Setting Pretty

O.K. so you’re hosting your first family dinner and can’t remember if the bread plate goes left or right of the dinner plate. Does the knife go inside the spoon or outside? Pretty soon, your dinner table setting looks like a child’s tea party, not the pretty Martha Stewart inspiration you had in mind. The basic table setting does have rules and here are two great tricks to help you remember the order of plates and utensils:


First, picture the word “FORKS”, The order, left to right is: F for Fork, O for Plate (the shape!), K for Knives and S for Spoons. (Okay – you have to forget the r, but you get the idea!)


Second, holding your hands in front of you, touch the tips of your thumbs to the tips of your fore-fingerers to make a lower case ‘b’ with your left hand and a lower case ‘d’ with your right hand. This reminds you that ‘bread and butter’ go to the left of the place setting and ‘drinks’ go on the right.

Some other things to know:
Knife blades always face the plate
The napkin goes to the left of the fork, or on the plate
The bread and butter plate and knife are optional

My table setting would look little like this:



Special thanks to Emily Post and Daisy Chain!

(Place setting above: Plate - Isle of Skye, set of 4, $120.00, home, james!. Flatware - Toursade natural olivewood 5pc place setting , $208.00, Mariposa. Glassware/tumbler - Ella large tumber, $54.00, Juliska. Salad/Bread plate - Jasper Conran casual blue salad plate, $14.99, Bed, Bath and Beyond. Napkin - Liberty of London classic pattern, $35.00, Daisy Hill, Elements of Chicago).