Defending valuable
guest space |
and avoiding messy
accidents |
Last Sunday while reading the New York Times
I came upon a feature titled Blame the Messenger.
I am fairly certain the title was meant to be clever. The piece
was a tidy little social commentary on the state of modern manners.
The subjects tackled included: ignoring formal invites, testing
last minute acceptances, perils of Evites, and a list of similar
modern sins. I had a headache when I finished reading it. I couldn’t
believe the author concluded by suggesting that the only way to
avoid an attendance fiasco was by popping for a pricey engraved
invite. The rest of her article had actually suggested that such
an expense offered no such protection at all. |
Darlings, I assure you I am not about to indulge in a pointless
screed against the times we live in. I am too practical. That ship
sailed sometime back in the 80s. Actually, I think bad manners are
rather like a car accident caused by careless driving. No one sets
out intentionally to be a menace on the road, but goodness, what
a mess when the crash happens! That’s what happens with people
with ghastly manners. They walk around causing lots of little crashes
all the time. They are blissfully unaware until the big smash-up
comes. The polite people just move out of the way, avert their
heads, and quietly sweep up. It’s what polite people do. |
|
| What is a young hostess to do? |
|
In my line of work, I am blessed. I work with many different
people. Overall, it’s a polite group. I give thanks for it
daily. There is a natural grace to many in the profession that goes
beyond please and thank you. On the rare occasion that we do speak
on the phone in this email driven world, it is a pleasure to hear
cultivated, pleasant voices. Lest anyone reading this may
mistake my meaning, these women are not mealy-mouthed doll-babies.
They are exceedingly bright and competitive. Many are leaders in
international companies or own their own firms in major cities.
They just manage to conduct business without being rude, offensive,
or graceless. So rare are rude and offensive people in these industries
that they are almost always beginners. |
I mention this because it is a fairly wide cross-section of women
in two countries who, at least at work, are polite and graceful.
I meet so many men and women of grace and good manners - often in
difficult jobs - that the rude ones are always a bit of a jar. |
According to the NYT writer, many people don’t care much
about social things anymore. But I find it hard to believe they
are all split personalities and turn into brassy little numbers
after 7 pm. So I’m flummoxed as to why bad guests and missing
RSVPs has been such a hot topic for the past decade or so. |
The NYTwriter described appalling behavior:
people who leave dinner parties to go elsewhere, who don’t
acknowledge invitations in case something better comes up, and who
text an acceptance the day of a formal event. I know this behavior
happens. I am just not sure where it comes from, unless it’s
from us all being too polite to stop it. |
Once, a younger friend of mine told me she intended to attend
a hostess’s lovely dinner party in costume in order to slip
out to attend a fancy-dress party afterwards. I explained to her
that that kind of behavior was gauche to say the least. She decided
to forgo the party. Later, when she was cooking and serving her
own little dinners she understood only too well how obnoxious it
would have been to “sandwich-in” her gracious hosts.
|
If she hadn’t made the right decision that night, she would
have been quickly dropped from her hostess’s guest list -
and maybe a few others. She would have crashed and burned as a guest.
It’s not the Victorian era or even the 50s. Most of us willingly
forgive the unavoidable - the flat tires in life. No one is perfect.
People get sick, sitters don’t show up. Life is not without
few bumps. What I am talking about here is the shameless no-show,
terrible tardiness, and other tacky brat-pack behavior. |
Maybe celebrities get away with this sort of thing, but it’s
really rotten to be a no-show and any smart hostess will drop a
repeat offender like a plague-carrier. The thing is no one really
talks about it. One doesn’t want to look like the ‘manners
police’ or an old fusspot, but rude folks do get dropped.
Let’s face it, entertaining is work. Guest space at a good
host’s home is like good real estate - it has value. Some
hostesses have this twisted. They give away valuable guest space
to the undeserving. |
Texting and Evites can be a hostess’s nightmare. I would
never use an Evite. I hate the format. I do use email invitations.
It’s quick, efficient, and saves a fortune in postage. Besides,
you end up emailing people reminders anyway. As for Evites, they
typically let invitees preview guest lists. I don’t like that.
