Table etiquette

Hi there

Years ago, I read about the proper etiquette surrounding table serviettes.  'Napkins'  (hehe), if you're American.

Did you know that when you temporarily leave your seat in a restaurant, you are supposed to drop  your serviette onto your chair?

No, I didn't know that either.  But when I was in Melbourne recently, I was determined to give it a try.  I went to lunch at the posh Conservatory buffet restaurant.  Somehow, I don't think Miss Manners thought of buffets when the idea was first thought up.

I left my chair seven times.  Each time I put my serviette on my chair in an artfully-dropped casual  bundle.  Each time when I returned with a laden plate, my serviette was on the table where a lovely and attentive but truly misguided waiter had put it there for me.

Tut-tut,  the dowager Duchess, operating out of Downton Abbey, would be much displeased.

+++

PS:  a 'napkin' or 'nappie' in British-speak is what Americans call 'diaper'.

Bring back the crispy bacon

Hi there


What is it about bacon in cafes in New Zealand?  It's never crispy.  When I went to the States last year, I got all emotional thinking about the crispy bacon I was going to get there.  But, sadly, no.  It was just as limp as here.  Yet a year or so before, American bacon was so crispy I only had to practically look at it, for the stuff to snap!


I figure crispy bacon-lovers of the world should unite, get up in arms, take our request to Parliament.  Surely it can't be that hard to get crispy bacon in cafes?


And while I'm on the café kick, how about those serviettes wrapped around cutlery.  The serviettes have obviously been wrapped around the knife and fork when the cutlery was damp because it would take a demented chimpanzee to unwrap that darn paper after it is brought to your table.  When a hot dish is put in front of you and then you have to spend five minutes ripping off the serviette from the cutlery, it's enough to cause a screaming fit.  Plus you get a cold meal.