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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

About the BBQ I went to last night?

78 replies

ModreB · 24/04/2011 08:47

My friend invited myself and my family to a BBQ at her house. She told us that she would buy burgers and sausages, do salad, and if there was anything else that we wanted to eat to bring it along etc etc. Pretty standard stuff really.

BUT - my son works in a butchers shop, quite a high class butchers shop. So I went along to the butchers and got quite a bit of meat that I made into kebabs with peppers, onion etc. I also got some ribs and chicken. The whole lot should have cost over £30 but I obviously got it for a lot less than that.

When we got to the BBQ, she had a load of family members there that I had not met before. All nice people, everyone getting on well. Food started to be cooked, and then brought out and passed around. The problem was, the good stuff that I had bought was passed around to her family first, and me and my family really didnt get a look in! I didnt even know that the stuff that I bought along was cooked until it was all eaten!

I ended up with 1 kebab (Not even one of the ones I made with real meat) and as many burgers as I wanted - none of my chicken, beef, pork, ribs, it had all been given to her family first!

AIBU to think that she was really taking the piss, bearing in mind she didn't know that I had got that much meat at discount? BTW - I don't tell people that I can get a discount as I don't want to be in the position where they think I can get meat cheap for them.

OP posts:

MollysChambers · 24/04/2011 09:11

Honest opinion? Life is way too short to get uptight about such trivialities.
Either be friends (and forget it) or don't.

HalleluiaScot · 24/04/2011 09:12

I always find that there is more pleasure in giving rather than receiving, so it would not have bothered me if my food was enjoyed by someone else. When you take something to a party, it is not for your personal consumption unless you have food allergies and need to control your own food, for example.

Don't hang onto the anger - just put it down to experience and next time take the tried and tested bottle of wine or a pudding.

Also, consider that your hostess might have been a little offended that her offering wasn't good enough.

purplerabbitofinle · 24/04/2011 09:13

Or, maybe her family live off cheap shit and she was trying to prove a point about how unprocessed meat and real vegetables are tastier and more nutritious???

southeastastra · 24/04/2011 09:14

maybe she had the hump that you bought so much extra meat! it's a bit rude isn't it? i 'd just bring a bottle myself

saturdayschild · 24/04/2011 09:15

It's nice to be nice. Just not always free

Original poster

ModreB · 24/04/2011 09:16

southeastastra no it's something that I have done before, and she has done when she comes round to mine. It's just the way that we do things. My point was that it was not put out on the communal table.

If I am being honest, I think that she ws trying to impress these cousins of hers.

OP posts:

beesimo · 24/04/2011 09:17

Your friend probably thought how lovely of you to bring extra nice stuff to her party so that she had something extra nice to offer her nearest and dearest. She may well think that as your son works in a butchers you have the opportunity to eat meat until its coming out your ears!

Little did she know far from a act of kindness it was intended for YOUR family, were you intending to be the queen of the castle and your mates family the dirty rascals pahh not very nice behaviour either bring enough for all to eat high on the hog or keep it on the down low OP

Original poster

ModreB · 24/04/2011 09:20

beesimo you are missing the point entirely. The food that I brought was for everybody. Not a select few, either my family or hers.

And might I add sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

OP posts:

boilanegg · 24/04/2011 09:22

Ugh, all this taking the hump about who gets what food is a bit peevish and distasteful isn't it?

beesimo · 24/04/2011 09:24

Jesus may of fed the multitudes with a few loaves and fishes doubt you could do the same trick with ya kebabs!

purepurple · 24/04/2011 09:33

I'm just wondering how big this neighbour's garden was that the OP dIdn't see the food being cooked and go and ask for some of it.

southeastastra · 24/04/2011 09:36

i really fancy a kebab for breakfast now bah to chocolate eggs

BendyBob · 24/04/2011 09:36

I can see why you are peeved but you set yourself up for it really. Maybe she did it on purpose - unlikely - but maybe she did in which case she's rude. More likely she just handed it out and in the mayhem of making sure her guests were being fed you happened to be in the wrong seat for the good stuff.

Bringing food to a bbq = some bog standard sausages and a bottle of plonk.

