True stories of a real Mad Man: A firm pickle is better than a limp one.

True stories of  a real Mad Man:  A firm pickle is better than a limp one." ©Joel Baumwoll My string as President ran out at Needham some time in 1984, when Keith Reinhart came to New York as CEO. It wasn't long before I was promoted to Vice Chairman and parachuted from the 11th floor of 909 Third Avenue to my fourth career as a marketing consultant.

Pete Tannen, a friend since high school who shared an irreverent view of the world and listened to Jean Shepherd as a kid, joined me and we founded Baumwoll & Tannen Associates, Inc.  Phil Dougherty, the New York Times ad columnist, called us "The Product Doctors."

July 25, 1985

ADVERTISING; 'Product Doctors' Open Shop

By Philip H. Dougherty

JOEL BAUMWOLL and Peter Tannen, friends since high school days, are now working together for the first time as Baumwoll & Tannen Associates.

They are marketing and advertising counselors, consultants if you will, and they would be happy to take the time to explain not only what they are up to but also why there are so many marketing consultants around.

If I could convince clients to pay me to do what I was good at and loved doing, what could be better?   

(Pete no longer works with me and, unfortunately, he also refuses to speak to me, but twenty-seven years later I'm still at it.  I call myself "The Brand Doctor.")

One of the best things about my business is the wide variety of products I get to work on.  Dog food, high yield bonds, internet services, beer, universities,  tourist attractions and more make up a vast menu of businesses I've been asked to assist.  

So when the call came to figure out how to position a pickle, I didn't bat an eye.

Claussen Pickles, owned by Oscar Mayer, are different.  They are refrigerated from the moment the cucumber is picked until you fish a pickle from the jar.

 
The client, Joel Johnson, believed that Claussen deserved more respect than it was getting from pickle buyers.  He figured if Grey Poupon could use clever commercials to convince people that they should pay more for mustard, why wouldn't that work for pickles?

 
One afternoon. while I was working on this problem, a juicy burger was delivered from Burger Heaven.  I lifted the slice of pickle on the dish by one end and it bent limply down, flaccid and soft.  I wagged my hand and it flopped up and down unappettizingly.  

Retrieving the Claussens from the refrigerator, I did the same with a slice of this cold pickle.  It was stiff, horizontal to the ground and unbending even when wagged.  Holding up my hands with each slice on a fork, the comparison was, well, titillating. 

 A week later we sat in the conference room of Oscar Mayer, surrounded by the top brass and the slightly pissed-off account people from J. Walter Thompson, Claussen's ad agency.  Ad agencies just hate it when clients call in a consultant to do what they think they are best at doing.

My presentation was a simple, but dramatic one.  I started by asking "suppose we could knock Vlassics for a loop by showing people a simple picture and asking them one question?  

Slight pause for drama...and up go my hands with a fork in each.  On the left, a limp, wobbly slice of Vlassics.  On the right, a stiff, firm slice of Claussens.

"Which would you rather have?  A limp pickle or a firm pickle?

Claussen's:  The firm pickle.

Giggles and a sharp intake of breath.  Sidelong glances to see how Joel Johnson was reacting.

He loved the idea.

"Pickles, like bananas, are funny," I said.  "Let's make people laugh a little and we can knock the hell out of Vlassics."

We suggested copy like  "which pickle do you think Lawrence Taylor likes?"  or  "Does Hulk Hogan go for the limp pickle of the firm one?"

We went so far as showing a picture of the popular sex counselor Dr. Ruth, looking at both pickles and giggling.

I recommended that the entire ad budget be put into print ads showing the two pickles side by side.

Several weeks later I arrived at my office at 8 a.m. to find my partner and Steve Liguori, brand manager in our conference room cutting up pickles.  The Georgian rosewood conference table was awash in pickle juice and massacred slices of pickles.  

"What're you doing?" I asked.  Steve explained that the lawyers at Oscar Mayer had not been able to reproduce the side-by-side fork demonstration.  "The Claussen slice keeps sliding off the fork,” he said.  They will kill the campaign."

"Simple," I explained,  "turn the fork so all the points are in the slice."  Voila.  Steve packed his pickles and flew back to Madison, Wisconsin.

Eventually a somewhat tamer version of our strategy was executed by JWT.   The campaign produced big increases in sales.
  