You go to a party because you are invited and you wish to accept
the hospitality. Nice people don’t ask who else is coming.
But darlings, you knew this already. |
I despise texting. I find it annoying, and except for very special
occasions or worrying about children, people who leave mobiles on
during social occasions are not very smart about their manners or
images. But then again, I don’t run around to night clubs
meeting friends very often anymore. For that texting, is perfect.
I would have killed for it back when I did spend my evenings in
clubs. But, who but a fool would use a text message to reply to
any type of invitation - especially on the same day? It doesn’t
bear discussing. |
I was taught that good manners are common sense and kindness.
The wisdom is timeless. Good manners are also democratic; anyone
can afford them. I find it ironic that in this age of excess with
crazy expensive weddings and over-the-top affairs, that simple elegant
manners are often lacking. It’s always jarring when an expensively
dressed woman has bad posture and even worse manners. Her clothes
say ‘look at me’ and then it is just dreadfully embarrassing. |
|
| Fun -- not a chore because of a bore! |
The NYT writer suggested sending elegant engraved cards to avoid
having your invitation ignored. Darlings, no one loves fine stationary
more than moi, but I am not sure that is the answer. In
her 1980s etiquette book, maven Letitia Baldridge bemoaned
the number of formal invitations that were not answered in a timely
manner. Things have not improved! |
We need to turn this mess around. This isn’t about being
picky or judgy, but who wants to be the known as the dreaded Mrs.
Bucket (she pronounced it ‘bouquet’)
on the BBC’s Keeping Up Appearances?
But entertaining is too much fun to give up and too much work to
have marred by bores. So splurge on the creamy, heavy stock invitations
when you want to. They are divine. The rest of the time, try the
elegant art of persuasion. When that fails, edit your guest list
and defend your valuable guest space. After all darlings, you wouldn’t
hesitate to get out of the way of a car crash, would you?
|
| |
|
|
| Who knew secret weapons could be so tasty? |
Chef MD: How to eat |
for health, taste,
and beauty |
If you have wanted dieting advice that makes sense for your health
as well as your waist line, don't miss a word of our exclusive interview
with the Chef MD. |
Dr. John LaPuma is a trained chef and
a board certified internist. He is also a best selling author. He
appears weekly in What’s Cooking with Chef MD
and Health Corner on the Lifetime
network. Dr. La Puma shares how
to uses food to enhance your life and your health - and how to drop
a few pounds as well, if that’s your goal. His latest book
The Chef M.D.’s Big Book of Culinary Medicine
is a complete guide to eating well in every sense
of the word. It covers common problems and ailments, and offers
simple, healthful solutions. The recipes in the eight-week plan
are tasty enough to tempt a foodie and simple enough to be attempted
by a motivated beginner. |
DD: How did you become a chef and a
medical doctor? |
Dr.L: I first went to medical school,
practiced, and gained weight from all the stress. I didn't know
how to advise my patients, either. I lost the weight with
rice crackers and grapefruit, but went to cooking school to learn
to keep it off and to learn how to make a healthy diet taste good
- for myself and for my patients. With my friend Mike Roizen, MD,
I wrote the RealAge Diet and Cooking
the RealAge Way, and later taught the first cooking
and nutrition course in the country, at SUNY, to medical students. |
DD: Does how we eat really make such a difference
in our health besides the obvious benefits of weight loss? |
Dr. L: Huge: 70 percent of heart disease,
or more, is preventable. 80 percent of all cancer is preventable.
You have much more control than you thought over how you look and
feel, and whether you actually become healthier with what you eat. And
with better flavor, and a richer, more delicious experience than
you thought possible. |
|
| Dr. John La Puma |
DD: Is there a definite and provable advantage
over eating fresh and natural food as opposed to taking a handful
of vitamins every day, and then just grabbing whatever? |
| Dr. L: Yes: food is much more complicated
than a supplement or even a prescription drug. There are thousands
of chemicals working together in each food and with other foods to
prevent disease in your body. Food can actually reverse disease
processes, together with exercise and medication. |
| Some supplements, on the other hand, can make things worse when
isolated from their original foods. Too much Vitamin A promotes
hip fractures in men, and too much calcium promotes prostate cancer;
too much beta carotene makes lung cancer more likely in smokers.