Or yes, bring your own nicer food and your own bbq

YusMilady · 24/04/2011 09:39

Good grief. All this grudge holding. You take something to a party, you hand it over and say bye bye to it! You don't monitor it throughout the evening. And anyway, a decent party is about drinking, chatting, flirting, laughing, having fun, not scrutinising people's plates of food and getting all hung up because someone's got more meat than you. Let it go OP - unless you are actually, literally starving - what does it matter?

Lucyinthepie · 24/04/2011 09:41

Poor hosting, but she probably didn't think. I don't think that you're being unreasonable to expect that you and your family would get an equal chance to have the nice stuff alongside the cheap Iceland burgers. Whether or not you brought the meat, you were all guests at the same BBQ and should be treated with the same courtesy. It's not as if she wouldn't have realised that the stuff you brought was a lot more appetising than the standard fare.

YusMilady · 24/04/2011 09:41

Now if they'd kept all the booze for themselves...that would B truly U.

MissFenella · 24/04/2011 09:45

when the food was being passed around did you not shout up? I would have said 'oh those kebabs I brought are ready, lovely, hang on while I get dh & dc'

If you sat there passive while others scoffed your grub then it's your fault. Read up on being assertive maybe?

MeRightYouWrongMeBigYouSmall · 24/04/2011 09:51

OP - you say you saw your friends family arrive with nothing to contribute to the bbq....

But your OP says "When we got to the BBQ, she had a load of family members there that I had not met before"

Did you see them arrive or not?

In all honesty I would've ensured that I was given my food, by hook nor crook!! But in the past when I have parties I always make sure my family are always topped up and looked after (the way they do for me when I am at theirs) - my friends know to just help themselves, it's open house for them.

I dont think this kebab stealing was malicious.

ElsieR · 24/04/2011 09:51

I think this all a bit sad and petty. All this for a few nice kebabs?
Sometimes people are clumsy, they don't mean to. To err is human, to forgive divine.

Xbellesx · 24/04/2011 10:04

ModreB YANBU a similar thing hapened to us too. A few years ago we were invited to a barbicue by an eccentric posh couple who had this lovely house in the country. I niavely assumed all guests would be making an effort and did exactly the same as you kebabs, chicken ribs etc.
Unfortunatley the weather was not quite what was forecast, the marquee thingy blew over in the wind, the couple had a massive row and refused to cook. My husband (stupidly) ended up standing in (as no one else would/could) we were quite surprised as guests arrived in droves with packets of supermarket bacon , boxes of frozen beefburgers and a packets of value sausages etc, handed them to my husband saying" this is for the barbicue, but we'll just have some of those lovely looking kebabs and perhaps a peice of chicken". I swear we ended up feeling like the hired help, not guests, that night :) .
Oh and to top it all some one left the stable doors open and 2 of her horses got out and charged aroung the garden, scattering the guests in all directions while I ran about like a maniac trying to round them up. We never did taste a kebab or a peice of chicken , however we did cook them all, learned a lesson and can laugh about it now :)

ZacharyQuack · 24/04/2011 10:19

Maybe she just filled the platters as the food was cooked and handed them to someone else to be put out on the tables? And the "someone else" didn't know that you had brought the good stuff.

Anyway, isn't it a good thing you get discount meat [buenvy] so you can do your own BBQ.

noddyholder · 24/04/2011 10:24

pmsl at the better class of meat being used to impress It is a bbq fgs chill out!

GitAwfMayLend · 24/04/2011 10:26

xbellesx that sounds like a brilliant party. Marquee blowing over, hosts rowing and horses running amok.

thumbbunny · 24/04/2011 10:33

Don't really blame you for being pissed off that the good stuff wasn't put out on the communal table for everyone to share - that would have been the fairest way to deal with it.

The cousins/family should have brought their own, unless they are utterly impoverished and haven't eaten for 3 weeks.

houseworkwhore · 24/04/2011 10:33

YANBU... how bloody rude.

this type of thing would annoy me to, however whenever i take my own food to a bbq which i always do because i am so bloody fussy i make sure i linger (sp?) around the bbq when it is being cooked and then grab it before anyone else

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