COMPANY NEWS: Hold the Pickles; Counsel Adds a Twist To Vlasic vs. Claussen

By EBEN SHAPIRO (NYT)
Published: May 30, 1992

 Vlasic, part of the Campbell Soup Company, dominates the $623 million pickle business over all, but Claussen, part of the Philip Morris empire, has stronger sales in the smaller, refrigerated area of the business. And Claussen has been gaining share in supermarket coolers while Vlasic's refrigerated sales have been dropping. Last year, Vlasic's refrigerated sales dropped 20 percent, to $15.2 million, while Claussen gained 11 percent.
 

Joel Johnson sent us a wonderful letter complimenting the job we had done.

On the wings of pickle victory, Steve was promoted, went on to be a Vice President at Frito Lay, CEO of Mother's Cookies, the top man at CitiBank Retail Banking, CMO at Morgan Stanley and is currently the #2 marketing guy at GE.

Steve and I became close friends, and he has hired me for major projects at Morgan Stanley and GE.

Joel Johnson became CEO or Hormel and hired me several more times.

Me?  I'm still having fun helping clients figure out how to sell more of their products.  Proof that a firm pickle has its benefits.

Girls. Girls. Girls. A clueless youth learns about the opposite sex.

Girls. Girls.  Girls.  A clueless youth learns about the opposite sex. ©Joel Baumwoll

Seems to me one of the most important educations a kid gets as he grows to adulthood is figuring out how to deal with the opposite sex; in my case, girls. Unfortunately, most kids have to stumble along learning what they can from a motley collection of books, friends' tall stories, movies and empirical experience.


Trial and error.  And error.  And error.

My parents never saw fit to teach me about the proverbial “birds and bees.”  It was through an osmotic process that I absorbed ideas, facts, fictions and fantasies about girls.

I had the misfortune at a young age of being what girls call “cute.”  

At the tender age of four, I discovered that "older women" were attracted to me.  They liked to pinch my cheeks, run their hands through my hair and give me little squeezes here and there, while saying to my mother “oh what doll-face he is.  I hated it.

Aunt Rae's thumb-prints are permanently embedded in my cheeks.

 
My mother was fond of dressing me up in all kinds of costumes.  Soldiers and sailors were big in the 1940s, as were Scotsman during Halloween.


My mother beamed, and I sort of enjoyed this kind of attention.



By the time I got to third grade, I had some appreciation for an attractive girl, though I haven’t a clue where my standards came from.   

I distinctly remember Elaine Dix, a brunette with a buster brown hair cut, bangs and a button nose.  I used to look at her a lot.  Whether she ever looked back at me I don’t know.  

My recollection of her was so acute, that recently I scoured a fuzzy photo of the P.S. 73 graduating class of 1952 to see if I could spot this little beauty, who I had last seen fifty-six years ago

And damned if I didn’t pick her out of the ten rows of twelve year-old Bronx kids.  And she was cute.


 


The most intense experience I had with beauty was seeing a trio of little Irish Catholic girls in their white dresses, on the way to first communion.  I was awe struck at this parade of frilly femininity.  So much so that, for weeks, I had fantasies of being holed up in a secret cave with one of these little beauties, guarding her from the depredations of some bad guy.  Being her hero was satisfaction enough for my pre-puberty mind.


Not the real girls, but you get the idea.

I think by the time I was eight, I had developed the knack of acting “cute” to produce the kinds of reactions to which I had become accustomed.  A con man at an early age.

On the cusp of adolescence, at the age of ten, I was uprooted from the Bronx world I’d known to Montclair New Jersey, and started a new 4th grade class at Rand Elementary School.   

I was sort of exotic to these New Jersey kids, with my Bronx accent and city habits, and being Jewish.  That, in itself, was pretty exotic at Rand School.  Miss Reilly had us reciting psalms from the New Testament every morning before the Pledge of Allegiance.

The second week of school, a tall gangly kid named Fred Keyes came over to me.  I thought he was looking to make friends.  No such luck.  “What do you think of the girls in the class?” he asked.  Girls?  What was he talking about?  I hadn’t given a thought to girls, when my priorities were to avoid making myself look stupid to my new classmates, and figuring out how to make them think I was cool.


 Fred Keyes on the far right, end of second row from top.
“
Gee,” I think I said, “I dunno.” And shrugged.  What could I say?

“Well stay away from Diane Fastige,” he told me.  “She’s mine.”

