Tackfully tell family member to stop bringing lousy food to potlucks

[Anonymous]

How can I tell a family member to stop bringing their lousy food to potlucks. For mother's Day she brought two huge containers of lobster bisque from a grocery store with plastic cups and spoons to serve it in. broke up some cheese crisps to drop on top & little paper container of heavy whipping cream. For a brunch, she bought 10 waffles from waffle house. cut in quarters and put out some kinds of syrup in the bottles, can of whip cream, blueberries, cut up strawberries at my house, and put on a plastic platter from a dollar store. Other things like crab rangoons & egg rolls from a Chinese restaurant with a bunch of chopsticks. She "served" those in the takeout red/white containers.

This is all stuff she brings right from the grocery store or restaurants, still in the bags, wrapped up. Everyone else makes food and brings it in nice containers. Should I assign her items to bring or just tell her to not bother with her grocery store run? With holiday tomorrow who knows what she'll show up with.

[Anonymous]

If what she brings isn't fancy enough for you, why don't you host a party that isn't a potluck?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If what she brings isn't fancy enough for you, why don't you host a party that isn't a potluck?

+100

[Anonymous]

Why do you care? Do you think it reflects poorly on you? Why do you need this behavior to stop?

[Anonymous]

Now this is an actually decent trolling attempt.

[Anonymous]

So are you upset with the food or with the presentation? Because you seem really snobby about both, I can't tell which issue is your problem.

[Anonymous]

Do you mean TACTFULLY? Because I don't know what tackfully means.

[Anonymous]

OP, maybe a typo, maybe not but the word you are looking for is tactfully.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you mean TACTFULLY? Because I don't know what tackfully means.

Also, if true, the waffle move is amazing. It’s a waffle bar!

[Anonymous]

Those sound like genius potluck dishes to me.

It's not like she's showing up with one of those lime jello "salad" concoctions.

[Anonymous]

All I care about is whether the food is good, OP. In my experience, people are usually such bad cooks that bringing grocery store or restaurant food will yield the same result: the crispy things will be soggy, everything will be too fat, too salty or too sweet.

Now perhaps you *meant* to say that her food was awful, while the rest was delicious home-made fare. In that case, you have my sympathies, but also a question: if no one eats her food, hasn't she got the message yet? Or maybe this poor relative is incapable of cooking, and just wants to contribute. Perhaps then you should just thank her and be nice.

[Anonymous]

I would definitely be helping myself to the lobster bisque with cheese crisps. Look, if you have a problem with her presentation, just provide nicer servingware and ask her to please plate the food on it. The food itself sounds fine for a POTLUCK. I always buy appetizers and desserts for potlucks.

[Anonymous]

Tell her to come to my potlucks instead.

[Anonymous]

I love the food she brought. It sounds great. If you don't like the containers and the party is at your house, kindly move the food onto more attractive serveware.

[Anonymous]

OP, do people eat what she brings to the potluck? If they do, then nothing needs to change. If they don't, she'll pick up on it eventually, and whatever money she wastes on for nobody eats is neither your problem to solve nor your business to notice.