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?

I think you want her to read this. That’s unkind. It was a nice gesture.

The real reason this annoyed you is because they didn’t get it. They wanted a different cosplay to you. They thought the theme was “country mice come to the big city” but you wanted to actually pretend to be sophisticated!

And you knew that the person you were pretending to be wouldn’t actually be nibbling Tesco’s finest in an Airbnb with people she barely knew. But you couldn’t say that out loud. But they were RUINING it.

And the fact you couldn’t articulate that without sounding daft is why it’s stayed in your head for five years.

Jumped the shark there.

I think you're being unkind

Sounds like everyone else agreed to have pasta in the holiday house. You ignored messages planning that in advance. You ignored asking for £ towards the cost in advance. During the trip, you ignored further requests for £ during the trip. And criticise her cooking online on a public forum. And look down your nose at small-towners. Pasta isn't v expensive, I agree. But, costs can add up when you're cooking for a crowd

I'd be interested to hear the other side of the story. If someone posted that they brought their favourite dish to a weekend away, one guest turned up their nose at it, refused to pay their share and made a song and dance about wanting fancy charcuterie instead, I'm sure the replies would be quite different

It's odd to remember the specifics of that, but also funny.
Thank you for making me laugh.

I would have been just as horrified at the crisps and charcuterie from a supermarket. Surely if you're in Central London it would have been possible to do much better than that crap.

not what anyone wants to try to hold and shovel down while trying to put on makeup and get into a cocktail dress!!!
She might not have realised it needed to be held and shovelled down while putting on makeup and a dress. She might have thought people would sit down and eat it and then get dressed and put on makeup

Tell us more, intriguing stuff. I'm sure I've got some food incidents I just cant remember them right now.

Talk aboutcthe pot calling the kettle black! You are going out of your way to be mean to the op! Deliberate unkindness!

I tend to mull over things too, OP.

But to be honest, I think that what happened was a very simple failure of communication - if you'd read the texts and said you prefer not to eat much before a night out, as part of the fun of it for you is having a burger or kebab on the way home, but please do crack on for you, then there'd be no awkwardness. In fact, maybe others would have joined you and then they wouldn't have made so much effort and you'd have had company. As a lightweight, alcohol wise (and someone prone to acid reflux), I find it really helpful to eat before drinking, but I'd never judge anyone else (unless they got so trollied on an empty stomach I had to go home early 😂).

As I have got older, I have found that potentially tricky individual preference issues like catering are resolved by just saying what you want to do in advance with kindness and no implied criticism and it sounds as if you didn't engage with that. Maybe it is you who lacked a bit of life experience at that stage?

“One of my favourite things about MN is when posters take threads so literally and are outraged at what is quite clearly a lighthearted thing. Clearly OP, you should have written lighthearted in the thread title.”

Well, she put lighthearted as her opening line 🤷🏻‍♀️

The thing is, “lighthearted” can be a bit like when people start, “no offence but…”

Just because she says it’s lighthearted, doesn’t mean it’s a fun story, when it’s just being nasty about someone doing something (cooking a dish and sharing the cost) that was agreed by the whole group in advance.

But what was the elegant event? Didn't it have food?

Not sure i would want pasta bake before a night out. Too bloaty

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

@Lengokengo I love osso buco too and that's a really good idea. The extra meaty sauce would work as a base for a soup. I'd still hold a grudge years later about being cheated of it too.

It reminds me of the time when I cooked this rabbit thing for my boyfriend. We were in that nesting stage when we played house round his flat and I'd cook for him while he watched adoringly.

I lifted the meat out of the pot to keep warm and turned back to make the sauce and it was gone. It was in the sink with suds in it. No more that 90 seconds must have passed. My boyfriend said: "I didn't think you'd want that sloppy stuff with bits of leaves in it" (a bouquet garni) "Here's some gravy granules."

We've got over that and as I explained to @endoftheworldniteclub when she so kindly asked, we've been happily married for 30 years. But I'd be a liar if I said it didn't sometimes still rankle.

This post is all kinds of weird.

it’s very weird to me that someone would cart a pasta bake in a car for hours just to save a few pennies. Most air b&bs have fridges etc, you could have shopped for bits at a supermarket, as you did, and made a sandwich if money was an issue!

