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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

This isn't sexist at all.

999 replies

PiperIsTerrysChoclateOrange · 20/03/2015 17:55

In my DH works on night shifts each of the wives/partners cook for all the men on shift.

I'm happy with it and so are all the other women, we have been doing this for years. It means they all get a hot home made meal.

The 1 partner of a new man who has started has pulled a strop and said it sexiest and very 1950.

The reason we all enjoy cooking them as we can step away from cooking 'kids' meals and kick up the heat on curries and jerk chicken ect.
While I accept that children do eat these kind of meals within our friendship group all these are always done mild.

IABU to think it is not sexiest.

In able to do this many years ago with the Christmas bonus they brought a George foreman, slow cooker, pressure cooker and a rice cooker. Due to H&S the only thing they haven't got is a deep fat fryer. But all the others have been PACT tested.

OP posts:
bumbleymummy · 23/03/2015 21:10

Devora - I thought someone clarified that earlier but whether she was rude to them or about them I don't think it was necessary.

Thymeout · 23/03/2015 21:12

Devora

Perhaps because it's only a suggestion, a hypothesis with no evidence to back it up? In an attempt to gloss over NW's rudeness?

The fact of the matter is OP received the text via her husband in reply to one she sent.

If she hasn't received an apology by now, I think we have to assume it wasn't a mix-up but intended for her.

ilovesooty · 23/03/2015 21:13

Excellent analogy TendonQueen

OrlandoWoolf · 23/03/2015 21:13

bumbley

This is not about you and your set up. In general, who do you think cooks the BBQs and who do you think does all the other work with a BBQ?

Who normally takes the credit for BBQs? (not in your house but in general)

SilverBirch2015 · 23/03/2015 21:15

Great stuff Bumbley, what would you have thought and felt about such a request coming through to you indirectly on your husband's phone? What would you and husband have chatted about in private about an assumption that you would wish to join such a group?

Devora · 23/03/2015 21:18

Well, of course it's a hypothesis! We don't have NW here to ask, do we? But in general, if we think someone has been staggeringly rude it's worthwhile to at least consider the possibility that there was a misunderstanding. And that possibility seems very real here - we don't have to assume anything.

Still, it's been a highly entertaining thread.

SilverBirch2015 · 23/03/2015 21:23

Anyone up for nominating it for classics as "spicy stew gate"?.

bumbleymummy · 23/03/2015 21:29

Orlando - in my experience it's fairly even. That's not just in my own family but amongst our extended family/friends' BBQs. Yes, as I said up thread, the man might stand over the smoky hot BBQ (he's welcome to it!) but usually they help out with prep/clean up too.

Silver - I don't understand what the issue is with it coming through his phone. She didn't have her number. That wouldn't have bothered me at all. Asking me if I wanted to join in? I don't think we really would have said much about it to each other tbh. More likely to talk about what he was going to cook if he was joining in.

Devora - but even if she sent the text to the husband she was still being rude about them.

TheRealAmandaClarke · 23/03/2015 21:35

im actually a bit baffled by the idea that salad prep takes some people 48 hours Confused
And also baffled by any sardonic comments it would seem
Besides. I have not been to a bbq where only meat and a bag of salad are offered.
But as I find it too tiring to discuss an issue with ppl being so obtuse I shall be off to bed now.

bumbleymummy · 23/03/2015 21:37

I do take it out of the bag Amanda - I don't just pass it around Grin

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 23/03/2015 21:40

Tendon my mum has worked night shifts as a care assistant for over 20 years and to my knowledge has never taken in a hot meal and neither do any of her colleagues. She doesn't have a husband though so perhaps that is the issue.

She takes in a sandwich which she rarely has time to eat before her shift ends. She also manages to do her own housework and provide childcare for her grandchildren while my DSIS works shifts (without the help of a hot meal cooked by her colleagues' partners)

My mum personally couldn't give a toss about cooking - she would live on Chinese takeaway and mars bars.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this but it's made me rather unsympathetic to the "plight" of the poor poor menfolk having to work all night with only a microwave meal for sustenance.

SilverBirch2015 · 23/03/2015 21:50

Tondelay maybe woman are genetically developed to function better on cold food better than men, 'cos they had to wait for men to come home from hunting to make fire for them in ancient times. Grin

Pagwatch · 23/03/2015 21:51

And now, as I head off to bed, I am unsurprised to note that no one has provided anything whatsoever to explain to me why this situation is anything other than really fucking weird.

