MIL has one of those birthdays coming up with a '0' on the end.
DH and BIL are paying for a weekend away for six of us to celebrate. This involves hire of a cottage, a special activity for a day (£200), and we are also paying all food and booze. We've made a huge cake, too.
Obviously, the costs here are quite high.
We will all help cook one meal on two of the evenings. However, this means cooking after the all-day activity, when we will all be pretty tired.
I suggested that instead of cooking from scratch on that night, we got some ready meals in from that posh frozen place, Cook. We could then just bung them in the oven and chill out.
This idea was met with horror from BIL and partner on the grounds that it 'sends the wrong message' and 'wouldn't be spoiling MIL'.
I've never really thought of high-end ready meals as inferior, and I'd never judge someone who served me one. (I'm generally just grateful to be served any food at all!) But I am very definitely not as posh as the rest of them.
Would you be offended at being served high-end ready meals in this situation?
AIBU?
Birthday weekend ready meals - OK or not?
whiskyowl · 16/03/2018 16:38
at ephemeral. To be fair, while PIL are problematic, they are not organising this at all, so the pressure isn't coming from MIL, but from a perception on the part of BIL and partner of what MIL might think!! (This is why I wanted the opinion of Mumsnetters on the etiquette). And BIL and partner are generally not controlling nightmares, but lovely and supportive people who will very much pull their weight in helping to do the labour involved!! I think BIL feels a bit anxious around disappointing PIL, because he hasn't had the same level of psychological support to manage their moods/demands as DH. .
Like I said, I'm going to go along with their idea of a second homecooked meal this time, because it clearly means a lot to BIL and his partner that it's done this way. I was just curious to canvas wider opinion to see whether others would think a readymeal would be unreasonable, because I'm planning to serve one at Christmas!
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Or indeed why not just eat at the pub if you’re there already 
?
hillarious - I suspect you'r'e right. This is a bit of a derail, because it has nothing really to do with whether readymeals are OK or not, but I think it also depends who you're with. I'm no Michelin-starred chef, but I'm happy to potter with DH in the kitchen on a lazy weekend, or to cook for mates. I get really stressed when I know that I may be on the receiving end of patronising 'advice on how to improve' from the people for whom I'm cooking - I know I shouldn't let it get to me, but it makes me feel inadequate, and then I start to dread the slightest mistake, which of course makes mistakes far more likely to happen!
I think there's also a question of time here. As I said the meal will be cooked after a full day out - the activity will start at 8am and won't finish til 6pm, and we will be outdoors all day, in what looks likely to be constant rain. The prospect of turning around and starting to cook at 7pm is a lot less appealing than the prospect of just going to the pub to dry out and warm up, then bunging a Cook lasagne in the oven 
Actually I know this isn't the point of the thread but an acceptable compromise to all maybe an order of Hello Fresh or whatever those boxes with all the ingrediants is called.
You get all the stuff you need and you can usually pick how long the recipe takes to prep. Plus they usually have very generous starter money off offers for newbies. Tried it a few times and felt it was expensive for what you got , plus the packaging seemed a bit excessive, but for this situation it could fit the bill perfectly.
Plus will still wind up the ILs but they won't be able to put their finger in why
I'm definitely doing that with the lasagne at Christmas. I am always on my knees with tiredness in December. I have SAD quite badly, and I struggle enough without having to cook 3 course meals every night!! If they are offended by it, then that's their problem.
Cook is expensive, no doubt about it. But it is less than most takeaways. £27 for a lasagne for eight, and some steamed vegetables or green salad on top still works out slightly cheaper even than fish and chips, and most takeaways are a bit more than that.
Having read your further posts OP, I'd take great delight in decanting a COOK lasagne into your own dishes ( either for this break or for Christmas) watch them eat it and then tell them afterwards it was from COOK. They sound like terribly hard work.
Do it OP!
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