With the saving food (or not) at holiday meals, how does this even happen? If the meal is to be served at 4 and you roll up at 6, you get what you get. |
I understand saving a plate of food on Thanksgiving for a latecomer. But texting your spouse about leftover pizza in the fridge is just too much. |
I don’t get this “must save food for people who aren’t there.” Aren’t they eating wherever they are at dinner time? We obviously aren’t talking about helpless tiny kids here. Can’t the absent family member just make themselves something when they get home if they’re hungry? I don’t get the party thing, either. What kind of parties are we talking about here? Surely you aren’t arriving late to a formal dinner party and expecting the host to save food for you. |
I remember we had to retrain friends who came from "first come first served" families in college. They were like wild animals when we ordered take out or a pizza, and had to be convinced we wouldn't eat their share so they wouldn't horde as much as possible.
It's not a good look. |
Your perceptions are normal. Your husband is behaving like a feral dog. Of course you save food for family.
The birthday cake thing is a quirk. I hope you DID get a piece of your own cake though. |
I’d be curious to know how many people participating in this thread have known food insecurity. |
Pp here, and it’s this. Tonight I used three pounds of meat and made eight burgers for dinner (with potatoes and salad and fruit). Two burgers for each of the boys, and one for everyone else. Everybody was here, and it was fine. If DH wasn’t there, two or three of the kids would have split the last burger. |
Seems like the idea of “saving a plate” is important you, OP, and not important to your spouse.
Maybe you equate “saving a plate” with a demonstration of love? |
I grew up in a household that barely scraped by. We made sure everyone ate. Dad usually worked late. Mom made a plate for him and set it aside. We ate smaller portions to stretch things out to two meals if we could. Having leftovers meant we could get another meal or do a clean the fridge dinner later in the week. They shopped at Basics and Murrays if you’re local…. |
Oh man that would not fly in our house. Or the one I grew up in. Same goes for bacon. Everyone gets some. Y’all are hyenas. |
I’m a tight size 2, thanks for asking! |
I think this may depend on the age of the kids. My kids are all under 10, so if one is late for a meal (sport/club/lesson), I know when they’re going to be back & save them a plate. I wouldn’t expect my 6 year old to scrounge up food. However if I had an older kid who was at a friend’s and I didn’t know what their plans were, I wouldn’t reserve a dinner that they may not eat.
Similarly, because we don’t want our kids to eat 3 donuts each and want them to get as much sleep as possible, breakfast treats are 100% assigned… but family style healthy lunch where everyone is around the house & could come eat? Free for all. |
It’s weird; I can’t imagine my parents “saving a plate” from any kind of meal we had. But we weren’t hyenas either because food was always wildly plentiful. We were a faculty of four and the only time we cooked for for four people rather than a generous eight was if we were making something that didn’t keep like omelettes. If you missed the dinner of roast chicken the leftovers were naturally still in the fridge when you got home. If dinner was leftovers or fridge ambush there maybe wouldn’t be the exact same thing everyone else had but there would be plenty of other leftovers or meals available and you’d just choose what you wanted to eat. Treats (like if someone bought a box of donuts) it was understood everyone should get some and no one stole anyone’s Halloween candy but there’s no expectation that it would be perfectly equal. You don’t eat the *last* donut but you might have two before your sister has one if she’s off with her friends. But treats too were plentiful so it didn’t really matter if you got fewer donuts today; maybe you’ll just have a coke instead.
I don’t get the McDonald’s thing; the treat is presumably for being brave at the doctor’s so why would a kid who didn’t have an appointment get to share? I understand (although had never heard of) the cake thing I guess but birthday cake isn’t more special than other cake in my mind — everyone eats what they want and when it runs out we make another cake. |
Large family here, we just…buy enough food. Usually I try to buy enough where there will be leftovers. When I make chicken, I buy 4-5 pounds of chicken thighs and drumsticks and cook it all. Whatever is left over can be used in lunches or mixed with rice and veggies for another meal. But if folks (my teenagers) are especially hungry that’s fine too and they can eat as many pieces as they like. If we go out for breakfast treats, I would buy 2 dozen donuts so there were enough for everyone to get as many donuts as they wanted. If we ran out before everyone got some, I would buy more next time. You can get good deals at Dunkin on certain days with the points. I’d rather throw out one stale, weird, gross donut after a day or two.
A little bit of planning and strategic shopping and you can have food in abundance at meal times so no one is fighting over it. |
I love this! The first decade or so of marriage I honored DH’s preference to avoid leftovers and just took them to work with me for my lunches. 20 years on as the sole cook, if I’m not feeling inspired or there’s food that will go to waste soon, everyone will be eating an amalgamation from the fridge and owe me thanks if I heat it up. |