Friend can't cook

[ninaaa]

My friend has invited DH and I over for dinner.

Whenever DH and I have visited for dinner, the meal has been dried out from being in the oven too long, and tasted very bland, she doesn’t appear to season her food. We have always told her it was lovely as we didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She has been over to ours for dinner recently, and now wants to return the invitation.

I have considered suggesting going to a restaurant or getting takeaway instead, but I don’t want to offend her. I’ve also thought of suggesting I bring a dish, then I know at least one part of the meal will taste nice, but again, I don’t want to offend her.

What would you do?

I know the feeling. In one dinner at the ILs I had to resort to the ketchup that they put out for their child in order to get some moisture to chomp through the tough chewy meat that I thought was pork, but was apparently turkey. No condiments or gravy avaliable. The vegetables are over-boiled mush. I go for the quietly such it up approach. Sadly wine doesn't work when they're teetotal, I'm a lightweight and DH is driving.

We go to a restaurant when they visit as I can't bear to waste my time trying to destroy food to make it palatable for them. Even then we have to choise carefully for the right level of lighting and a dull menu.

I can cook pretty well but I sometines get nervous entertaining. I forgot once to serve gravy with a meal that needed it and didn't realise until we were half way through eating. Oh the mortification. Then the next time I cooked a roast for the same people I served gravy that was homemade but closer to water than any other known substance. After that I joined the nunnery to hide my shame.
Maybe your friend is like me?

Playing devil's advocate...

Does your friend appear to enjoy her food that she cooks? Is there a chance she's thinking exactly the same as you - I'll invite them over so they can have a nice meal and I won't have to sit through their weird sauce-laden meals?

I've been to meals at other people's houses where they are gushing about how wonderful their food was and it really wasn't but I was polite - then when they've come to eat when I've cooked (and most people reckon I cook a pretty good meal) they've been quite snotty about what I served up (which has been served up very successfully to lots of other guests who I trust to be truthful!) as it just wasn't the sort of thing that they liked or saw as 'normal' food.

God I hope I'm not your friend or anyone else's. I'm not the worlds best cook, but now I'm going to be paranoid.

Can you ring and ask whats for tea and then suggest a brilliant sauce that you`ve just found and want to try out???

What would I do?

I would say thank you, I appreciate you making such a nice effort for us.

And I would try to genuinely mean it.

I'm like your friend - not a great cook but feel I have to return invitations. Good idea to invite her out to a restaurant next time - then she'll feel she can do the same. Doesn't mean you don't ever have to invite her over.

I don't think just 'sucking it up' is great in the long run - you want to look forward to evenings out or time spent together! Bless her for trying, and being fair with the invites - but if she's just not good at cooking it does become a bit of an ordeal.

Pot luck dinners are good too. You can do the main, she could do dessert. Desserts are easier.

You could take cheese, biscuits etc on a platter to have after desert as a treat for you all.

Doesn't impact the meal she cooked but you will have something tasty.

I feel your pain. SiL is a terrible cook - not only that but she is very strict on portion control, so there's just not quite enough to go round. Last time we went there for a roast lunch, she put the beef in and went to the gym. We arrived while she was out and it was obvious the meat was cooked. She came home an hour later and an hour after that the beef was still in the oven. All veg are cooked in the microwave, so hotter than the sun but rock hard. One carrot for every four people .

We go, we take champagne, we have fun. It's one awful meal. It won't kill you.

I can cope with bland and overcooked. It's better than revolting flavours and undercooked. Take nice wine and offer to bring a cheese board.

Think I am going to take all your helpful advice, and go this time, offer to bring dessert, and say it is all lovely.

Then next time when I host shall suggest a restaurant, and hopefully friend will reciprocate similarly when she next hosts

How terrible!

She might be a poor cook, but maybe you are a bit food obsessed?

Is it too much to ask that for the occasional meal, you do what most people in the same situation do and pretend to like it?

Or just go ahead and suggest a restaurant? There might be a parallel thread about her friends being the fussiest eaters on earth.

The thought of being instructed on how to cook, as some posters suggest, by friends invited over for dinner, sounds like an evening of hell.

I'd go and say it was grand. My dh is very bad and if we have an awful meal at a friend's house he asks if we might have the recipe

It's one meal.
Suck it up and be a good friend.

just eat it and be gracious about it.

I find a lot of bland meals improve with a bit of salt/pepper/ketchup or mayo . You can always ask for these IMO. (though I have one friend who is bossy about salt and never gives me any)

Dried out and bland are by no means the worst things food can be.

If you like her company then eat it graciously and say thank you. Bring pudding or something so you know you'll get one thing you like (and just cos it's polite, IMO, if someone's cooking for you).

Eat it

Thank her

Have a dull conversation with Dh on way home congratulating yourselves on your wonderful culinary creations.

Or just have a few and enjoy it

Bland and overcooked is boring but not inedible or disgusting.

I have a friend who's not a great cooks. So when she invites us over for a meal she buys food from the deli or M&S. I think that's a sensible approach myself.