Of course, the next day I made a beeline to Diane to see what he was so het up about.  She was a short, cute Italian girl with the beginnings of a girlish figure, and brown hair with bangs.  

I was a sucker for bangs.

Needless to say, Diane and I became good friends.  This led to an after-school confrontation.  Fred was determined to win back the fair Diane, and he challenged me to a fight.  He was taller than I, but I was built thicker and more muscular.

The fight began with the usual push and push back and quickly deteriorated into groping, punching and rolling on the dusty slate sidewalk.  The custodian soon broke it up.  Diane invited me back to her house for some soda and recovery.  

Victory was mine.

What we did after that I have no recollection, except that I did invite her to see a movie with me.  “The Outlaw,” with Jane Russell was playing at the Wellmont, and it was a racy movie with hot scenes of heaving bosoms in haylofts.  Not that I was at a stage where I could truly appreciate what I was seeing.  But on some level, I knew it was off limits.



We double-dated with Diane’s friend Mildred Ruggerio and her beau of the time, George Gugliotta.   The three of them were late getting to the movie house, and I, not wanting to miss a minute of this film, bought my ticket and went inside to wait for them.  

Recently, I had an email conversation with Diane, and she remembers our exotic date.

But my dating etiquette had a ways to go.

Diane and I parted ways after fifth grade, since my middle school was on one side of town, and hers, the other.  And so I entered Hillside School.  It was located at the foot of Upper Mountain Avenue, one of the swankiest streets in swanky Montclair.  

Huge mansions with vast lawns and driveways longer than my street lined the avenue, and some of the girls who lived in those mansions attended Hillside.  

This was my introduction to a whole new world.  The world of blonde girls wearing white bucks and plaid scarves, cashmere sweaters with circle pins, and hairdos that looked like Sandra Dee.  

My girl radar was on high alert. Buffys, Muffys, Betseys and Sue-Anns surrounded me.  By then I had acquired the trappings of 1950s greaser, with pompadour hair, upturned collar and leather boots.

My icon...

Greaser with a yamulke..the bar Mizvah boy.  I even made the local newspaper!

My tough guy exterior and “cuteness” appealed to these girls, and I soon began to pursue them.  But holding hands was as racy as it got with these blond princesses.

By then, the idea of having a girlfriend was not foreign to me.  Of course, my goal (and that of most of my friends) was to “French kiss” them and, as we called it,  “feel them up.” 

My buddies, George, Mark Anderson and Butch Cutter traded stories of our conquests like deep-sea fishermen talking about fabled catches.  Almost all were total lies or embellished beyond reality.  Except in the case of Jackie Sullivan.  Jackie was a cute redhead with breasts developed beyond her early teen years.  Incredibly, she enjoyed kissing and being “felt up.” 

Thanks to Jackie, I began to realize that girls actually liked being fondled and kissed as much as boys did.  Before Jackie, I thought girls only did that as a favor to the boys.

Armed with this new insight, I set forth to a brave new world.  

That was to be in Rockaway, a remote town in Northern New Jersey where at the age of fifteen, my family moved.  Morris Hills Regional High School was a far cry from Montclair.  It was full of kids named Slagowitz, Rogansky and Grepschneider majoring in auto-mechanics, carpentry and beating up the few Jews who lived in the enclave on the hill called White Meadow Lake.

My introduction to the town came on a dark night when a car pulled up in front of me, blocking my way, and four kids got out and began to punch and kick me.  Fortunately, I was able to get away from them and run home.  A local policeman, after hearing my description and the name of one of my attackers, said he knew who they were.  One was his son.  Later that year, I came within six inches of smashing his face with a ten pound dumbbell, but that is another story.

Thus began my education in testosterone high.  Elvis was in full swing, and I was nothing but a hound dog, with long sideburns and a hank of thick brown hair falling over my face (sigh, where is it today?).
 
My teen angel was Barbara Mountford, a blonde, blue-eyed beauty who took a liking to me, and to my delight, outrivaled Jackie Sullivan in her enjoyment of sex.  Barbara was the fantasy girlfriend every kid dreams of.  She was sweet natured, willing to go anywhere, undemanding and as desirable as any Hollywood sex goddess.  

My junior and senior high years are sweetly colored by my encounters with Barbara.  In fact I recall being in bed with her on a truant day in October, 1956 and turning on the radio to hear the news about the Russians launch of Sputnik.  Barbara had launched my own Sputnik earlier in the day.


