have you got time for the dish of the day?

Tired of making the same old poultry-based appetizer when the gang come over? Take some advice from Janet Evans' Personal Cookbook from the pages of Canadian Homes and Gardens (1956) and "take time to decorate a chicken salad." The secret? Stiff mayo icing!

French Clock Chicken Salad
To serve 10 or 12 people, you will need: 4 cups cut-up chicken, 3/4 cup blanched slivered almonds, 2 cups finely chopped onion, 2 cups chopped pineapple, 3/4 cup mayonnaise, 1/3 cup thin cream, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon celery salt and 1 teaspoon paprika.

Mix cream and mayonnaise together. Put all ingredients together in a bowl and stir together well. Place salad in the serving bowl. Press it down smoothly. Ice it all over the top with stiff mayonnaise. Hard-boil 6 small eggs. Cut them in half. Use small thin slivers of green peppers to put the hours from 1 to 12 in Roman numerals, one on the yolk of each half egg. Put eggs in order around your clock salad. In centre of the clock, put half of a stuffed olive. Around it, about 1-1/2 inches from the centre, put a ring of green peas to represent the "jewels" usually found in a French clock. Now you are ready to place the hands of the clock, also made from green pepper. Set it at the hour at which you intend to serve the salad.