It’s weird that your friend expected payment for a simple, basic meal.

It’s weird that everyone thought this was normal behaviour 😂

Some would think it was weird you’ve brought this up now but if it was me I’d still be laughing every so often when I remembered - it was very strange behaviour. 🤣

It is weird
It reminds me of a time a friend took her kid to a kids' party hosted by a couple she didn't know

they served vegetable sandwiches, no spread of any kind, on the floor. No plate. They're wealthy, judging by the house and address.

we came to the conclusion they did it to get a reaction. I feel sorry for their kids.

@Highlyflavouredgravy “Talk aboutcthe pot calling the kettle black! You are going out of your way to be mean to the op! Deliberate unkindness!”

Not exactly out of my way. It’s not like I’m going all the way from King’s Lynn to Southwark 😉

I’m not being kind to the OP, because I think she is unkind towards the provider pasta bake - albeit I know she hasn’t said it to that person. I don’t think her post is a funny light hearted story, I just think it’s mean.

I think you do sound snotty and superior. It ‘s a fairly normal thing to want to think about what you’re going to eat before a night out. And it would seem that eating out wasn’t part of your plan. The PASTA BAKE was discussed on the group chat. You could very easily have said ‘I live closest. I’ll sort out some food for us all’.

@endoftheworldniteclub I am so sorry. Ignore that and my other snipe. I should have known. This is as embarrassing as being chucked out of that bar in Sicily all those years ago.

Is that enough grovelling? I can do some more. I am really sorry for getting the wrong end of the stick;.

On a smaller scale, I’ve got a cup of tea incident. A friend and I met a work colleague in town one afternoon, and she asked us back to hers for a cuppa and catch up. She’d a really nice house but inside it was a tip. She picked up three cups from various tables and chair arms and wiped them all out thoroughly with a cloth she picked up from the floor, then disappeared to the kitchen with them to make the tea. On closer inspection the “cloth” was a pair of knickers.

Funnily enough my friend and I had both forgotten about urgent appointments and had to leave quickly. We couldn’t even finish our tea…

Think it's a bit ridiculous (unless you were all very hard-up students at the time) that someone would be 'splitting hairs' charging for a pasta bake! Possibly one of the cheapest meals to make.

Suspect it will turn out that they were the 'wealthiest' ones there too.

Some people are unbelievable skinflints about splitting relatively small costs. Think it's really distasteful!

Op says there were messages about the bake 2 weeks prior which she 'skimmed over'. It seems therefore that there had been discussion and agreement.

I guess you thought you could join in with a gang event but still do what you liked and not defer to the others.
Are you the sort of person in a house share who says 'well I'm only here three nights a week mostly why should I put money in the bread and milk kitty'
You skimmed over the pasta bake thing.
And you didn't pay towards it.
Someone was forced to pay your share and you didn't give a shit about them being out of pocket.
Your post is pretty judgy about this poor Hicksville peasant woman who brought a simply awful pasta bake to sophisticated London.
Are you Amanda in Motherland? 😁

YANBU, I’m still bemused by the pakora incident of 2009.

Indeed. But she hasn’t LITERALLY been thinking about this for 5 years as some posters are saying

Thanks for all these funny food stories!

I’m at home with a cold ibstead (that was a typo but I’ll leave it) of going out for our usual Sunday pub lunch. Or “bub ludge”, as I would say if I was speaking out loud.

So I’m going to award prizes for best food-related puns.
Lengokengo comes in first place, for still “processing” the minestrone soup incident.

OP Dangelis comes second, for being cheesed off about the pasta bake.
If you’d squeezed in a mention of “parkin” threads when you said you’d be asked to provide a diagram next, you’d have come first. Sorry to rub it in.

Third place still available.

The prize, needless to say, is a cheesy pasta bake.

All those blaming OP for “bringing it up” — that’s a bit gross for a Sunday morning, but it made me laugh anyway because that’s the sort of vulgar person I am.

Everyone else: keep the funny stories coming, please. While I’m snuffling anyway, I might as well be snorting with laughter. 😁