A yearbook remembrance, 1958

My regret looking back is I did not appreciate how good I thing I had.  I simply took her for granted.  Little did I know that girls like Barbara come along rarely in a kid’s life.  

Had I known better, I would have kept the relationship going at least through my junior year in college.  But, alas, ignorant of my good fortune, I allowed our affection to wither and disappear without much of a hiccup.


 Barbara and me on New Years Eve, 1962.  Our last date.


My sixteen year-old adolescent passions were kindled by a summer romance with a younger woman. 

Fourteen-year old Ruthie Weiser had auburn hair, a lovely smile and an Ava Gardner body.   Our dates consisted mainly of kissing and pressing our bodies against each other in any location where we had privacy, usually until three or four in the morning. 


This relationship simply faded away and the end of the summer when Ruthie and family evacuated the lake for their Brooklyn home, leaving me to long dark winters.  Another dumb move on my part not to keep it going a bit longer.

Our intense affair opened the gates to the world of serious dating, and I began to pursue girls that caught my eye.  There was the dark beauty, Irene Sirkin, who had dreams of being the next Connie Francis.



And the unrequited love of Diane Karnett, my high school prom queen.  Years later, Diane explained to me that I was “too nice” and she was attracted to “bad” boys.  Go figure.



But there was always my mother, who adored me through thick and thin.



By the time I was in college, I had become a serious student, with little time or money for girls, except the one-off date to go to a Greenwich Village jazz club or hang out with on cold winter evenings.



Except for a little incident with Lois Greenberg, a beauty from nearby Dover, NJ who pursued me on the advice of a friend. She spotted me selling clothes on weekends in Friedlander’s Department Store.  

Smitten, I began to date Lois, and enjoyed several months of acrobatic sex in the front seat of her Buick, on the spare couch in her basement, and on the lawn of the lake clubhouse under cover of the weeping willow trees.

Lois’ mother (no doubt with Lois’ complicity) seemed to think that our relationship should lead to marriage, so there was a kind of unspoken idea that we were engaged.  

I was, as usual, clueless, and just happy to have such a willing and experienced playmate.  Tomorrow was always a year away.

After graduation, I went off to a summer in Ann Arbor Michigan, to work as a counselor at a camp for acting-out aggressive children.  The program earned me six graduate credits in Social Psych, and a summer with 45 female counselors and just 20 boys.  That was worth ten credits in girls.  

Needless to say, my engagement to Lois bit the dust and I was never to see or hear from her again. But it was a summer to remember.

The next girl I found to my liking walked in to the 500  Fifth Avenue office of the market research company where I began my career in advertising. I was twenty-two, living in a Greenwich Village apartment with two friends, and feeling oh-so-cool and bohemian in the fall of 1962.

Truth be told, I didn’t know, as the saying goes, “shit from shinola,” but I knew a good thing when I saw it.  Almost immediately I had a strong feeling of attraction to Ellen.  She had “smiling eyes” which I found irresistible, a lovely face, infectious laugh, and petite figure.  Apparently her reaction to me was similar, and we found each other in the grip of an intense relationship.  

She was adorable at one year.




Sassy at thirteen.



Beautiful at 18



My wife at 24.



That was forty-seven years ago, and it seems I’ve learned how to keep a woman longer than a year or two.


Her eyes are still smiling, and mine are too.

In 1966, I discovered an entirely different kind of relationship with a girl.  That's when Lisa Quincy came into our lives.  She taught me a thing or two about caring, honesty and unconditional love. And she was pretty cute...

She grew into a beauty who I can always count on to keep me honest.  My son, Michael rounded out my love for family and brought us Maya.




And thanks to her, my world of love expanded even more.



And at seventy, my education with girls continues with my granddaughter, Hannah. And my grandson, Nathaniel, who is a total boy. And loves his new cousin,

And Hannah who loves being on stage.


 
And 17 month-old Maya.

I remind myself that I am never to old to learn new tricks.

True Stories of a real Mad Man: Getting fired on Mad Ave.

True stories of a real Mad Man:  Getting fired on Mad Ave. © Joel Baumwoll
25 - The Checker Cab and the Mercedes:  a lesson in humility.

