Nesterov was one of Empress Alexandra's favorite painters, his picture of the Annuciation hung in the Mauve Room. He worked for Grand Duchess Elizabeth in her Martha and Mary convent in Moscow. Here's a bio.
The Picnik Basket and Traveler's Lunch
Nothing more surely insures the serving of a picnic luncheon in good condition than does the use of a goodly quantity of the right kind of fine paper. Sandwiches, cakes, wafers, rolls, sliced meats, - in fact, everything packable, - may be presented in an immaculate and appetizing manner by wrapping them in paper, or by pressing between the articles and a solid surface, contact with wich would prove disfiguring, a crushed sheet of paper.The use of paper in packing dishes is also obvious.
When a picnic has been announced, the waitress acquaints herself with the menu the waitress acquatins herself with the menu that has been selected, and early on preceding day makes ready such things as she may find convenient.A small, plain casserole with tight-fitting cover, or even a jelly tumbler with metal cover, and waxed paper between, will serve for a butter jar.In this the butter is packed and set aside to become old. Fruit jars are scalded, and made ready to receive cream, sugar, tea, coffee, and cooked vegetable salads. Sandwiches may each be wrapped in its own special paper.
A few words as to the marking of sandwiches may be helpful.
Bread that has been baked twenty-four hours is of the right texture to slice evenly. Loaves baked in the Pullman sandwich pan cut to the best advantage. These pans are made with tight-fitting covers, but the bread is more wholesome, if in banking the cover be discarded.Remove the crust, then cut in even, quarter-inch slices.Trim the upper side; but for traveling, lunches, and picnics, do not cut into shapes more fanciful than rectangles or triangles.Butter the bread after it is sliced, also supply a moist filling after the final shape has been secured, and do not spread either quite from the edge, thus avoiding the soiling of the fingers when the sandwich is eaten from the hand.Meat for sandwiches should be cut across the grain and as thin as possible.Use several slivers of meat in each sandwich.
In packing the hamper, or basket, let each article of food be separated completely from every other article, and, if possible, dispose of all strong-flavored articles in closed receptacles.When lamb chops, either cold or those to be broiled at the journey's end over a bed of live coals, are to be provided, see that chop frills be given a place in the supploes that are packed.Deviled chicken's legs, hot or cold, call for the same device for handling them.
