Anonymous
Post 01/18/2025 15:18     Subject: S/o: worst meal to bring a friend
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:When we had a new baby someone brought us raw salmon and some sort of side ingredients (this was a while ago and I wasn't really sleeping, so my memory on the details is fuzzy but maybe a bagged salad?) and said "Enjoy cooking!" Thankfully DH is a great cook and he prepared the meal, but he was irked.

One time my MIL’s friend and friend’s dd and 3 year old granddaughter came to see our infant twins. Not only did they not bring us anything, but the 3 year old was hungry, so they asked for a snack. They let’s her wander around our house while she ate a granola bar, dropping crumbs everywhere. I was dumbfounded.


Terrible!

I ended up staying 2 extra nights in the hospital after having my first (complications) and my ILs, who were staying in my house at the time, ate down our freezer stash of meals!

😲 How can anyone who has had a baby be such a selfish clod?!


This reminded me of two times my sil and mil stayed at our house when I was hospitalized. They used the primary bedroom. And left without taking off their week old sheets. And when my husband came home from being at the hospital, he’d have to pick up and clean up after them. Idk why they were here. They did nothing.
Anonymous
Post 01/18/2025 14:59     Subject: S/o: worst meal to bring a friend
I received a rice bake that was comically bad. White rice with gobs and gobs of cheese and maybe mayo? The coworker who gave it to me was such a sweetheart but I still remember it with a laugh 15 years later. I couldn’t tell you what anyone else gave us, or even who else brought meals, so maybe she was on to something!
Anonymous
Post 01/18/2025 14:42     Subject: S/o: worst meal to bring a friend
Anonymous wrote:So when I was 20 and living on my own, my church asked me to take a meal to new parents. I had no idea what to make so I asked my mom for a recipe-/I made a chicken casserole. I made it with bouillon so it was WAY over salted. How do I know, you ask? I stayed for dinner! Seriously, I think about this all the time, but I honestly didn’t know better. (Not mom’s fault!)
So I am super grateful for the folks who gave our toddlers and us a white mushroom lasagna even though we threw it right in the trash and made frozen chicken fingers. And if you’re the family from St Peter’s in Arlington my 20-year old self attempted to feed, thank you for teaching me the meaning of grace. (And I owe you dinner!!!)


That is hysterical
Anonymous
Post 01/18/2025 13:08     Subject: S/o: worst meal to bring a friend
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I know, we should be grateful…

But in name of humor, what’s a meal you’ve received on your doorstep from a friend or acquaintance that was just terrible and ended up not being very helpful after all?


Anything from someone's home kitchen is getting immediately disposed of in my house. So nasty.


You sound fun.
Anonymous
Post 01/18/2025 13:01     Subject: S/o: worst meal to bring a friend
I've brought food for friends from several meal trains. I love how the person organizing the meal train was generally very specific about foods family loved and particular ingredients that they didn't like. Plus, they included a list of local, favorite restaurants for people who would rather give gift cards.
Anonymous
Post 01/17/2025 22:34     Subject: S/o: worst meal to bring a friend
So when I was 20 and living on my own, my church asked me to take a meal to new parents. I had no idea what to make so I asked my mom for a recipe-/I made a chicken casserole. I made it with bouillon so it was WAY over salted. How do I know, you ask? I stayed for dinner! Seriously, I think about this all the time, but I honestly didn’t know better. (Not mom’s fault!)
So I am super grateful for the folks who gave our toddlers and us a white mushroom lasagna even though we threw it right in the trash and made frozen chicken fingers. And if you’re the family from St Peter’s in Arlington my 20-year old self attempted to feed, thank you for teaching me the meaning of grace. (And I owe you dinner!!!)
Anonymous
Post 01/17/2025 22:18     Subject: S/o: worst meal to bring a friend
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I was part of a mom’s preschool group that made a meal train for me when I had my second child. So, granted, the person who signed up to bring this wasn’t my BFF of anything. So I give her a pass..

But I was sent “pizza pasta.” It was cooked noodled, some pepperoni, a jar of sauce, and bag of mozzarella dumped on top, all in an aluminium casserole dish. Plus box of generic frozen Texas toast garlic bread. Whole things was tossed. Yuck. If you are going to sign up for a meal train, don’t send bare minimum packaged stuff.


People give these things in disposable trays for a reason, dipshit. The fact that you would ding her for not making more work for you - having to wash and return a casserole dish while taking care of a newborn - says a lot about you. That, and how you couldn’t figure out that she was trying to make a dish that a preschooler would eat.


No issue with the tray. But don’t send someone a meal of packaged pepperoni, a jar of sauce, and a bag of cheese dumped over noddles. That isn’t even cooking.


You aren't entitled to someone else's time and energy and money. If you want a certain kind if food, make it yourself or pay someone to prepare it for you.

If you want to participate in a meal train, assume that not everything people send will be something you love or even like. It's likely her family just has different standards/parameters for food. You say thank you, graciously, and then toss it. That's how meal trains go.

Thus thread reminds me of the recent thread on how everyone laments there's no village anymore, but parents today don't actually want the village. This is a perfect example. Someone prepared a meal for you (yes, they did, I don't care how subpart you think it was, that woman thought of, shopped for, and assembled a meal for your family) but you're mad because it's not good enough, not what you'd feed your family, not reflective of your values and social class.

Well that's your village. Take it or leave it. She doesn't work for you, she's just trying to help you out.


Thank you. What an obnoxious thread.