OT Re: SC - Cooking Laurels

[Anne-Marie Rousseau]

A lady in our group is cooking lunch for the Princesses at Crown List in
a couple of weeks.  She is planning on a stuffed game hen half with
various fruits (raisins and figs, and I'm not sure what else), and
stuffed mushroom caps with sausage and breadcrumbs.  She was also
planning on serving a gaspatcho on the side to provide a crisp texture
and a brigh color to offset the browns of the other dishes.  She has been
studying a couple of Spanish cookbooks, I'm not even sure which ones.  I
suggested that she might want to serve something not so obviously
non-period as tomato based gaspatcho, and she was reluctant based on her
criteria (crisp, cold, colorful).  
I have looked through my soup file, Stephan's soup and vegetable files,
and have not come up with much, other than discussions of non-tomato
gaspatchos (which sound good, but would be less-than-colorful or crisp)
and a green soup recipe that would be colorful but warm and smooth in
texture.  Compost might be good, but would not be colorful, either.  I
considered sending her the recipe for cucumber with mint in yogurt, but
did not think it would complement her other dishes well.  She is new to
the whole period cooking thing, and is reluctant to move beyond her
tried-and-true sources, these two Spanish books she has borrowed from our
Baroness and has had success with.  I would like to provide her with
something fairly structured, as opposed to a mere description of serving
such-and-such a vegetable with oil and pepper.  
Any suggestions from the crowd?
Christianna
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