First with regard to asparagus. Of all the vegetables preserved in tins I think this is the best. It requires no preparation whatever. Make a piece of toast, and place it at the bottom of a vegetable dish; then make the asparagus hot in the tin, and when the water in which the tin has been placed has boiled for some four or five minutes the tin can be taken out and opened. In opening a tin of asparagus, cut the tin right round the edge, so that the sticks of asparagus can be taken out without breaking them, and take out any tops that may be left in the tin, and add them to the rest. Strain off the liquid, and place the asparagus on the toast, the white part resting on the edge of the dish. The asparagus should therefore be divided into two parts, so that the green parts meet on the toast and half the white sticks rest on one end of the vegetable dish and half on the other. A little ordinary melted butter or white sauce is generally served with them. For my part, I prefer the asparagus quite plain. Tinned asparagus differs in one respect from ordinary asparagus, inasmuch as you can nearly eat the whole of it. Asparagus can be eaten cold as a salad, and a very delicious salad it makes. Open a tin just as it is, strain off the contents, dry the asparagus on a cloth, and place it as I have described before on a dish, but without any toast. Now make a little sauce to pour over the tips as follows:—Take, say, a couple of ounces of butter, and dissolve it in the oven in a teacup till it runs to oil. Now take it out, and add to it three brimming teaspoonfuls of freshly-made mustard, a dessertspoonful of vinegar, and a saltspoonful of pepper and another of salt. Stir this up with the oiled butter. As the butter begins to get cold the sauce commences to get thick, and as soon as it has got into that state in which it resembles custard, pour it over the asparagus, of course leaving the ends of each stick free from the sauce, as it is now customary to eat asparagus with the fingers. This sauce, to be good, requires real butter, which is a substance now rarely met with, even at respectable grocers, the adulteration of butter with fat being almost universal—this universal adulteration being the chief cause of the depression of trade throughout the country. The salad should not be served till the sauce is quite cold and sticks to the asparagus.