But often, when foods containing these nutrients are given to people,
the same negative effects have not been seen. |
| So, it can be almost as quick: put cherry tomatoes in the candy
dish. Keep secret little bags of almonds and boxes of raisins
in a handbag. Keep yogurts at work in the fridge, and Odwalla
bars in your desk drawer. You get the idea. |
DD: Is it complicated and time-consuming to
eat well? |
| Dr. L: Not at all. The best food is often
simply prepared and starts with a single great ingredient - succulent
shrimp; red, ripe, dripping watermelon; good Parmigiano-Reggiano;
soft, buttery lettuce; heady, fragrant olive oil. Notice that none
of these, though, are available at your corner fast food outlet. |
| Pushing the button on the microwave counts as cooking. And each
of the recipes in my book have between 4 and 10 ingredients, and nearly
all are less than 30 minutes from start to finish. Just start
slow and easy, and pretty soon, you'll have a meal on the table. |
DD: Is it important to buy only organic food? |
| Dr. L: For some foods, yes. The organic
foods worth buying are those with the highest artificial synthetic
chemical levels. I list them in the book. In general, they are the
ones with thin skins: potatoes, berries, peaches, nectarines, apples.
And dairy, to avoid the antibiotic residues. |
| Five easy organic changes, which Tara Parker Pope in The New York
Times compiled earlier this year, make a lot of sense: potatoes, milk,
apples, peanut butter and ketchup. Peanut butter because organic
peanuts are not sprayed with a fungicide; and ketchup because it has
three times the heart-protecting lycopene that conventional ketchup
does. |
| Of course, if you can afford it, buying all locally and sustainably
is the way to go. Investing in yourself, and in the best quality food,
is the best investment you can make. |
DD: Is eating well more important than exercise? |
| Dr. L: Yes, because you often eat at least
three times in a day. So you have at least three chances every
day to get it right, to succeed, to replace a bad habit, and to do
better than you did just a few hours before. Most of us only
exercise once daily, and sometimes not at all, which is sad, but totally
changeable. |
DD: What are some of the easiest and most common
complaints to correct with healthful eating? |
Dr. L: We crunched through 3,000 peer-reviewed
studies to boil it down to the best 50 foods and 50 recipes for
40 conditions in this book. Cholesterol is one of the easiest, and
so are high triglycerides, high blood sugar and high blood pressure.
And many skin conditions, especially acne. And several digestive
conditions are pretty responsive too - not just constipation and
diarrhea, but ulcerative colitis too. Food is very powerful, if
you know how it works, what to add, and how to use it. |
|
DD: How soon can a person expect to see
results from healthful eating? |
Dr. L: Some food works within minutes
in the bloodstream. Culinary medicine -which I define as the art
of cooking blended with the science of medicine - shows you that
you can have restaurant quality food that prevents disease.
And it tastes better than you thought possible. |
DD:If a person is a beginner at cooking
and having a healthy life style, can they start with small changes
and still get some benefit? |
Dr. L: Absolutely. Here are three.
Adding avocado to a salad, for example, lets you absorb seven times
as much lutein from the greens, versus no avocado. Or, using a full
fat salad dressing does the same thing, versus low fat or no fat.
And lutein protects your eyes from macular degeneration, a leading
cause of blindness in the U.S. Or simply marinating chicken, beef
or fish before grilling or baking, and adding rosemary to the marinade.
The marinade, and the rosemary in it, reduces cancer-causing chemicals
called HCAs by up to 90 percent when you grill. Grill or cook
rare or medium, but not well done or charred - the char is cancer
causing. Cut it off. |
DD: What tips would you give a busy woman looking
to lose weight or maintain her weight, but who also needs energy?