I maintain my view that if anyone contacted me to suggest I might want to cook for my DHs office I would assume they were either some sort of a cult or that 'pulled pork for the lads' was a euphemism

GallicGarlic · 23/03/2015 22:00

Pulled pork can't help sounding like a euphemism, Pag. I'm convinced that's the reason for its inexplicable popularity.

Pagwatch · 23/03/2015 22:19

True enough Garlic
Dh does a sort of involuntary carry on snort with 'do you want some of my pulled pork'. he tries to pretend it is ironic but it's the Kenneth Williams/Sid James reflex hard wired into his brain after too many Sunday afternoon films in the 80s.

SilverBirch2015 · 23/03/2015 22:50

I was thinking back about the comment sometime ago up thread by the OP about the single fry-up man. I thinking she mentioned that the night he fired up the George Foreman, he only took phone messages and wrote them down. I can't help being a bit curious why, is it so he has an easier shift, as it would too demanding for him to cook and work or just a logistical problem?

worksallhours · 23/03/2015 22:54

I am really late to this thread but just wanted to mention a few things.

I cook for 20-ish+ people on a fairly regular basis, usually when DH is hosting a home game. I like doing it because it is an opportunity to experiment with different recipes that require volumes that would be just too much for DH and me to eat, so I have some experience in cooking for 20+ people in a home setting.

Thinking about cooking a one-pot for 20, I would have to say ...

  1. You need a lot of raw ingredients, particularly if you are using meat and you are cooking for adult men. I struggle to see how you could do it all in, including a carb such as rice, for £35 ... that only works out at £1.75 a portion. Pulled pork for 20 is a lot of pork as is jerk chicken for 20. Even if you just give everyone two jerked thighs, that's still 40 thighs (about £20 in raw meat alone) and that is before you've bought your onions, ginger, garlic, chillis, oil, spices and rice for 20. You would have to buy in bulk and storing that kind of volume on and above a regular food shop is beyond most families' fridge capacities.

  2. You need experience in cooking for those volumes. It is not simply a question of taking the techniques you use to cook for 4 people and then multiplying by 5. Volumes behave differently, and tend to require intermediate steps that you wouldn't normally bother with -- you have to cook the ingredients in batches for a start.

  3. It takes a lot of time. The prep would be time-consuming and then you have to batch seal/brown/cook the meat and onions etc ... it would end up, from start to finish, probably taking up somewhere in the region of an afternoon. An equivalent for comparison is probably something like cooking seven family-sized cottage pies all in one day.

All in all, I would say that asking someone or their partner to cook for 20 people, even just every 12 weeks, is a pretty big ask, op.

TheRealAmandaClarke · 24/03/2015 06:13

works all hours
Brilliant post.

bumbleymummy · 24/03/2015 06:45

The OP talked about how/when she did it earlier in the thread.

Runningupthathill82 · 24/03/2015 07:14

Yes, Bumbley, the OP talked about how she did it....but hearing from other people who regularly cook such quantities of food is useful, as it gives an insight as to what the other 19 people in this bizarre arrangement might be having to do.

As someone who struggles to cook a curry for four (my DH is the cook in our house), Works' post is helpful.

OrlandoWoolf · 24/03/2015 07:35

I have to admire Bumbley in this thread.

But another little thing. If there are 20 meals to reheat, that takes a long time. Especially with one microwave. So they can't all sit down together and eat - as someone would have a very cold meal.

The only time they all sit down must surely be:

a) When single bloke prepares a mass fry up for 20 people (and doesn't do any actual work)

b) When a partner is ill and so hasn't made the meal so a takeaway has been ordered.

KatieKaye · 24/03/2015 07:47

I think they might use the slow cookers to heat up the good, Orlando.
Good to see the thread back on track after all that derailment over a non issue that was not applicable.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf · 24/03/2015 07:51

The only reason for this thread not to be fiction is if the OP has changed some material details to prevent identifying the situation.

Otherwise it does not stack up at all.

bumbleymummy · 24/03/2015 07:51

I haven't noticed it go off track Katie. Everything discussed has been relevant :)

OrlandoWoolf · 24/03/2015 07:57

Relevant to you some people.