   

---

Like a true Mad Man, with every promotion and new title, my ambitions and opinion of myself became ever more inflated.  I got to the stage where I thought  "if I were running this company, things would be different." Well, in 1980, the Iceman cometh and it was my turn to do what I had only fantasized about.  I was given the job of President of the New York office of Needham, Harper & Steers.  And I had not yet turned forty.

As the day approached for me to start work, I was both exhilarated and not a little scared.  During my first week on the job, I took care of one top priority task:  I ordered the new car that was part of my package of perks that came with my top management title.  

As had become my custom with each inflation of my standard of living, I went right to the top of the class:  a snazzy Mercedes wagon complete with sunroof and folding third seat.  

As excited as a kid on Christmas morning, I left work early one afternoon to "take delivery" of my new toy.  I jumped into a rattling big Checker cab.

Before I got the chance to tell the driver to take me to the Mercedes dealership on 11th avenue and 40th Street, he startled me by saying "Joel Baumwoll?"

WOW, he knows my name!  Maybe he read the story last week in Phil Dougherty's New York Times advertising column.  After all, my picture was there below the headline that boldly announced:  NEEDHAM'S NEW CHIEF. 

My inflated ego got even more bloated.  

But why would a cab driver read Phil Dougherty's ad column?  And why would he remember my name and recognize me? 

As my brain raced to figure out the reason for my newfound celebrity, I looked at the driver's photo and name on his taxi license.  "Steve Grisham" it said. 

Steve Grisham had been a top management exec. at my previous agency.

Was this the same guy?  He looked grizzled and depleted.  Not the handsome, Don Draper model of a Mad Man I knew.

"Steve?" I asked.  It was him!

"What're you doing here?" I blurted out.  

"I'm an alcoholic,” he replied.  "I hit bottom.  Lost my job two years ago.  Hey, you do what you gotta do.  It's not too bad.  

What about you.  Are you still at Thompson?"

As I absorbed this news, a cold finger poked at my gut. 

"Nah," I answered quickly.  "I left there a while ago.  Took a new job." 

What are you doing now?" he asked.

I decided to skip the news of my new status.

"Uh, still in the agency business.  You know, same old same old."

"Yeah.  Can't say I miss it, even though the pay was pretty good."

"Where can I take you?," Steve asked, bringing both of us back to the reality of the here and now.

I didn't have the heart to ask him to take me to the Mercedes showroom.

"Just drop me on the corner of 9th Avenue and 40th Street."  I replied.

Four years later, a new CEO was appointed at Needham.  He essentially fired me, though my contract made it a lucrative parting.

ADVERTISING; Needham Resignation  

By Philip H. Dougherty  

September 19, 1984 

Joel Baumwoll, 44-year-old former president of the New York office of Needham Harper Worldwide, has resigned from the company in order to become a consultant in advertising and marketing. His move comes less than a week after the board named Keith Reinhard chairman and chief executive of the whole company.

My "separation agreement" made it possible for me to start my own successful consulting company, doing what I loved to do. 

My friend, the late Phil Dougherty, the New York Times chronicler of Mad Ave, called on a slow news day.  Once again, he devoted an entire column to my new job.

July 25, 1985

ADVERTISING; 'Product Doctors' Open Shop

By Philip H. Dougherty

JOEL BAUMWOLL and Peter Tannen, friends since high school days, are now working together for the first time as Baumwoll & Tannen Associates.

They are marketing and advertising counselors, consultants if you will, and they would be happy to take the time to explain not only what they are up to but also why there are so many marketing consultants around.

Simply put, what makes it possible for them to find meaningful employment in the consultant marketplace is that advertising agencies no longer offer the service.

Both Mr. Baumwoll, 45 years old, and Mr. Tannen, 47, can speak with authority since they are veterans of years of executive service with agencies, the former on the research and account management sides, the latter as a copywriter and creative director.

Yesterday, in their office, which has a lovely view of Central Park from Seventh Avenue at 57th Street, Mr. Baumwoll explained: ''Agencies are now concentrating on the creating, producing and placing of advertising. That's where the money is.''

This represents a departure from the practice of recent decades when agencies were enormously profitable and sought clients by offering an array of services of a non-advertising nature. ''Sweeteners,'' Mr. Baumwoll called them.

Today if an advertiser needs some expert help in bringing out a new brand or breathing life back into a failing one, he may well turn to a consultant.

''We are product doctors,'' said Mr. Tannen, obviously the man with the words.

