AIBU to ask a friend not to cook if she's coming over?

[verityeer]

"Bella" and I are good friends and meet up fairly regularly to play squash, grab a lunch, or even just have a glass of wine and a gab.

The last couple of times I've suggested we meet up, Bella has offered to come over to mine and cook. It's a lovely offer on paper, but we've done it twice now, and to be perfectly honest, I find it a bit more tedious than relaxing. Bella is a messy cook and whilst she always offers to tidy up, she isn't quite as thorough as me. She misses spots of sauce on the splashback, crumbs in the crevices, sink is soaked after doing the dishes. Wee things that would be fussy to hover over her for after she's just cooked us a meal, but I still have to do the next day in addition to the leftover dishes from actually eating the meal and the snacks afterwards. She takes a lot of pride in her cooking, and can get a wee bit antsy if she feels you haven't suitably praised her delicious meal. I appreciate her effort, but do prefer my own cooking. Her cooking leaves a lingering aroma, but she doesn't like to open the windows or use the extractor fan. We go the shops beforehand and split the cost, but I end up with all sorts of tubs of half-used things the next day, and it ends up costing the same as a meal out in the first place.

DH is away this weekend, and Bella has offered to come around and cook on Saturday night again. I've told her I'd love to see her, but would prefer to just get a takeaway and relax this weekend. She pushed back a few times, so I ended up being more direct and saying that while I love her company, I've just spent all week shopping, cooking, and cleaning and don't want to spend my whole weekend doing the same. Now Bella is miffed and feels I've snubbed her.

Am I being a miserly guts who should just enjoy the favour in the way it's intended? Or would you have put your foot down as well?

it is not a common issue. My home and all areas in it are for the family only. Visitors know where sofa, chairs toilet/bathroom are. Or beds for overnight stay. Nothing else is their concern for that matter.

yes and the majority of these people are English doing this to other English people whose nation is known to be highly individualistic.

Where I come from society is very multigenerational and so on but a neighbour and/or friend coming and behaving like this is totally unheard of.

I wouldn't have thought so either, but several people have commented saying similar things have happened to them or loved ones, or even that they've seen this post before! 😵‍💫

Er, no one involved in this post is English, so a bit of a non sequitur 😅

Regardless though, I'm sure selfish people exist in all cultures. We're all human at the end of the day.

Years ago a single friend invited herself to visit my family home, 3 kids 9-16.
She is very forceful about her food, no carbs and proceeded to insist on taking over my kitchen to cook her food every day.
It was so fxxking stressful.
I bit my lip until she went.
My husband and children made themselves scarce as I entertained her.
She was very petulant if she didn't have my undivided attention.🙄
She left and I never contacted her again.
She reached out recently about reconnecting, a 60th birthday trip to Europe no doubt. I simply never replied.
Never again.

I’m starting to feel a bit sorry for Bella but believe me OP that doesn’t mean she needs to be in your kitchen.
It is clear at some point she’s been told she’s a good cook.
She’s probably a bit lonely.
And now because she’s cooked for you twice, and spent the whole day with you, she wants to make it a routine.
What she really needs is a few more friends and a hobby, one where she gets to cook or do something else which she enjoys.
I think it’s really common for someone who is single to love being in someone else’s family home it can be very comforting - not everybody, but for some.
And so Bella may have had a strop because she’s engineered a whole day and evening where she gets to be the Galloping Gourmet and you get to watch in in awe.
Give her a bit of space but if I were you I would speak to her at some point. You don’t have to be brutal but you can see if you can enjoy time and activities together which are easier to negotiate.
If she really gets the hump after that, then let her have the hump.

If she is so keen to 'cook for you' (i can understand her getting sick of always cooking for one), and you can stomach one more of her not-quite-to-your-taste dishes, why not have her over for a 'potluck' style event next time?

she brings a dish (already prepared). you and/or your DH supply a different dish or two (or maybe a different course).

no need to go shopping together or give her money for ingredients. no need for her to mess up your kitchen/ utensils - at the most, you'd place her dish in the oven to heat through before serving. you tell her firmly that the extractor fan will be used whenever cooking happens in the kitchen.

she can take her casserole dish back home with her to wash it, if she isn't capable of using your kitchen to wash up and leaving it as sparkling and tidy as she found it.

