Visiting family thinks food is weird, just a vent - Page 2

[LilacMama]

They sound abnormally picky and rude to me. I think the problem is them, not you. Hope they leave soon!

[Punchy Kaby]

Rude behavior! Some people just do not know what real food tastes like. However, some day those boys might get interested in changing their ways and will think of you and your fantastic cooking.

I would be so happy to visit someone who cooked every meal from scratch with good ingredients!

My Dad and step Mom visited when I was GF/CF and I made a couple of meals separate, but what I was making intrigued them and they wanted to try it. So maybe you could give them cold cereal and milk and make a special breakfast for your family. They might want to try it because it will look and smell better than their food, or they might be grateful for boxed food. Who knows...

[stephienoodle]

Roast beef, mashed potatoes, and peas barely went over for their last dinner. DN10 wasn't even offered that dinner, because he refused to help set the table when asked... so no place was made for him at the table. (Might seem tough, but these boys treat their mother like she's a doormat and we don't put up with that in our home. They act like she's their servant and tried to treat us the same way and would wait for mom to pick up the slack when they didn't do the simple chores we asked for help with.) The final breakfast was bacon and eggs, which they actually ate. DN10 gave me no flack about clearing the table for that meal, though! They left Friday morning, even though they had been planning to stay another day. Mom couldn't put up with their nagging about the food any longer.

DH and I decided that in the future, it would be better to have mom back visiting on her own, or boys visiting without mom. The way they interact made the boys very manipulative about food and just generally getting what they want. DN16 did not give us NEARLY this kind of garbage about the food (which was pretty similar) last time he came to visit by himself. It also plays into things that DH said SIL is fairly picky with eating. She also told me herself that the only thing she ever makes from scratch is sweet potato casserole. She's not done any kind of baking from scratch since childhood. They're just not used to real food, I guess.

Oh, and are you ready for the (not food-related) kicker for the week? They brought us lice.

[blueridgewoman]

OMG! My weekend got away from me, but I was going to see if we could stop by and play and give you guys some relief this week but.... I'll wait until the lice situation is under control. Do you need any TTO? I have plenty I could give you, and that might knock the buggers out.

[stephienoodle]

Thanks! I'm halfway through a bottle of TTO with all of the laundry. The never-ending laundry. At least we caught them *very* early it seems - only kiddo has them from what we've seen, and his case is very mild. When we're in the all-clear, we totally want to get together and play!

Now we'll be back to regularly scheduled-food, too. I'm cranking up the dehydrator now to see if it'll make the brown-rice sourdough rise better. I'm going to try making grass-fed beef bologna in the next couple of days. I'm going to enjoy tons of water kefir, start the new batch of yogurt for DH, try making soaked or sprouted granola in the dehydrator (any good recipes?) and I might even cook LIVER!

[blueridgewoman]

I have some citronella oil too for such occasions, should the need arise.

Very, very cool on the food! Hey, if I procure the beef (no idea when that will be- have to check delivery schedules for Wolf Creek, etc), do you wanna try to make some sort of jerky or pemmican or something in the next month or so?

[nerdymom]

lice to boot? yuck.

[Bri'sgirl]

Coating hair with mayonaise and letting it stay on for 3+ hours (with a shower cap on or a plastic bag) will knock the lice out. Make sure to coat the scalp well, too.

[mirlee]

All of your food sounded delicious even though with my intolerances and allergies i wouldn't have been able to eat any of the meat. Sorry to hear about the lice. We had the same experience. Mayo works awesome!

[Althetrainer]

Rude visitors

I am sorry that you had to put up with a bunch of rude visitors who ended up sharing lice with your family. I feel for you!

Some people just don't get it. We had similar experience over Christmas, not anywhere as tough as yours, but it was extremely awkward to our family.

My stepson went to Singapore for Internship and brought a Chinese girlfriend to stay with us for the holidays. Not that I have anything against Chinese but it seemed to us that she didn't like any of our foods. We are not serious Tfooders; sourdough and kefir are the only two things we have at home. I didn't even bother serving those because stepson had called prior to her arrival asking me not to offend her. I found out, she ate only peanut butter and bread for breakfast. Couldn't figure out what else she ate because she refused to eat with us, only with her boyfriend.

Christmas day, DH spent the whole day making a turkey dinner (cooking a holiday meal for the family is always his pride) but as dinner was about ready, she said she wanted rice! DH actually adapted a different recipe for rice stuffing to impress her but of course it was not good enough. She asked stepson to get our rice cooker then proceeded to make her own rice. She even placed her big bowl of rice in the center of the table! I was in shock! If this girl didn't know any better, stepson should! The two of them didn't touch the potatoes; instead they chewed down the bowl of rice in front of all of us.

The next day, they said they wanted beef. We had beef tenderloin but they said that's not what they wanted... quality of the cut was not good enough. Asked us to buy Dijon mustard because regular mustard was not the same. They said the same thing about the Mandarin oranges in the house and the peanut butter in my fridge. Of course, we wanted her feel comfortable so we bought everything they wanted. She took everything, ate everything and on the day she left, not even a "thank-you".

What happened to politeness and gratitude?

[dollyanna]

I feel for you. I got a bunch of "edible" items for Christmas from my family this year, and even though they know what I am allergic to, I can't eat any of it. We went to others' houses this year, so I had to be super-vigilant-annoying-mama. Luckily, we never stayed anywhere longer than overnight!

This post made me remember this time in middle school where they had us all bring in our lunch from home and switch lunches for the day. Whoever got me was all happy because my mom bought me bologna and cupcakes but I got the "health nut" mom's lunchbag and it was SO WEIRD to me! Probably stuff I would like now, but I remember the bread wasn't like "normal" (wonder) bread & had seeds in it had hummus or something on it, which was like FREAK SHOW back then (the 80s)

Also reminded me of our Christmas, when my MiL kept saying over and over how much better potato "buds" taste than regular potatoes "if you add enough cream and butter." My husband totally loved the potatoes, but my stepson & I thought they tasted like glue