A White House social secretary's guide to good taste

"Taste: Acquiring What Money Can't Buy"

by Letitia Baldrige

Truman Talley Books/St. Martin's Press, $24.95

Arbitrator of style, etiquette and good manners, Letitia Baldrige has penned a book that provides an intriguing menu for developing taste, but leaves it to the reader to discover and define his or her own.

Best known as the chief of staff for Jacqueline Kennedy during her White House years, the author devotes much of "Taste: Acquiring What Money Can't Buy" to interesting stories of the taste of fashion and style icons of post-WWII, including Clare Boothe Luce, Ambassador and Mrs. (Evangeline Bell) David Bruce, Babe Paley, Audrey Hepburn, Diana Vreeland and C.Z. Guest.

These taste masters, Baldrige suggests, influenced American style and helped advance and establish its roots during this period. These doyennes of fashion reflected taste, not only in dress, but also in entertaining and interior design, or "surrounds" as she calls it.

"Taste" includes several interesting behind-the-scenes looks at parties and events attended by these style icons and Baldrige herself. Her description of President and Mrs. Kennedy's state visit to Versailles is fascinating.

If she dwells on Mrs. Kennedy through much of the book, Baldrige says it is because Kennedy epitomized "the broadest definition of taste, encompassing the fields of entertaining, conversation, interior design, intelligence and beautiful makers."

Baldrige, who has written several books on style, executive manners and etiquette, served on the staff of the American ambassadors to France and Italy, and was the first female executive of Tiffany and Co.

She urges readers to acquire taste because "life is a lot more interesting the moment that one's taste is engaged ... it is taste that makes us want to look, possess, ingest and experience with every one of our senses everything that gives us great pleasure."

Baldrige also offers suggestions for developing taste in other areas, including home design and entertaining friends. She tells us how to personalize our dinner parties and how to truly make houseguests feel special, for she treats kindness as basic to good taste. One hostess, says Baldrige, adds baskets of note paper, postcards and stamps to her guest room amenities along with fresh fruit, cookies, bottled water, bite-size sandwiches and other goodies served on pretty dishes.

Her best tip for developing a sense of taste is to learn to use your eyes to make good judgments by asking what you think of something, and why you like it or not. She reminds us that taste is developed over time and not without a few mistakes.

By the book's end, Baldrige seems like a rather special older aunt who ignores our sometimes boorish nature and demand for instant answers on taste. She encourages us to take time to stop, look and analyze in order to define our own taste because it will help us make our homes a place that pleases, relaxes, protects and comforts us.

And, perhaps, in the end it is enough for her to gives us the menu, and let us choose the dish that is right for us.