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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

...or is this slightly odd behaviour with regard to leftovers?

195 replies

naranciata · 26/12/2016 11:50

At FIL's house. Yesterday I singlehandedly cooked a 3 course Christmas dinner for 11 people then went to bed about 9:30 because 25w pregnant and knackered. Woke up this morning and opened the fridge and you would not know it was Christmas yesterday. Every single leftover item has been portioned up and frozen and added to the "freezer spreadsheet" pinned to the noticeboard in the kitchen.

I was thinking along the lines of bubbles and squeak with fried eggs and cold meat for lunch, turkey sandwiches for snacks, big pan of veg soup for the next few days' food. Basically - no 'proper' cooking but lots of nice food.

I asked FIL if he'd frozen everything (as opposed to putting in garage fridge etc) and he thanked me for cooking and said he'd barely have to cook for himself over the next few days because of everything he was left with. In the same breath, he asked if I wanted some mince defrosting to make a chilli tonight.

AIBU to feel like it's not really up to him to freeze all the Christmas leftovers to be eaten when we've all left? Him and I paid for the food 50:50.

OP posts:

Lynnm63 · 28/12/2016 21:19

I was being less personal about you than you were about me. Its you that keeps referring to my posts. I'm only responding to what you say about me. It felt to me that you started to make it personal even bringing up what I'd posted to justify your position to another poster. If you drop it I'm prepared not to interact with you further.

Lynnm63 · 28/12/2016 21:33

You called me pathetic btw, not my behaviour, me personally. You then couldn't resist the if you can't read properly jibe. You then have the cheek to suggest I'm being personal.
I'm called pathetic, ugly and illiterate by you and that I deserved all the vitriol coming my way. all I said you were projecting and seemed determined to find the fil downtrodden and I wondered if you were projecting because you would have kept the leftovers.

That's me done now.
Hope you're home now op and enjoying a well earned rest.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 28/12/2016 21:55

I name-checked you once, Lynn. I then said about posters' behaviour saying that any poster who did x was y and z. I then clarified to you that it was about the behaviour. I'm not calling you anything at all hence my 'jibe' about you reading my post. I'm sorry if you felt got at personally, it really wasn't and isn't personal. I have no axe to grind with you.

Your last post refers to my keeping the leftovers; I wouldn't have. I don't have an issue with posters wanting leftovers, not at all - I had an issue with posters saying they would take them and throw them. That's mean and I stand by that. You (general, not you personally) just don't treat family like that. That's my opinion, I accept that others differ in theirs.

I'm going to leave it there now, I've said my piece.

YeOldMa · 28/12/2016 23:10

I cater for the whole family every year and one year I suggested it might be nice if people could bring a little something as we were a bit broke. My DS turned up waving a rather expensive Xmas Pudding boasting at how much it cost, blah blah blah. By the time the family had eaten a humungous dinner, they couldn't manage dessert so it was decided we would have it much later. However, my sister was leaving early so on the way out the door she took a nice helping of salmon and the pudding saying that as we weren't going to eat it, she'd take it to her in laws the next day. I was so flabbergasted I was speechless. That night, as my mother is leaving she asks if she can take a little bit of food home with her. Although I thought it odd, I agreed so she took a huge plate of salmon and informed me it was for my daughter who wasn't speaking to me and had blanked me on Christmas day. I am rarely lost for words but for the second time that day I was speechless. Neither of them got an invite again on Christmas Day although my DM does come on Boxing Day to eat the left overs!

pklme · 29/12/2016 08:18

The cook gets to decide how to manage the left overs, because they are deciding what to cook on future days. Not grabby, not martyred, just sensible.

If my guests took or froze the ham or turkey, then how could we have cold meat on Boxing Day or pie on 27th? That is why we work hard and make more than is needed, to help with the next few days, not to fill someone else's freezer for a month.

It is not at all strange to get cross about it, especially there and then, when knackered from the catering, and being expected to cook again!! The only 'entitled' person in this situation is FIL.

MaybeDoctor · 29/12/2016 13:52

I think it depends on whether the OP had volunteered to 'do the cooking' for the whole several-day visit, or just the Christmas meal.

If the former, then it should be assumed that she might have plans for the leftovers for the following days' meals. If not, then I think that the FIL might reasonably feel that the fridge in his house is 'his domain' and sort out the leftovers in any way he wishes... Yes, I would be a bit surprised to have no opportunity for a turkey sandwich on Boxing Day, but I wouldn't feel that some kind of fundamental right had been violated. I think that these kind of minor disagreements are inevitable when you cook food in someone else's house.

