To be cheesed off about the pasta bake incident five years on

[Dangelis]

This is as light hearted as it gets, I'm not actually fuming about this! I am interested in some perspectives though.

In 2017, five friends from East Anglia and I got an Airbnb in London so we could all go to a late night event nearby. I was the first to arrive (I live in London but was bunking in with them anyway) so I went to a supermarket and got a few bags of crisps, soft drinks and some small charcuterie type stuff - enough for everyone, but mainly because I like having this kind of stuff around while I'm getting ready to go out, so I paid for it myself. I figured the others could order delivery if they wanted anything bigger.

On my friends' group chat, I'd noticed a few references to a "pasta bake" and some requests for money over the past two weeks, but I'd skimmed over these.

When my friends turned up, one of the couples (who I barely knew) arrived with THE pasta bake. I was surprised as I thought it had been a joke - and practically speaking, it sort of was. There were two huge ceramic oven dishes full of the coldest, most wet and cheese-less penne bake I'd even seen, and they'd been sitting in the back of someone's car covered in foil for over three hours, all the way from Kings Lynn to Southwark. They were carried in with GREAT fanfare by the woman of the couple, who proceeded to re-heat this huge beige thing in the oven, and then ladle big, sad, stodgy bowls of it out to everyone (not what anyone wants to try to hold and shovel down while trying to put on makeup and get into a cocktail dress!!!). She talked about the cooking process and recipe too, as if we couldn't work it out. The way this woman went about it, you'd think she thought she'd rescued the whole night from disaster and starvation. I think I attempted to navigate my way around an undercooked piece of broccoli and watery pasta for a bit before hiding it in my room. It was honestly so bizarre to watch this performance happening while the rest of us were enjoying the vibe of getting ready to go to a quite expensive and elegant night out.

So far so bland. But the next morning, the woman went around telling everyone how much the ingredients (penne pasta, broccoli, not enough tomato sauce, and cheese In Name Only) had cost and calculating how much each person in the house owed them for the privilege of being involved in THE pasta bake. I honestly can't remember if I paid up or not - I think one of my mates who was closer to them paid for a few of us out of embarrassment.

This couple are divorced now, and I haven't seen the woman since the event. I've never brought it up with my friends, but I find myself thinking about this all the time. Was I being snotty about what was, in theory, a nice but misguided gesture? Am I overestimating how much small-towners know about food availability in Central London after dark? Or was this genuinely weird and off base?

minestrone soup incident is as follows:

I rarely make Osso Bucco but when I do I make double the sauce and the next day turn the leftover sauce into minestrone soup, and it’s delicious. It’s generally a lot of faff.

One time when I had a baby and toddler, I had made the minestrone soup and put it in the fridge for lunch. My MIL turned up unexpectedly and so I made another lunch for all of us, leaving the soup in the fridge for me for later. She offered to babysit while the kids napped, so I popped to the spa and was gone about 30 mins Max.

i saw my beloved minestrone soup in a saucepan looking very odd, with egg shells next to it. My MIL said that my daughter said she was hungry while I was out, so she took the soup out (ignoring all of the other child friendly things to eat, heated it up and cracked 2 eggs into it to ‘ make it nice for her’. My daughter didn’t like the look of it and didn’t eat it and actually she wasn’t hungry anyway after the big lunch she just had.

My precious minestrone soup was ruined and both inedible and uneaten. I hid my feelings, but still have the rage!!

Shop!!! Not spa!!!!

You remember so much detail and have started a thread about it five years later

but can’t remember probably the most interesting point… how much and did you pay?

Surely it’s weirder that once an event is over it can never be thought of or mentioned again?

It would have annoyed me too, a bit, but then I hate being ambushed with food. I do find the ‘small town’ reference a bit mean though.

I agree, it’s weird and quite funny. Years and years ago our family were invited to another family for dinner. Everything was on the table, but when my ds tried to reach for a nice piece of home baked bread (placed in a bread basket securely between one of the parents and one of the children) the child said upset to ds ’That is not for you, is it mum, you said it was only for us!’ and the mum handed us another bread basket with cheaper plain bread. This continued through the evening, think drinks and desert. We still laugh about it 10 years later..’Noo, this is not for you!’

All the 'small town' crap does is to tell us that op had moved from a small town within the previous six months. Or maybe even a year.

You come across as really snotty about the provincial types. Did you not have greasy fingers when trying to eat charcuterie and do your make up at the same time?

Not eating a proper meal before going out drinking is a recipe for disaster. Squeezed into your cocktail frock or not.

It’s been 5 years, Elsa.

