Dave and I treated ourselves to soup dumplings for dinner the other night.  If you've never seen or had a soup dumpling they are little dough pouches with meat and a hot, and yummy, broth.  You have to eat them very carefully because they are very hot, and if you just bite into them the broth will squirt out at you or others at the table.

The reason I'm telling you about soup dumplings is that eating them reminded me of an important food-related tip. 

Some foods can be messy - ribs, lobster from the shell, spaghetti - and when you're eating in your finest gown or tux you want to minimize the chances of something spilling, squirting or splattering all of your dress.  When we were finalizing our wedding menu, we decided that we would serve pasta with vodka sauce for our vegetarian guests.  The catering manager said we should use penne pasta instead of spaghetti, fettuccini or linguini because when twirling long noodles on a fork, the sauce can splatter on you.  And he was right.  How many times have you found small flecks of spaghetti sauce on your clothes?

And unless you're planning a lobster bake wedding reception, your guests will not be happy putting a plastic bib on themselves.

PS - That's not Dave in the photo above.