Beat potatoes until light, add butter, well-beaten eggs, milk and seasoning. Turn into buttered baking dish and bake in moderate oven until firm.

 An unusal vegetable somtimes served in this house is 

EGGPLANT ANTONIO

1 medium sized eggplant

1 egg

one-quarter cup flour

1 small onion

1/2 half teaspoon salt

milk to moisten

1/2 half teaspoon baking powder

 Peel and boil eggplant till tender. Drain very dry and mash fine. Season with pepper, salt, onion and nutmeg, add flour and baking powder, and a little milk to moisten. Drop into hot butter from tablespoon and fry brown. Test out and if batter does not hold together add a little cracker crumbs or more flour.

 "I'm not a great believer in salads with the formal dinner - that is elaborate salads," said Irene, "Celery, olives, gherkins - something like that - even plain lettuce with a simple dressing, may be very well, but I confine my salad inspirations to luncheons for women, where they can be appreciated.

 "Now, if you are looking for a a light desert, strawberry or rasberry soufflé is usually welcomed."

(Screenland, July 1936)

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