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?

Do you live on porridge?

You never cook onions, meat, garlic, tomatoes, brassicas and you never bake? Taste is comprised to about 80% of smell.

I’d rather turn on the extractor fan when cooking than eat food which has no noticeable smell and consequently tastes of next to nothing.

As for “beautiful smell” - well that is in the nose of the beholder, food is not the only source of smell in a house. So if you avoid cooking food with any significant flavour, why is it "a lot of effort” to keep it “smelling nice”?

Yeah, same. I remember asking someone to put the wrappers etc in the outside bin And they looked at me as if I was mad. I just don’t like my house stinking of stale food.

I totally missed this thread picking up traction- those who asked why RE a paid gig-

purely because I myself would be too awkwardly polite to want to dispose of takeaway boxes etc in their home (it’s always so greasy etc) and also I worry about undisclosed allergies. I might do if I’d known them reasonably well and cleared it first.

getting rid of takeaway rubbish in my own house is annoying enough lol

i think the idea of smells and the lady who said she’d be furious is nuts though. —and absolutely casually racist wtf—

This. Makes me feel so awkward and uncomfortable as a south Asian.

If the smell of certain foods makes me throw up and someone brought that into into my home without my consent when I wasn't there, why shouldn't I be furious? It's MY house!

Your mum is hypersensitive because your dad has banned it from the house. It does not mean that this is in any way normal 😆

Different things smell badly to different people.

If they would get an Indian takeaway/fish and chips/eggs/fermented stuff/other smelly things home themselves, it is fine to have it as well.

I would be mightily unimpressed if someone brought a hot dill sauce, because that smells really bad to me, and it would feel like a hostile takeover of my home.

I think OP is being very considerate to ask. We all have smells we hate. I can't eat garlic. It tastes disgusting and the smell is awful. That rules out loads of pre-made food of all kinds of nationalities. If you came to my house and cooked anything garlic I'd be smelling it for days and living with my windows open.

Curry is a smell that lingers, in the same way that fish lingers. I also feel sick when people fry beef steak. The fat on it is a smell that I can't stand. I also don't enjoy coffee or leather, so I'm not a fan of cafés (both coffee and the frying food smells) or shoe shops.

But of course, MN says I'm racist 🙄

You do realise you’re doing them a favour? I’d tell them first but I’d be annoyed if they had a problem with it

Your parents seem to be hypersensitive about the smell of Indian food. It’s spices not a skunk.

Agree with this, OP could have made the exact same thread about wanting to have fish and chips or egg sandwiches. When threads pop up about whether of not it's OK to eat fish or eggs in the office or on the train, people have no qualms about saying no.

Some foods leave an odour. OP's worried about leaving an odour. The very obvious answer is to ask bro if it's all right.

The snobby, classist posts about "only liking bland food" and Zoflora and "live, laugh, love" and so on are silly and irrelevant, but entirely predictable.

The only problem I see with this with my own db is that i would step in the door and smell the food and get hungry. So I probably would order an extra korma or whatever for them.

What do you eat? Do you life of plain pasta and porridge?

Ha! Not at all. Actually, I never eat plain pasta and rarely have porridge. I'm sure you know there are other foods beside curry, pasta and porridge. I cook and eat just about everything - including curry! I just hate my house to smell.

Wow, do you get offers fir free babysitting? No way I would do it for you.

I’m half Indian. I don’t think it’s racist to acknowledge that Indian food is more fragrant due to the spices we use in our cooking. But sometimes conversations such as this does hit a nerve as “Indians are smelly” is a common racist trope. Especially now where anti-Indian sentiment is rife right now online.

Thank goodness for that! I’d never want you to, if you somehow feel entitled to order hot food into someone else’s home.

How do you cope if you’re walking past a house that’s cooking it?
my neighbours cook a lot of Indian food and I can smell it when it wafts into my house, or when I’m in the garden

I'm the same, I'm just very picky and don't like pungent smells or strong flavours. I hate there to be any food smells in the house and have windows open and doors shut as I cook.

It's unpleasant and I shut the windows until it's no longer in the air.

Order food but not smelly food like Indian that’ll make their house stink.

I love MN for this kind of statement 😁

I can only imagine how that can make you feel. It is very fragrant but then again I eat absolutely loads of fish which can stink the house out. I even considered putting a grill outside once!

Lovely OP, take a candle, have your indian, put rubbish in the outside bin, light a candle. The candle will help with any smell (which I doubt they'd be bothered about anyway, but it will make you feel better and thats a good thing)

I'd probably be gutted if you ordered Indian to mine without mentioning it though, OP, because I'd love to ask you to order me one for when I get home