Phillipa Morrish’s column: ETIQUETTE BOSS

Dealing with unpalatable food

YOUR BEST INVESTMENT: Etiquette for Children

Remove Food From Your Mouth Gracefully

How many times have you told a child, “Don’t speak with food in your mouth” or “do not fill your mouth with food?” However, today’s guidelines are not about inserting food, but about removing it from the mouth.

A child’s natural impulse is to remove unpalatable food by hand or to spit it in a paper napkin. The etiquette rule regarding this delicate process is: The object that places food in the mouth is the object that removes it.

This means that any finger food should be removed by hand and anything placed in the mouth with a fork must be removed with the same fork. (pushed on the fork with the tongue and placed at the side of the plate).

Public attention to the act is avoided because the eating rhythm remains unchanged. Fish bones are the exception. They can be removed by hand if too fine to slip on a fork. A mouthful of food must be discreetly removed in the restroom.

YOUR BEST APPEARANCE:

“The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on old fiddles.” Sigmund Z. Engel

We cannot do anything about the passage of time, but we can do much about the ravages that it leaves behind.

When that once perky mouth that held lipstick so well, starts to sag and lipstick bleeds into unwelcome creases, what’s a lady to do? Make a “fish mouth” twice per day is my recommendation.

Your lips must be relaxed and slightly parted. Extend the top lip slightly over the bottom and pucker as if trying to touch your nose with your top lip. Hold for five seconds and relax. Do five times twice per day.

Another exercise is to adopt a pucker position as if trying to blow a kiss. Keep that tight pout while smiling as wide as possible. Hold for 10 seconds and then release. Do 10 reps, twice or three times per day.

Phillipa Morrish is the president of Etiquette Training International.