Are there any tips to healthfully lose a few pounds? |
| Dr L: Savor your food; and don't make
eating right harder than it has to be. |
| Eating deliberately and mindfully, smelling your food before eating
it and experiencing about the bite you're having, and not thinking
about the next bite, is the missing link for weight loss. |
| So many of my overweight patients in my clinical practice in Santa
Barbara don't fully taste their food. Eating is a much more satisfying
experience if you do it deliberately. My motto is: if it doesn't taste
good - really good - don't eat it. |
| And also, don't be tough on yourself. If you deliberately
sit at a table with a small plate, with food in the center and not
on the rim, and use utensils, and take 20 minutes to eat a meal, your
brain will have enough information to help you stop. Trust yourself.
And practice this. |
| The eight-week plan in my book is for men and women who can devote
a little time every week to building better energy. |
DD: Dr. La Puma can you finally settle the coffee
and tea debate. Are they both okay to drink? Is one better than
the other or can we all enjoy them both? |
| Dr. L: They are both terrific to drink.
Coffee reduces risk for gallstones, diabetes, liver disease, Alzheimer’s
and Parkinson’s. Tea is important in the prevention of
heart disease, muscular recovery after exercise, better blood flow
and stroke prevention. |
| The one that's better to drink is the one you like more, and to
which you don't have to add sugar or whitener to love. Actually, milk
added to tea blocks its help to your heart. And makes it taste sort
of murky too. |
For more information about |
| Dr. La Puma www.chefmd.com
|
| |
|
| Not registered yet to receive DolceDolce’s
free weekly email newsletter? Help us grow; sign-up
today, and forward
to your friends. Because life should be sweet. |
|
Your sexy style
in the city |
The show had six stars: four women, the city, and the clothes.
Sex and the City, the movie, is a chance
to reprise the whole experience - especially the sartorial kind.
In the film, Carrie is reported to have worn 81 different outfits!
The clothes are once again by done by star-stylist Patricia
Field, an Academy Award-nominated designer. She pulled
them from current collections. So rejoice ladies, these clothes
are so attainable. |
Miranda’s geometric black and white dress from Maggie London,
for instance, is just $150. www.nordsom.com.
|
|
| And a pink striped T that Carrie wears from Ralph Lauren is actually
an infant T for $16.99 www.dillards.com.
But for the drop-dead looks she went haute couture. Darlings
don’t despair or spend the condo down payment as Carrie did.
Instead try vintage. |
|
The looks here are from www.unique-vintage.com
and www.edressme.com.
How fabulous does this look? Splurge on the most wonderful Chanel,
Manolo, or whatever stunning accessories you can afford,
and pull your look together. Remember Carrie wore vintage
on the show. |
Remember the episode
|
about secret single
behavior? |
I think many of us have done it at least once. I am talking about
when Charlotte talked about looking at
her pores in a mirror for an hour. Who doesn’t worry about
her pores or her skin looking dull? Well, the actress who plays
Charlotte, Kristin Davis has gorgeous
skin. Now I know why. |
|
She is a fan and spokesperson for AHAVA. It’s a
wonderful product from Israel that uses healing water from the Dead
Sea. A friend brought it to me years ago
when I was still in high school. I loved it then, and I love it
now. The mask leaves your face flawless --seemingly pore-less.
It’s not even pricey - that clever minx Kristin. You can find
it in better health food stores and drugstores. |
A sweet summer
read |
Summer reading is delicious. I know we are all busy-busy, but
steal time to read. It does wonderful things for your brain and
your soul - even a few pages a day. I won’t tell it will change
your life, but I entreat you to try it if you are out of the habit.
I have just started to work on my list. I know will have glided
through Barbara Walter’s book Audition
long before summer. |
|
I also like a real beachy-book that is sweet and light, such
as Karin Quinn’s novel Holly
Would Dream, a sweet, but not-too-sweet a romp. Set
in the Big Apple, a talented fashionista sets out to win her dream
career as a fashion curator and ends up with it all, including her
own Mr. Big! Think Devil Meets Prada Meets Sabrina
–with just a touch of Sex in the City.
It has an edge and a little grit, and a zillion film references.
