To order an Indian takeaway while babysitting?

[IJustWantATakeaway]

I’m babysitting for my SIL and brother next weekend. I love doing it and love seeing their kids, but it always leaves me in a bit of a pickle in terms of getting dinner. I try not to order out because I’m losing weight, but this weekend I just want to treat myself.

I love Indian food but live at home and my dad cannot stand the smell of it. My mum thinks if I order it I’m being very rude and it’ll annoy them, but they always offer to pay for one so I don’t know if it’s a bit unreasonable?! How would you feel if your babysitter ordered Indian?

Interesting the amount of people posting here who are offended/disgusted by the smell of curry.

Remember that 'Indian food' to many people is simply 'food'.

We always pay for our paid babysitter’s takeaway. Can’t expect them to eat pasta and fish fingers

Can younot just ask your brother if he minds and say you were hesitant because your mum said about the smell

Either he will say its no problem, or say actually can you eat a different food as we can't stand the smell either?

We order indian a lot and love the smell, but maybe your mum has a super sensitive nose. My DH can't be in the house if I am using nail polish, it makes him feel physically sick. Which I think is really odd but your mum srems to have a similar sensitivity to Indian food.

All the people with their 'my house must smell amazing and I can not have Indian food smells' posts are making me laugh.

Your house probably stinks of some air freshener or stupid plintless smelly candle and your lungs are full of scent chemicals.
My house smells of nothing, or if I am cooking it smells of food for the half hour that I am cooking then the smell goes away again.
Walking into someones house and it smells of 'Autumnul Notes' or 'Turquoise sea breeze' is nausiating.

Get off your high horses, you think your house smells amazing, some of us think it is the scent equivelant of 'Live, Love, Laugh' stencilled onto the living room wall.

I don't think OP asking this makes her incompetent. I have never been a babysitter nor hired a babysitter so I clicked on the thread as I was curious as to the etiquette - had no idea!

Glad to discover it's generally considered fine, less glad to have to dodge sundry racism throughout the thread. Firstly curries smell delicious, secondly smells dissipate quickly. Open a bloody window.

You seem like lots of fun Eliza.

I once rented an apartment solely because of the wonderful Indian cooking smells coming from next door. Paid off too, I can now make a mean curry from scratch, courtesy of lovely neighbours.

Walking into someones house and it smells of 'Autumnul Notes' or 'Turquoise sea breeze' is nausiating. Get off your high horses, you think your house smells amazing, some of us think it is the scent equivelant of 'Live, Love, Laugh' stencilled onto the living room wall.

Absolutely this! 😅

Can you share some of the tips you learned please? 🙏 my curry making never quite hits

🤣

Exactly. I’ve babysat a lot but I always take something with me or I would just skip dinner. As it goes my plans have changed so I think I’ll be taking a ready meal with me instead but I’m glad to know it would generally be deemed okay!

It's not taking a liberty.

Your mum is the weird one in this situation and its her hang up.

Crack on and enjoy your Indian.

I wouldn't like my house to smell. If it smelt of kippers, stale fat or curry, I wouldn't like it. I just didn't want to write a long list of foods I don't want my house to smell. Is that clear enough? The OP asked about one sort of takeaway so that's what I responded to.

Get the takeaway !

Who the hell refers to food as cheeky? Are you very young or do you think that's how young uns talk these days?

My brothers coming to babysit for us this weekend and I don’t care what he orders I’m just so grateful he’s doing it!

I want an Indian now!!

Your original post stated the following
"If I'd hired a babysitter and came home to a house smelling of curry, I wouldn't be pleased. Any other takeaway, I wouldn't mind as long as they'd cleared up afterwards."
So you literally stated that any other takeaway would be fine. Just not curry.

No offence meant! I love cooking curries but I can definitely smell it in my house for a day or 2 after.

My main point was though that a takeaway, where you haven’t sweated down the spices, or slow cooked the meat for hours on your stove should not cause any lingering smells at all.

So brave! 🤣👍

Me too. Definitely getting one on Saturday.

It's all a bit 1970s, isn't it? There was so much racism back then about 'curry smells', before we adopted chicken tikka masala as our national dish. So Im afraid I wonder if OP's mother is still carrying a bit of that.

Food does tend to smell, and we all have our preferences - I love Indian cooking but the smell of bacon makes me want to heave, which I know puts me in a very small minority. But I would put up with a lot of bacon smells to get free babysitting, and I expect these parents feel the same.

Good for you! You couldn’t have paid me enough to live there, so I’m glad it suited you.

I’m curious about "I put a lot of effort into keeping the house smelling nice”.

How bad is your house that it takes a lot of effort to mask the smell?

It’s beautiful precisely because I have no need to mask the strong smell of food 🙂

You're right - sorry. I wasn't really thinking what other sorts of takeaway there were as I actually never have takeaways.