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?

This.

And pasts is cheap as all get-out. You could easily feed 6 people out of a 500g bag of pasta (what did that cot at the time? A quid for the posh stuff? Even now you can get supermarket "no-frills" pasta for about 55p for a 500g bag), plus another couple of quid for the sauce, vague aroma of cheese, and a head of broccoli.- I wouldn't have shown myself up by asking for money TBH if I'd been her.o you think she was just pee'd off because:

a) no-one offered her any cash so she could say "No - honestly! I don't want anything for this magnificent bake I spent hours on

b) nobody said how delicious it was, and insisted they have the recipe (I couldn't possibly give it to you - it's my grandmother's special sauce) and

c) everybody left most of it.

Perhaps a response like that made her insist on telling you how complicated, special and difficult it was to make and demand the money for the ingredients from you ungrateful barstewards.

This is the sort of thing that would float back into my mind every now and then, too @Dangelis when (say) it was the anniversary of that night, or we were planning another trip to a show, or when I was in an Italian restaurant, or when I passed the Dolmio aisle in Tesco.

(By the way - did everybody eat your crisps and cold meats? That would have stung her when she has prepared an Umbrian feast of delights)

"Big assumption. You don't know it was suggested, discussed and agreed."

No bigger than your assumption that it wasn't.

OP said there were comments about a pasta bake and money that she scrolled past, which certainly confirms that it was suggested and discussed.

The fact that she did in fact turn up with the food and ask for money suggests that it was also agreed. Had everyone said no thank you, I doubt she'd have brought it. If she had been shouting 'pasta bake' into an unresponsive void, I think op would have remembered that detail given how scathing she has been about a kind gesture from a mutual friend five years ago.

@Dangelis Yabu but I really enjoyed this story 😂especially the place names.

I still occasionally think about a Fettuccine Alfredo and I wasn’t even there for it.

A friend had a neighbor who made a big to-do about teaching him to make Alfredo sauce. She said it was disgraceful that he didn’t know how to make it from scratch. She had him over to her house for a lesson.

It contained loads of flour and sherry. I did end up tasting some of it because she sent it home with him. It was awful. And I still wake up sometimes screaming “Alfredo doesn’t have flour in it!!!!!”

Whenever someone goes on and on about their own food, it’s probably not going to be very good.

Before someone calls me unkind, I’ll confess. This woman was one crazy bitch and I have a dozen stories about her, including the time I rescued a starving exchange student from her house. I don’t feel bad.

You know, I opened this thread expecting it to be very dull, but I have been entranced by the whole thing.
And FWIW, OP, I am also the kind of person who thinks about things like this endlessly and unprofitably.

The pasta bake sounds vile. I am surprised that whoever cooked it couldn't have done so at the Air BNB. It doesn't take long to make and it's disgusting anyway.

Yuk. Down with pasta bake. Especially badly-cooked pasta bake. I would not have paid a penny for it.

Well I still think about a pasta bake incident from 1992!

I was invited by a work colleague to come over for dinner - her DH was going to make his "famous" pasta bake. When I arrived cooking had not been started (not a problem) so we had a cup of tea. The Dh started cooking and work colleague bigged up the famous pasta bake. So first a claggy bowl of penne came out of the fridge (left over from the kids tea the previous day) - it was so stuck together it kept its bowl shape when tipped into the Le creuset oven dish and had to be broken up with a fork. Then an onion and green pepper were chopped and thrown over the pasta. The final flourish was a large bottle of plain passata was poured over - so no herbs, no cheese and no salt/pepper ...

After 15-20 minutes in the oven it was declared "done" and we sat to bowls of mushy pasta, watery tomatoes and raw onion/pepper. I do not know where the pasta bake achieved its "fame" ... perhaps its infamy was a family joke that they hadn't quite understood

I didn't make an assumption that it wasn't. I pointed out that your assumption was daft and that there were any number of other possibilities, including the possible scenario I outlined.

