Quick Tips

Even if you’re buying in-season produce and on-sale chicken, you could be missing these hidden costs of cooking dinner.

By Lynn Andriani

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We all know the basic rules of dinner party etiquette — be clear about whether or not you’re attending, don’t bring a surprise guest, arrive on time, make a point to thank the host — but even polite people can make all-too-common mistakes in today’s world of modern get-togethers. Etiquette expert Jodi R.R. Smith recently spoke with #OWNSHOW about four faux pas that well-intentioned invitees often overlook in their efforts to be a gracious guest.

Mistake #1: Springing your dietary restrictions on the host.

Whether you’re vegetarian, gluten-free or allergic to dairy, Smith says it’s OK to inform the host of any dietary restrictions as long as you do it well before the party. “You’re allowed to tell the host what you can or cannot eat, but you need to do it when you accept the invitation,” Smith says. “For you to arrive at the dinner party [after] the host has been spending all this time cooking, cleaning, shopping, chopping, and you sit down and that’s when you tell them that you don’t eat any meat… that’s not fair to anybody.”

If you didn’t tell the host in advance, the onus is on you to eat what’s available, Smith says. “You can have some of the salad, you can have some of the rolls, you can have a lot of dessert, a little bit of extra wine,” she advises.

Mistake #2: Trying to have a friendly conversation with someone you dislike.

Even if you don’t care for everyone invited to the dinner party, you can still have a meaningful conversation beyond basic polite chit-chat. Smith’s trick to elevating friendly, superficial talks? Change your approach. “Put on your journalist hat,” she suggests. “Instead of thinking of this as somebody you’re going to have a friendly conversation with, have an interesting conversation. Find out more about where they’re coming from, what their interests are. And then, whenever possible, include other people at the table.”

Mistake #3: Eating before the host is seated at the table.

There are different schools of thought on this topic, with different people calculating a wide range of variables before arriving at an answer: the length of time you’ve been waiting, the number of guests at the table, the temperature of the food, etc. For Smith, however, the answer is very clear-cut. “As an adult, you can wait until the host or hostess sits down,” she says. “Now, if you’re under the age of 5 or over the age of 85, then clearly you can have a little bit of a nibble of your roll or some bread. But other than that, you should be waiting until everyone’s seated.”

Mistake #4: Overstaying your welcome.

As the dinner winds down and the conversations kick up, some guests unknowingly stick around longer than their host would like. So how can you be sure when it’s time to leave? A good host, Smith says, will provide clear clues; it’s up to you as a guest to read those cues. “It’s going to be clear from my actions when I say, ‘It was so nice of you all to come,’ or ‘I really need to take the dog for her evening walk,’ that it’s time for you to go,” Smith says.

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By Abbe Wright

Find out how a 13-year-old’s love for cooking and educating others led to face time with Michelle Obama and helped her start her own not-for-profit.

At age 5, Haile Thomas, from Tucson, Ariz., began her cooking career, helping her mother prepare the family meals — but not the ordinary chicken-fingers-and-grilled-cheese kid fare. “My parents are from Jamaica, so I grew up eating oxtail and jerk chicken,” she says. With her adventurous palate and knack for wielding a whisk, it wasn’t long before Thomas was helping plan the weekly menu.

In 2010, 9-year-old Thomas and her 4-year-old sister, Nia, started a YouTube channel called Kids Can Cook, featuring videos of the two whipping up dishes like turkey meatloaf in their Tucson kitchen. “We wanted to show that cooking isn’t hard,” says Thomas. “It’s great to learn, not only to feed yourself but also to know what’s healthy.”

The next year at a conference, Thomas met Sam Kass, former White House chef and senior policy adviser on nutrition, which led to face time with Michelle Obama. “It was just crazy for me to actually talk to the first lady of the United States,” says Thomas. “I can’t believe this all started because I mixed some eggs when I was 5.” Inspired in part by Mrs. Obama and her Let’s Move! campaign, as well as by the Alliance for a Healthier Generation (for which she had been selected as a youth advisory board member), Thomas cofounded the not-for-profit HAPPY (Healthy, Active, Positive, Purposeful Youth) Organization to get her peers excited about making nutritious meals and being energetic, and to show that good habits don’t require cutting out everything fun. “With the right seasoning — like a dash of Jamaican curry powder — vegetables can taste as good as potato chips,” she says.

This past year, Thomas continued to work with the Alliance for a Healthier Generation and as a champion of Let’s Move! She also helped develop a children’s menu for Hyatt hotels — all while holding down her other job: attending seventh grade. But Thomas has already recognized that cooking and educating others are among her two greatest passions: “I’d like to get a degree in nutrition and continue speaking about health and wellness. Even though I’ll be grown up, I can still talk about it, and that’s my plan.”

Her Advice for Eating Healthfully

“Get over the idea that green is gross. And sample a new food at least 10 times before deciding you don’t like it. Your taste buds might tell you something different.”

The Best Thing About Being Her Age

“It’s a good age to be in command of a kitchen. I don’t need an adult’s help with much anymore. And it’s a good age to be influencing others. I’m not too old or too young, so my peers still listen to me.”

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ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — Starbucks has apologized to a 24-year-old woman who said she wasn’t allowed in a Rochester-area store because she had a service dog.

The Democrat and Chronicle of Rochester reports (http://on.rocne.ws/1rlLHnL) that Amy Kaplan of suburban Brighton said she was denied service after entering a Starbucks on Sunday afternoon with her service dog, a malamute named Zero.

Kaplan suffered a traumatic brain injury in a traffic accident, and the dog helps her cope with memory issues and anxiety.

She posted a video to YouTube in which an employee tells her she can’t come in the store with a service dog.

A Starbucks official told Kaplan in an email that he wanted to personally apologize.

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