FOOD .

In Like Lynn

A local author has a mind for manners.


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Published: Dec 18, 2007

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Local etiquette expert Lynn Rosen eschews refinement in Elements of the Table (Random House), released earlier this year. But rather than host tony signings for the ladies-who-lunch set, the Dresher native likes to get her hands dirty.

Rosen holds table-setting workshops at the IKEA in Conshohocken and cookware classes at Foster's at Fourth and Market; she's also presented at Williams-Sonoma on Walnut. With "props" at her ready — dishes, crystal, flatware, linen, serving pieces — Rosen schools pupils, with great theatricality, on the function and fabulosity of each device; setting individual place settings, what serving pieces to use, how to decorate a table for maximum appeal.

"I enjoy doing the workshops, because I meet people who also care about table setting and entertaining," says Rosen. "[It's] amusing to learn why we do things the way we do them."

So why does Rosen — a former editor at Running Press and Ballantine who ran her own Leap First literary agency — care about berry forks, the accepted ruffle napkin wrap for traditional English tea, candelabrum and oyster plates? Because: If not her, then who?

"I said I'd write a book when I found an idea I didn't want to give away," says Rosen, who now lives in Elkins Park with her husband and kids. At Running Press, she was spurred on by editing Dinner is Served by Arthur Inch, an English estate butler who was a technical consultant for the 2001 blue-blood comedy Gosford Park.

"I observe incidents [that] make me want to walk up to perfect strangers and correct their manners," laughs Rosen of her eye for etiquette. "Whether it's people stacking their plates at a restaurant table, holding a buttered piece of bread in their hands and waving it while they talk, or reaching across the table to grab something, there's plenty of things diners don't seem to know how to do correctly."

The biggest wrong, though — beyond somehow screwing up the order of the seafood cocktail fork, the salad fork, the place fork, the fish fork and the dinner fork — is doing anything that makes guests uncomfortable. "If you accidentally set the bread plate on the wrong side, it's not really going to ruin your meal," she says. "What will ruin your meal is if there isn't warmth and good cheer at your table, if people are rude, if the conversation is dull."

And while not everyone can afford some of the extravagances highlighted in Elements — French Limoges china, for example, runs $250 per place setting — Rosen insists you can make a graceful impression regardless of your budget. First of all, get her book. Use a pressed tablecloth. Place everything out neatly in its proper spot — forks on the left, glassware on the right. Craft a centerpiece — even flowers in a tin can with a ribbon tied around it can look pretty. Get some inexpensive cloth napkins and whip them into interesting shapes (consult Rosen's folding tutorials for this).

"Pretty soon," promises Rosen, "your table will look just as nice as one that has the finest crystal, china and silver."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

Buy Rosen's books and check out her class schedule at lynnrosen.com.