I recently became friends with an older lady (in her early 60s) that I met through a community group that we both volunteer with. We get on well and have a laugh, and a few times now we have met for cafe lunches and the other night I invited her to my house for dinner after our volunteer stint. Anyway, I can't help but notice that she is very uncouth in her table manners, to the point of making me feel nauseous. For example, when she came for dinner she said there was something gritty in her food and she spat the mouthful she was chewing into her hand and then placed the chewed up mush on the side of the serving plate of crudites that was on the table, where it remained until I removed the plate! At the end of a meal she will invariably remove a mirror and toothpick from her bag and proceed to pick out the food from between her teeth at the table (she does this in cafes as well). What do I do?
(a) Ignore it? She is the same age as my mother and I feel odd telling her about manners.
(b) Stop going out for meals with her?
(c) Tell her—but how and in what words?
Any advice, I would be grateful to hear it!