''In both obstetrics and geriatrics,'' added Mr. Baumwoll, not to be outdone. ''And it's the kind of work an agency doesn't want to do, because it takes away from the bottom line.''

Twenty-six years later, I call the company "Brand Doctors."  It has kept me gainfully and enjoyably employed ever since.

But, truth told, lucrative parachute and all, getting fired stung. I thought of Steve Grisham behind the wheel of that Checker. 

I learned a lot from that cab ride.

The time a famed French chef wagged his finger at me.

The time a famed French chef wagged his finger at me. ©Joel Baumwoll


My education in the world of haute cuisine began, thanks to my beau frére, in Paris.  Bob Hamburger is an ardent Francophile.  His trip itineraries were diligently researched and recorded in a thick pile of 3x5 index cards.  These contained such information as the place to get the best french fries, the most comfortable accessible toilets, who made the best eggs and more.

Each restaurant was chosen from a larger list of candidates, until only the best of the best remained.  As we entered each, a smaller pile of index cards was produced, informing us of the specialties de la maison, and dishes that were available nowhere else in the known universe.

Bob had a fear of eating someplace and discovering afterwards that he had not ordered the famed dish with a name like  "truffe au foie gras avec morelles, sauce Chateau Yquem par Lawrence Ferlingetty."  The thought that he might leave without having experienced the ne plus ultra of dishes drive him to such lengths of study.

We, mere tourists, happily went along for the ride.  My brain, of course, was soaking all this in, for the day that I would be the  tour leader.

On this particular day, we were slated to dine at Dodin Bouffant, a three Michelin star restaurant in Paris, run by a celebrity chef, Jacques Manier.  Manier was known for his delicate preparations and innovative use of steam (vapeur) in cooking. He had produced a cookbook Cuisine a la Vapeur (The art of cooking with steam).

 

As we arranged ourselves about the large round table in a corner by the window of this second floor dining room; out came the cards.  We were informed that the lobster bisque was highly regarded, the haddock was superb, and a dish called a "seafood omelet" was not to be missed.

We decided to have the bisque, each chose a fish and a seafood omelet was ordered "for the table" so we could each have a taste. Satisfied we had ordered well, we sat back and enjoyed the lovely white Burgundy, a bit smug that we Americans knew the ropes among the Michelin stars.

The bisque arrived, and it was unctuously delicious.  Rich with cream and butter, chunks of sweet tender lobster meat, delicate herbs, I spooned and slurped every drop from my bowl.

As the dishes were cleared we reminded the waiter we were expecting a seafood omelet before the entrees.  He seemed troubled and left after arranging the plates for the next course.

Several minutes later, Bob noticed a tall, dignified man striding into the room.  "There's the great man, himself," Bob informed us, pointing to Manier.  The chef was scanning the room, and then locked in on our table.  

He walked directly over, much to our surprise, and said in a lovely French accented English "Good evening..  You are enjoying your meal?"  Heads bob up and down enthusiastically.

"Well, I wish to tell you, your meal is on the wrong track."

Horrors! What breach of culinary etiquette had we committed?  Oh woe.  Oh no!  Our first big league meal on the trip, and we were getting a failing grade of "F."

"I will explain," he continued.  "You order the lobster bisque, no?"  And you order the seafood omelet, yes?"

"Yes" we mumble, like third graders caught chewing gum in class.  We sit, looking up at the noted chef, waiting for the word of our transgression.

"The sauce on the omelet is the same as the lobster bisque.  So if you have one, you do not need the other."  

Then wagging his long index finger back and forth in the universal "no-no" sign he finishes "It is redundant."

Redundant!  Wow.  Too much of a good thing.  

They did serve the omelet, and the man was right.  It was like eating second helpings of the soup.  Redundant.  Not that that ever stopped me going back for seconds in the lower levels of cuisine I was used to habitating.

Look at Thanksgiving dinners--vertitable orchestrations of redundancy.

But the man was right.  And we learned a lesson that night.  Thereafter, after ordering a meal, we would always ask the captain "is our meal on the right track?"  

And several times we were advised to change an appetizer or second course because the herbs in the first course would not work well in our mouths with the sauce of the second course. 

The late Jacques Manier taught us that the French do know a thing our two about how to eat, and we would do well to pay attention and not be bashful about asking for their advice.

Our meals have tracked well ever since with nary a derailment.