The fact that she turned up with food and asked for money does NOT indicate it was all agreed, it could just as easily indicate that she is a CF who just does what she wants.

Seriously, you need to stop with the assumptions. You know what they say about assuming....

"She didn't say it was " a charcuterie".

And yes, it is. It is much much weirder."

Apologies, a charcuterie board or a charcuterie selection, whichever is your preferred description - "small charcuterie type stuff."

And the rest is all subjective isn't it.

I should have said "pig bits"

I have a fondness for pig bits, myself. Not trotters, though. They're grim!

OP is just sharing an anecdote 5 years later, it's not weighing heavily on her soul. We all have these mildly amusing grumbles, here's mine:
As postgraduate students 6 of us planned a 5 mile riverside walk to a pretty ruined abbey. We agreed to bring picnic food. Philippa had made a great fuss about making a carrot cake to bring. Unfortunately we had very much idealised the walking element and dressed for a Downton Abbey picinic in floaty dresses and ballet flats, with the men in linen suits. The riverside was massively overgrown with giant hogweed and nettles, brambles etc and it was a very very hot, overcast, insecty day so none of us was really appropriately dressed. We arrived hot, scratched, bitten and irritable. The abbey was beautiful but when we unpacked the picnic, I had brought cold cocktail sausages and a salad, Philippa had her much feted carrot cake which was an enormous dry wheel that weighed a ton, no one else had brought anything, or a knife to cut the cake, or any water! It's fair to say that when the swarm of bees arrived and chased us away from the cake we were all silently grateful to catch the bus back to the city, waiting at the bus stop right outside the high security prison in our Edwardian picnic clothes we felt every inch the prats we were!

I still occasionally think about a Fettuccine Alfredo and I wasn’t even there for it. A friend had a neighbor..

@AliceOlive 😂😂

I havent read everything however enough to understand…
yes completely ok to have a lighthearted annoyance at a random event from years ago - lots of people do this when something equally as random triggers a nemory
and also - I enjoy a charcuterie too and I’m not in the least bit snobby 😂 cracks me up that charcuterie is snobby - give over - who wants a full on bloaty past bake before a night out

EVERYTHING else I’ve skimmed over. This is a light hearted post people!!!

She had set her cap at your friend, hadn't she?

He had to move to Venezuela under an assumed name to shake her off, didn't he?

Photos of the pasta bake…or it didn’t happen 😝

No, not a charcuterie board at all, a "few small charcuterie type bits" ie a packet of mixed salume from Tesco.

I don't think its very subjective, no. What's weirder to eat while getting ready for a night out....a handful of nibbly bits with a drink, or massive trays of watery, mushy, recooked, possibly poisonous pasta bake? If we asked a hundred people, do you really think anyone would say the latter was less weird?

"I didn't make an assumption that it wasn't. I pointed out that your assumption was daft and that there were any number of other possibilities, including the possible scenario I outlined."

Was a pasta bake offered? Yes
Was it discussed? Yes.

Was it agreed that she should bring it and everyone contribute towards the cost?
Well, we'll never know. OP didn't pay attention at the time, five years have passed and none of us were there.

I would - tentatively, as you seem cross - suggest that she had some positive affirmations otherwise she wouldn't have brought it. That is my interpretation. You are perfectly at liberty to interpret it differently.

The only thing definite - weird to still be thinking about it 5 years later, and weird for some mn posters to be quite so cross on op's behalf about a very trivial thing.

I don’t hold a grudge (honestly!) about it 20 years on, but I remember when DC1 was a tiny baby and DH’s family came to visit. I’d made what I thought was plenty of chilli for lunch with loads of tortillas/ tacos etc (enough for about 6 each). Just as we sat down baby woke for a feed, and I breastfed her in a different room so the family weren’t uncomfortable. When she’d finished, all the good was gone .

I blame DH for not saving me any of the food (and I genuinely thought there was more than enough), but I was obviously still hungry so made myself a massive pile of toast.

