Table Manners

Tiffany Table Settings, move over. Martha Stewart, step aside. Diane Von Furstenberg's new book, The Table (Random House), is the delicacy du jour. It's a glossy gathering of mealtime idylls, complete with favorite recipes. "The first table that fascinated me was in the movie Tom Jones," recalls Von Furstenberg. "It had a bucolic feel, very informal, and it turned out to be very sexual. It impressed me with how meaningful the table setting can be." The third in Von Furstenberg's series of lush books about daily rituals (following Beds and The Bath), The Table, she says, "is the only one that ' really involves someone else. It's the place where you make business deals, spend time with family, have a conversation, have love relationships." And celebrations! Here Von Furstenberg toasts close Parisian friend Nicole Wisniak on the publication of a new issue of Egoiste, her occasional magazine, which is about "the luxury of thinking, as well as the luxury of seeing." Add the luxury of the table and you have, according to Von Furstenberg, the best part of any party: the end of the evening, when you're just "two girlfriends TALKING."-LAURA JACOBS

LAURA JACOBS

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