Maybe you all (including Prospective Suitors) could go to one of the Learn to Cook type events that seem to be popping up at festivals and in community centres? In my area there's been one for dumplings (Chinese) and I think possibly some for Persian cuisine. Sometimes it's part of a bigger event like a theatre show, or part of an outreach effort.

If you think she'd like to spend more time together but you don't have as much free time as she does, is there anything you already do you could invite her along to? Like joining you on your casual dog walk? An hour or 2s amble and chat with a clear end point. (Just make sure you don't meet at your house, otherwise you'd have to ask her in 😅)

Bella needs to take charge of her life, not have OP jumping through hoops to fill her time and find her a boyfriend.

If you want the extractor fan on in your own kitchen you can insist on this surely?

@PeggyMitchellsCameo I agree with this. She's enjoying it as she gets to spend a lot longer with you and she gets to be in your family home. I know when I was going through my divorce I enjoyed going to friends' houses and having a chilled out evening with the families.

But she's not very considerate - if she really cared about YOU she would just bring a dish or at the very very least do the shopping and clean up properly.

But it really isn't your problem. Don't feel guilty for not indulging her, friendships go both ways. Your spare time is precious too. If she really wanted to see you she would just come for drinks and not throw a strop.

I would insist next time if she cooked in my kitchen again — it wasn't a big deal with the hunter's chicken, but the fried fish smell lingered. I posted upthread, but I'd been in the kitchen with her and could no longer smell it, until DH came in from the garden and said the house was honking of fish 😂

I think you're on the money here. I enjoy Bella's company a lot, and make a point of trying to see her for adult activities, as most of our mutual friends are now all parents and a lot of these meet ups are a lot more family orientated. Great for us, but not great for Bella 😕

After she'd split from her partner, DH and I realised she was monopolising quite a lot of our free time (wanting to go out to eat every weekend, always wanting to stay over after having drinks and staying up until the wee hours, wanting to come on family events like picnics in the park with DCs). We took a step back from the friendship for a while, and I feel like we've hit a good stride with squash fortnightly and then lunch or drinks once or twice a month. But Bella would probably love to go back to that, not understanding that it wasn't sustainable, was just us looking out for her after the breakdown of a ten year relationship.

It sounds pretty rude and thoughtless of her to keep imposing this on you. Having read all your updates/replies, I suspect she’s doing this for herself more than anything and is framing it as a treat/favour for you to make it difficult for you to say no - you’re being ungrateful, she’s only trying to help etc - in other words gaslighting! Her reaction to you putting your foot down says a lot as well, she obviously likes to get her own way.

I can’t imagine someone else cooking in my home. How bizarre.

I keep hoping for simple but delicious recipes on this thread 😅

Well after the latest update I think Bella just wants something which takes up most of Saturday. And whilst I can completely understand why (she’s probably a bit lonely) she can’t take up so much of your Saturday on a regular basis. If it wasn’t cooking it would doubtless be something else.

I totally understand her alleged loneliness, but being lonely is no excuse to impose her cooking needs on you, especially in your house. That's too much to bear. I have a friend who's a pastry chef, she sometimes comes over and bakes, but only if I'm on-board. If I were you, I'd stand firm and go with takeaway. It's your house after all. Your house, your rules.

I have a friend like this. Thinks it is nice to just come and use our space as her own and I’m really not that sort of person. For example, we had a family/friends do once and her partner brought his own things to cook outside on the bbq - fine, not bothered by that, other people did the same.

But what they didn’t say was the fact it was all raw ingredients and needed to be prepped and chopped etc in our kitchen.

So I’m outside trying not to lose my mind about someone rummaging through our cupboards and lo and behold he comes out about an hour later to tell me he’s sorted out my tuppaware cupboard, organised the spices and refilled my pepper grinder…

Just move in pal why don’t you? It was the pepper grinder that did me. Even felt the need to mention that he’d cleaned the bottom of it too before bringing it out in front of everyone.

So no, YANBU in my opinion

People on here must secretly really dislike their friends if they are resentful of them using their (gasp) utensils.

I don't dislike my friends. I love my utensils.

Tell her your cooker is broken.😄💪🏻

Maybe say your house one week, mine the next

Every other week utensil custody?!