Now though I am known for massively over- catering when we have guests- I always make far too much ‘just in case’. I think it may stem from that time.

Too funny, I'd have done similar.

Although DP if he doesnt like a dish I make merely says "maybe best we dont have that again for some time, but it was nice " while I'm throwing my portion and the leftovers away, wondering if we have enough eggs for a quick omelette.

You’re not wrong for not wanting the pasta bake (I wouldn’t have) but not reading the group chat and just saying ‘I’ll look after my own food- no pasta bake for me thanks’ is a bit out of order- why wouldn’t you just give it the time of day since you were invested enough to pay for the event and accommodation?

"I don't think its very subjective, no."

Ah well, if you can't accept that food choice is subjective I fear you are in for a lifetime of irrational anger.

@Dangelis didn't read the paste-bake-related conversation.

Everyone might have said "Oh no - honestly it's really kind of you to offer but we'd rather have something light etc"

And the Pasta-bake friend might have thought "Bugger that! It's made and sitting in the freezer so they're bloody well getting it!"

It was Taormina. There were four couples and we'd met round the hotel pool that day. We'd been for dinner separately but agreed to meet for a late drink at a public terrace just inside the city walls. In the daytime you can see Mount Etna across the bay; at night the view is more limited but it's still charming with fairy lights and everything. It's shared by a couple of bars who obviously have their own tables so know whose customers are whose. It's a very popular spot so we were lucky to get a table - or so we thought.

She was quite well oiled when she turned up. She ordered a Brandy Alexander and when the waiter brought it she complained there wasn't enough nutmeg on it. He apologised, probably thinking: "Strange, normally people say 'there isn't enough brandy in this'" and took it away and came back with more nutmeg sprinkled on. She said: "Sorry (in that way that means you're not sorry at all) That's not enough nutmeg." He brought it back and it was so covered in nutmeg it looked like a swamp. She said loudly: "Do you even know how to make cocktails here?" while the rest of us, including her husband, were all going "Mmm! This is the nicest Long Island iced Tea I've ever had. Is that a Cuba Libre? Can I try some? Mmm! Lovely!".

All these smart Italians were staring at us.

He brought back a nutmeg and a little grater and handed it to her. She grated away until there was a small hillock of nutmeg rising out of the glass. Then she drank it and had a nutmeg moustache.

One of us asked pathetically if we could get another round of their delicious cocktails and he said: "No. We're finished. This is your bill."

We slunk off except for her who was going: "That was shit, wasn't it?"

Like I said, we tried to go back but they said there wasn't a table for the next hour or for the rest of our lives.

It is a lovely spot though and I recommend it. Just don't say I sent you in case it's the same people.

I made a large tray of lasagne for my husband to take with him when he went on a fishing trip with his mates. The rest are all single guys (if that makes a difference). Honest to god, it's almost a year later and every time I meet one of them he still goes on about the amazing lasagne. It's rather bizarre 😂
There was nothing really special about it at all, I'm sure I used jars 😂
I now have to make him a portion every time I make it for my family.

You are assuming again. I'm not cross, how very odd of you to even suggest it (not to mention arrogant!) Youre also still assuming lots not in evidence about this scenario.

You can be as tentative as you like, you don't seem to understand that there are plenty of people who are steamrollers, they do what they want to do. They assume that people want what they want, or they assume that their opinions are more important.
With you continual heartfelt insistence that pastabake woman was being kind and generous, you are coming across as very much the type of person who would act in a similar way. You might want to reflect on that.

And it is not weird at all to still think about something from 5 years ago. Some of us have a rich inner life and thikn about all kinds of things that didn't just happen yesterday!

@Emotionalsupportviper Hmmm I don’t think so as he was/is a confirmed bachelor. She did make quite a living off doing his ironing and making his lunches, though.

He hated her food but was otherwise unwilling to take care of himself so he would often accept whatever she offered. He drew the line at sandwiches for dinner though. Sandwiches are not dinner.