caretaker

"Wifey still sees nothing wrong with not using a knife, but did some research and will be signing up for classes at an etiquette school in January. It's in Golden, Colo. She thinks it will be useful to her business."
Post 51, you have to read the thread.

Pulaski

It's easier, more effective, and less messy, but if you don't know how, you wouldn't understand, so I wouldn't expect you to agree.

SultanOfSwing

The only times we ever have wings is when they unavoidably come with fried chicken dinners, so once I've had a breast and a thigh, I don't really care to eat them. I only use a fork and my fingers to eat the rest of the chicken anyway, so I don't even have a knife to hand even if I wanted to use it.

But they come with built-in handles. Nature's cutlery, right there.

Rete

And eating European style with help her employment? Good heavens she is only a concierge and guests will never see her table manners as I'm sure she is not required to mingle with the guests or the company officials in the dining room.

dc koop

I still use a knife and fork. Doesn't impress anybody and why should it anyway?

MidAtlantic

Only Brits could be so obsessed about how, when and where to use a knife and fork.

Octang Frye

I do sometimes eat wings with a knife and fork.
My son was - who is 16 - somehow wipes the wings all over his face.
My wife called *him* out on it saying he's not six.

And Steerpike, she frequently tells me what an ass I am. And I think she's studied anthropology (she studied "eclectic" stuff - Applied Buddhism and Business). She lived with a tribe of Indians in the Amazon, and lived in an african village in Rwanda. Worked for a humanitarian charity in Myanmar.
She wears the pants a lot of the time in this household.

Octang Frye

An interesting take on manners as a social construct:

https://thebiyuticollective.wordpres...te-mans-rules/

SultanOfSwing

reddit.com/r/thathappened

Is your wife's name Albert Einstein by any chance, Octang? Do people applaud often, and hand you crisp $100 bills on a day to day basis?

Octang Frye

Oh, oh, and one more thing.

1. Standing when a guest (especially a lady) arrives at the table.
2. Waiting to start eating until everybody has been served.

And I don't know why this annoys me (like a two on the annoyance scale) but when a server takes the plates of people who've finished while others are still eating. I feel it puts pressure on those slower eaters to "hurry up". Probably just a US thing to help speed throughput or seem attentive. I just don't recall waiters doing that in the UK.

Octang Frye

Ha! reddit.com/r/thathappened. Half of the stuff I read on reddit where conversations are depicted are clearly just fantasy. No real dialogue is like the way they write it.

You forgot slipping me their phone while everyone cried.

Anyway, I give you my word that everything I have written on this thread is true and happened.

I've been trying to find this photo and I remember it distinctly - must be in a book somewhere and hasn't been uploaded to the web.
It's basically some europeans (probably British) on a mountainside, seated for dinner at a table with a candelabra, china etc, in formal evening wear. And a waiter is bringing them something on a tray.
They are literally in the wilderness and are still observing "tradition". Yes, reeks of classism and bygone times, but also shows the quirky eccentricity of the British and their curious customs, charms.

SultanOfSwing

Always a great read. It felt apt to post a link here ...

Whatever you say, sailor.

Seems like an awful faff, they could have just brought a picnic basket or something.

Pulaski

Maybe that explains her dining habits?

Pica

This thread really saddens me. One should be able to enjoy food without criticism from some knob eating at thesame table/ venue who.. I give up. You can come to my house and eat however you wish; theimportant thing is that you enjoy what you're eating

Octang Frye

Cheer up, Pica. It's only a bit of tongue-in-cheek conversation.