But her touch is deft, so if you don’t care a fig about either,
you will still enjoy the sassy romance, as a talent wins out over
snobbery and foolishness. This is a perfect book to share with your
daughter or nice-niece, the same one who has more shoes than you
do. www.amazon.com
/ www.amazon.ca
(June) www.karenQuinn.net |
Simple
spicy prawns |
for a simple spicy
evening |
Now that we are sailing into summer entertaining, it is a perfect
time to keep everything light and easy. Warm weather is the best
time to take advantage of fresh ingredients and simple preparations
to make parties and everyday get-togethers a snap. |
This time of year I can't resist jumbo prawns. They are delightful
as a light snack with drinks, and perfect as a quick dinner with
rice and salad. They cook up quickly and are low in calories. While
they have some cholesterol, it’s not a lot, and therefore
they are still considered a healthful food. Try this simple recipe
for spicy prawns and dipping sauce once, and you’ll make it
all summer. |
6-8 large prawns or shrimp per person peeled and deveined. |
Mix: 1 tbsp. paprika, ¼ tsp. cayenne, 1 tbsp. fresh or
½ tbsp dry rosemary, |
1 tsp. kosher salt, and the grated rind of ½ lemon. 1
clove of garlic. |
This makes enough for 16 prawns. Double as needed. Toss on the
peeled and dried seafood and leave refrigerated for at least 15
minutes. |
Sauce: Simmer ½ cup good olive oil, a peeled clove or
two of garlic, the juice of 1 lemon, 1 tsp. kosher salt and ¼
tsp of cayenne. |
Grill the shrimp quickly on a hot grill pan on your stove top
or outdoor grill. Serve with plates of olives, grape tomatoes, and
some crusty bread for dipping. If you are on low-carb regimen, skip
the bread and add some fresh cut veggies to dip. So simple and good.
And it takes only minutes to make. if you buy your prawns cleaned
and prepped. |
|
To expand the menu, think about adding a beautiful cheese or
paté. We recently tried an organic brand called Patchwork
Patéfrom England. It’s
the brainchild of two brothers who expanded their mother’s
original cottage-industry company. The product, available in the
U.S. and we hope soon in Canada, is made in Pennsylvania. There
are the usual flavours, such as mushroom and garlic chicken liver,
as well as some other creative combinations, such as tequila and
cranberry and my favorite, venison and chili. If you live
in an area where gourmet shops are hard to find or you are looking
for a tasty product to keep handy in your freezer, this is a great
option. www.igourmet.com |
|
We also tried the recently released Martha Stewart
Vintage wine collection. She created it with
E&J Gallo Winery. There are three wines
in the collection: 2006 Sonoma County Chardonnay,
2006, 2005 Sonoma County Cabernet Sauvignon, and
2006 Sonoma County Merlot. At $15 a bottle,
the wines certainly meet and exceed expectations with soft finishes
and underlying rich flavours. In true Martha style, the wines are
good value and perfect for summer entertaining. www.thebarrelroom.com
|
Letting cocktails morph into dinner is one of my favorite types
of entertaining. Especially on a warm night and when the company
is good, I can’t bear to say good night - or to move. I like
to make a generous amount of simple, delicious food
and settle into the dark. |
Entertaining doesn’t have to be a diet or health disaster
there are plenty of healthful options. Besides spending time relaxing
with friends and loved ones it is one of the best stress reducers
around. |
I’m sure your friends are lovely. I know I have been blessed
with lovely friends and I have probably frightened off a few miscreants.
But if you have ceded any of your valuable guest space to bores
then darlings this the time to put them on notice. Gently of course;
but putting up with the brats devalues good guests and exhausts
everyone so why bother? Anyway darlings you’ll find your own
solutions to society’s ever-changing tribal rites. |
All the natural disasters lately causing loss and hardship both
near and far in the world underlines just how important it is to
spend time with loved ones. If you can reach out to help in some
way near to home or to one of the many places where there seems
to be so much need. So darlings even if life is a bit
hectic and mad; take a moment, make a memory and share the sweetness
with friends. |
Remember: please sign-up
to DolceDolce if you haven’t already. DolceDolce
is free! And forward
us to all your friends. Because life should be sweet |
| |
| Gracey Hitchcock |
| Editor |
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