Mumsnet is always very scathing of people who take home bottles of wine that they have brought to other people's houses, so surely the same principle applies to proposals for the OP to take home leftovers?

However, where the FIL was unreasonable was in assuming the OP was happy to cook from scratch the next day, unless of course she had offered to cook for the duration.

WonderWombat · 29/12/2016 14:02

How much does half of Xmas dinner cost? I don't do traditional Christmas food but I am assuming at least £10 per head. If at least half the meat and load of veggies are left over then that's at least £50 of food. So the poster has given her labour - freely or because other people assumed that was her job - and also been put in a position where it was assumed she was also happy to donate £25 worth of food to the man she cooked for - for his exclusive use.

expatinscotland · 29/12/2016 14:04

She was planning to use the leftovers to feed 5 people, not take them home! She was planning to make bubble and squeak, sandwiches and soup.

Lunde · 29/12/2016 14:15

The OP has clearly stated that she was going to use the leftovers to cater for the 5 people (including FIL) at the house on Boxing Day - cold meats, sandwiches, soup and bubble and squeak etc. However FIL had appropriated all of the leftovers for himself and expected OP to make a chilli for his dinner.

So I don't think that OP is the one being unreasonable

Lunde · 29/12/2016 14:18

Some people commenting on this thread really seem to have got the wrong idea OP was not planning to take the leftovers home but to use them to feed FIL and the others he had invited for boxing day,

MaybeDoctor · 29/12/2016 15:21

The idea of OP taking the food home was suggested during the thread...

WhisperingLoudly · 29/12/2016 16:33

But the OP wasn't taking the leftovers home - which I agree might have strayed into "odd" behaviour but certainly not "grabby"

The OP wanted to use the leftovers to cater for the family at the house saving herself cooking. There's nothing (At All!) grabby about that!

MrsDesireeCarthorse · 29/12/2016 17:11

10 people sat on their arses and let a 25 weeks pregnant woman single handedly cook Christmas dinner

I'm 37 weeks pregnant and single-handedly cooked Christmas dinner. Because it's easy and I enjoy it. We're not all frail little beings who can't handle it, some of these comments are ridiculous.

MaybeDoctor · 29/12/2016 22:46

Oh well, it's all a bit of a storm in a teacup anyway...

nethunsreject · 29/12/2016 22:48

That is really fucking weird, op. Really odd!

WonderWombat · 30/12/2016 08:34

Storm in a freezer...

dollydaydream114 · 30/12/2016 11:23

Are you really that bothered over your 50% share of leftovers? It's at his house and he's obviously cleared up and being an organised person has frozen leftovers. I really can't see why you're so bothered over a bit of leftover frozen food.

It's not about her take the leftovers home, though - it's about the fact that she was relying on them to cater for the family at FIL's house on Boxing Day. She's not saying the leftovers have to be divided up 100% equally, but that she doesn't want to have to cook for everyone from scratch again at FIL's house on Boxing Day, and was assuming that they'd be able to have leftovers for lunch etc.

Whereas FIL was expecting her start all over again and make a chilli for everyone from scratch with some mince he had in the freezer ... rather than having cold meat and bubble-and-squeak like a normal person.

FIL and the DH's family have put the OP in charge of cooking for them for two days. If she's the one doing the catering, she is the one who gets to decide what gets served and when. It's not about the money!

dollydaydream114 · 30/12/2016 11:27

The point of bringing a bottle of wine to someone's house is as a gift for the host - just as you might bring flowers or chocolates. So if it doesn't get drunk, then yes, it should stay at the host's house.

The food cooked by the OP wasn't a gift she bought for her father-in-law; it was food bought between the two of them and was meant to cater for the family at FIL's house for two days, with the OP doing all the cooking. Totally different set of circumstances.

frauleinsallybowles · 30/12/2016 11:38

marhav999 · 31/12/2016 16:12

For some reason I seem always to be on the side of the OP. Dear OP, isn' t the world full of people who are in one of two camps? Those who get it and those who are so self centred and oblivious to the needs of others that they will never learn. Mumsnet is full of the latter. You probably won't defrost the food and eat it and you almost certainly won't confront him because you can balance in your head what is to be gained vs what is to be lost, given that he will not change and you will not change him. The most important thing is to learn from each experience and don't repeat it or anything like it.....EVER!!!!

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