The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 43

THE OTTAWA CITIZEN MONDAY, APRIL 13, 1998 E3 SOCIAL LIFE WHAT OTTAWA'S TALKING ABOUT t'Jk i 1 Reluctant cover girl: Hedy Lamarr, the reclusive silent film star, is still big. It's the software boxes that got small. 14 1 vi ill: 2 The Picasso exhibition: The National Gallery reports attendance has cubed. PHOTOS BY JOHN MAJOR, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN 3 The Caf 6 Picasso: The former Cafe Renoir wasn't allowed to change its name. We hear The Voice Of Fire Grill is available.

The ambassador table Margaret Dickenson and husband Lawrence set the tone for the diplomatic corps By Judy Pike Anyone who has visited Margaret and Lawrence Dickenson's home in Ottawa South would probably remember a large and fabulous painting with vivid green trees and brilliant pink and red zig-zags. The painting used to hang upstairs, but now graces a wall in the living room across from a window overlooking Colonel By Drive, just a 4 Hugh Segal: He's the frontrunner in the race for Tory leader, if only because it's too hard to say Hugh Who. 5 The hot dog curfew: No wieners allowed in the Market after midnight. High school students, take note. Si 6 The floods: Well, the ice storm finally melted.

What's next? Locusts? 7 Bill Clinton: The U.S. president caused a furor among Catholics when he took communion. However, there's no truth to the rumour that he upset Jewish voters when he attempted to feel guilty without rabbinical supervi- This unison is very different from the host who asks his wife when dinner will be served and the hostess who queries how many guests have yet to arrive. Working at odds, says Mrs. Dickenson, is a fundamentalbitx pas.

Knowing your protocol which means understanding how ministers rank and who gets priority seating is crucial. "Even if it takes seven phone calls," she says. She attributes her unaffected manner to growing up on a farm in northern never thought I would be an ambassador's wife. I thought I would be married to some farmer in Thunder Bay." And she deals with conceivable calamities with homespun charm. A Thai ambassador was once troubled that one of the Dickensons' prized Buddhas, which sat on a step, was not elevated high enough.

The statue was immediately lifted and placed on a table. At the inevitable moment, when a guest says, "I forgot to tell you, I'm a vegetarian" as the beef carpaccio is coming through the door, Mrs. Dickenson's response is "don't panic." As one might expect of a true diplomat, she says, "Go into the kitchen, open your refrigerator and start." In this case, she might whip up a "lovely" vegetarian omelet, served in a pastry blossom with ginger mayonnaise and red caviar all of which she always has at hand. Finally, when everyone is seated and no one is talking, "ask questions." If you happen do be with Indonesians, ask for their favourite ghost stories. "Everyone has one," Mrs.

Dickenson says. Some dos and don'ts of official entertaining Make sure guests have places to put down their drinks and receptacles for pits and tails. Have vases ready for flowers. Assess the musical talent before you hire them. Discreetly hold up the appropriate spoon or fork, so your guests know which pieces to use.

Discreetly remove and replace the fish fork a guest has used for his or her salad. Never panic. Never apologize. Never allow food to jump on plates (glue it down with mayonnaise or sauce). Never serve men before women.

Never finish your meal before your guests. Assume nothing; check everything. few metres from a well-used path. "We brought it downstairs so people on the street could enjoy it," says the poised and gracious Margaret Dickenson, 52, whose husband, Lawrence, also 52, has twice been a Canadian ambassador. It is that warmth and lack of pretense that helps distinguish the Dickensons as accomplished hosts within diplomatic communities.

(In fact, they are said to be famous for entertaining without a hitch people who normally don't get along.) And these are the very traits in addition to recipes and decorating tips that other diplomats try to duplicate. "People love copying me," says a flattered Mrs. Dickenson. "From the very beginning in Moscow, people would ask me for my recipes. At first I gave them, but then we found out that we were eating my food at everybody's tables." A fundamental rule of successful entertaining is to make your guests feel comfortable, says Mrs.

Dickenson. To do that, the hosts have to be relaxed, even if 160 people are about to walk through the door. She knows of what she speaks, having studied and taught food and nutrition, and hosted two to three official events every week for almost three decades. She recently revealed her cooking and decorating secrets in a cookbook, From the Ambassador's Table (Random House, But the Dickensons don't just make guests feel comfortable, they make them feel like royalty. They do so in significant ways, such as serving drinks and hors d'oeuvre to then-guests themselves, and with relatively simple IT? f.

in. 1 8 Lost In Space: The Titanic juggernaut is finally sunk at the box office by a nuclear family with a talking robot and Matt LeBlanc. Danger, James Cameron! The couple began entertaining diplomats and dignitaries in 1968, when Mr. Dickenson joined the foreign service fresh out of University of Guelph. The couple met on their first day of classes.

Since then, they have been posted in such countries as Russia, Egypt and South Korea and have raised two daughters, Tonya and Christa, now 27 and 29. In Kuwait and Indonesia, Mr. Dickenson was Canada's ambassador. He is now the executive director of the Millennium Bureau of Canada. Central to the Dickensons' success as official hosts is that they are as co-ordinated as dancers, their movements in the dining room as orchestrated as a pas de deux on stage.

When she is "stick-handling the kitchen," he is telling guests the stories behind their Kuwaiti windows and Palestinian cross-stitched pillows. When she enters the dining room with fish en papillotte with oregano-sea-soned saffron rice in a red-pepper basket, he tends to the wine. 9 Eric Clapton: We haven't heard about him in a week. Do you think he's all right? 9 1 Hw about those JUJ Sens? Is it just us, or are they playing better touches, like decorating plates with rabbits made from olives. At the same time, the Dickensons follow strict protocol, abide by a definite budget and add perfect portions of pizzazz.

since Andrew Thompson resigned? IJI Fund-raisers and fun dogs for the week of April 13 Sunday Friday Tomorrow Wednesday 3 -JP. BENEFIT CONCERT 1 For Ottawa Folk Festival YTV ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNERS, 8:15 a.m., Museum of Civilization, 776-7000. i NEPEAN 1997 VOLUNTEER AWARDS, 2 p.m., Ben Franklin Place, 101 Centrepointe with Lennle Gallant, National Library of Canada, 395 Wellington St, Ottawa, 8 p.m., A Nepean, 727-6700 ext289. ft jrrft4 CHILI C00K0UT In support of Shepherds of Good Hope, The Mis- sion, Salvation Army and Women's Shelter, 11 a.m., corner of George and William streets, 234-1144. OTTAWA KENNEL CLUB Spring Show, Lansdowne Park, noon to 5 p.m.

Friday; 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 746-2837 or 820-1269. A.