table talk; With "unarranged" flowers and unique groupings of objets trouves, your holiday feast will be a feast for the eyes.

Class was most definitely in session. Charles Masson was instructing the young photographer Minnie Mortimer, the daughter of Senga and John Jay Mortimer, in the how-to art of creating natural-looking bouquets and decorating a lively table.

"I never use the word arrangement," said Charles, the owner of the perennially fine French restaurant La Grenouille, famous for both its delicious food and its celebrated flowers. Moving with the greatest of ease among the many lush blooms-red roses, anemones, "hocus pocus" roses-he readied stems and added sugar or alum to the water in several variously shaped and sized vases.

"Flowers must never looked 'arranged,' " Charles said, crisscrossing stems like some kind of cottage thatching, rejecting the contemporary urge of so many trendy florists for cold, dramatic, architectural groupings.

"Naturellement," Charles repeated, "naturellement. No two bouquets must ever look alike. Never follow a formula, a blueprint; especially when they are open, flowers speak volumes, telling you how to place them."

Wearing a flowery skirt from Oscar de la Renta's resort collection, Minnie learned to work on several bouquets at once, "for more spontaneity," Charles said. She was shown how to caress a rose with her thumb, "because flowers know when you care for them," and she discovered that flowers resting in these variously sized vases placed on a long table were far more alluring than anything one great centerpiece could offer. As Charles explained, "At different levels, your eye travels."

Convened this morning in La Grenouille's second-floor private room, Minnie's tutorial was a precursor of sorts to a workshop Charles will give on December 19: "The Art of the Winter Feast," organized by FlowerSchool New York. The school offers a wide range of weekly classes throughout the year, taught by celebrated New York flower powers; it was cofounded in 2003 by ...