This made me chuckle and is very weird!!! Such odd behaviour. I would hate to have pasta bake forced upon me before a night out! It reminded me of a strange incident I had a few years ago. My son was at nursery and the mum of a little boy there kept insisting that my son and I went around to their house for a playdate. I wasn't keen, but she kept on, so one day we arranged to go. I rang the bell and we were standing outside and the little boy answered the door and barked that we must take our shoes off immediately, or his mum would go.mad! When we went in, she put the chain over the door and it was all very awkward. The boys started playing and her son bit my son and she screamed at him in German that he must "behave and pretend to be normal!". I hadn't mentioned my degree in German, so she didn't realise I understood! Then she made me go into the kitchen with her whilst she prepared lunch. I insisted we didn't need lunch and would need to get going, but she hissed at me that she would definitely be giving us lunch and that it would be rude for us not to stay. The kitchen was very small and she took a giant sack of meatballs out of the freezer, and poured them straight into the frying pan and proceeded to burn them to a crisp. The room filled with smoke and the smell of burning. In another pan, she boiled unseasoned pasta for about twice as long as required, and then, put it in cold water, where it became congealed. She served up cindered meatballs, pasta slime and a dollop of ketchup and it was horrific. DS and I struggled to eat anything and had to strategically push it around the plate. I also have a slight phobia of teatowels, and there was a really dirty one nearby, which she wiped her son's face with and started heading towards my son with it, and at that point I knew we had to leave!!!! As we got in the car, I realised that our clothes, our skin and our hair stank of meatballs, so we drove home and all of our clothes went in the wash and we both had to have a bath. I often chuckle at the memories of Meatball Mutti and it was a long time before either of us could face a meatball again!

I wonder whether there is a woman somewhere on another board still baffled about the time she'd offered to cook a pasta bake for a group of friends staying in an Airbnb, agreed it all ahead over Whatsapp and yet when she turned up one of the group had bought a load of Tesco crisps and processed meats, took a plate of the pasta and then hid it in her room, and acted as if people from Kings Lynn haven't heard of supermarkets.

It’s weird indeed that this happened, that you’re writing about it five years later, that you bought charcuterie to eat while getting ready and that YOU CAN’T REMEMBER IF YOU PAID HER OR NOT.

It would have been a nice gesture if it had simply been offered. It’s not such a nice gesture to be presented with it and only later to be asked for a contribution to the costs. That’s the weird thing.

Hmm, I wouldn't have asked for money for a broccoli and tomato pasta bake, but it does sound like it was communicated over WhatsApp before and you ignored the messages. It could have been resolved beforehand.

That’s the oddest thing to me

so vivid is the OP’s recollection about this BUT can’t remember whether she actually paid or not! 🤔 😂

But OP says "On my friends' group chat, I'd noticed a few references to a "pasta bake" and some requests for money over the past two weeks, but I'd skimmed over these." It was all agreed ahead but OP didn't read it properly.

“Oft repeated recipe”

I thought they still were, but only, of course, when accompanied by some crusty bread and a green salad……….

OP , the only thing I don’t understand is how you have managed to keep this gem of a story to yourself for five years. It should have been spread far and wide across the known universe, and beyond.

An old colleague of mine attended a wedding reception in the 1980s and still laugh about the lack of chicken provided ( which had been paid for and was promised as part of the reception food buffet ) they called it ' chicken gate ' for years. Don't know precisely what happened, but it clearly didn't go down well with the ones paying for it or a proper explanation of why the chicken was missing.
At least you had some food

This.

So much this.

I love this!! So true

don’t forget the soft drinks along with the Tesco charcuterie board

@AliTheMinx that is hilarious!! How did you manage to subsequently avoid her?

Yep.

But OP thinks that she has a bit of a way with words.

She thought she had a good title (cheesed off + pasta bake) and has constructed a “funny” story around.

But the writing is laboured, the event itself wasn’t funny, and the underlying premise is just mean.

Absolutely hilarious, thanks OP.

As was the meatball story.

My friends are the opposite, they always turn up with delicious stuff and any suggestion of money exchanging hands would be most bizarre.

I do remember being invited to a BBQ once though of a work colleague. I was vegetarian, didn't really know her, didn't want to go at all but she was quite insistent. She was also loaded while I was on an entry level salary.

When I arrived there was a huge fuss made of the fact she had bought me vegetarian cheese and a block of cheddar was thrust at me. I was then told I had to pay 10 quid toward the BBQ food. I nearly got collared for the booze collection too but managed to side step out of that.

I meekly paid my hard earned 10 (this was over a couple of decades ago) ate a slice of cheese and some tortilla crisps and left.

Utterly bizarre.

How much could a pasta bake for 6 honestly cost? A tenner at most, divided by 6. Totally bizarre that they wanted money for it. I cannot imagine transferring £2 or some lowly amount to a friend. Also, it’s Tuesday night quick easy tea fodder, not something to be paraded in and gushed over.
People are weird.

From time to time I still think of the night on holiday in Sicily when someone in our group who we didn't know very well either, demanded extra nutmeg on her Brandy Alexander so aggressively we were all asked to leave. The whole bar stopped what they were doing and stared at us tutting: Inglese!"

When my husband and I tried to go back alone a couple of nights later they recognised us and refused us entry even though we hadn't done anything except be unfortunate enough to be with this pissed pest.

That was 30 years ago and I still remember the burning shame so yes, your pasta bake incident five years ago would seem like yesterday to me.

I sometimes use nutmeg in my cooking and whenever I do, my husband invariably says: "Extra nutmeg, Signora?" and we laugh. It's the little things that keep a marriage alive.

I sometimes use nutmeg in my cooking and whenever I do, my husband invariably says: "Extra nutmeg, Signora?" and we laugh. It's the little things that keep a marriage alive.

It certainly is.