I'm sick of running the 24hr "Corona Cafe" !

[Pebbles574]

DH and two young adult DSs at home and I am just TOTALLY fed up with all the food shopping (online), delivery & putting away, stocking, checking and constantly restocking the fridge, freezer and larder and the ENDLESS meals, snacks, cups of tea and coffee etc etc.

We take it in turns to cook dinner, but the mental load is still mine ("what shall I cook"/ "I don't know what to make"/ "how do a defrost XYZ" etc).

Also, I have a food intolerance which means that I can't eat a lot of ready meal type food (including soups and pasta sauces) so I tend to make stuff from scratch for me. But I AM THE ONLY ONE WHO DOES THIS!
So for example today I made a huge batch of bacon, tomato and lentil soup which I thought would see me well into next week for lunches.
I said there was a small bowl each for lunch today, but to leave the rest to cool.
Then I came downstairs to find them all having massive bowls and seconds, emptying the pan and finishing off the loaf of bread which only just arrived this morning!

And it’s a constant round of nagging to get people to load and empty the dishwasher, and anything that needs handwashing just gets left on the side.

I really am totally fed up!

Anyone else want to rant too?

The food they 'reserve' if this is snacks, can they do their own Amazon order for their snacks? If it doesn't come in this box, they are not reserving it.
My mum used to mark food that was not up for grabs - this was obviously before the days of covid and involved her putting all the food away but it controlled the teens.

@RosesAndHellebores £1000 a month!! I hope your adult children are contributing towards that!!

Gousto has saved my sanity since last March
Four meals a week that I don't have to think about and much easier for others to cook a few nights a week as step by step instructions and they know where all the ingredients are.
I really really want to go out for a meal soon

@LilyE1234

Please stop raising your adult sons to be like this! They’ll end up being some poor woman’s lazy partner who just sees her as a cook and a cleaner. Break. The. Cycle.

I don't raise mine to be lazy. As I said in my post I'm only doing one meal a day. They have to change their own beds (so end up festering in manky sheets) when they do stuff and ask for 'help' I tell them to use their fucking brains. Hopefully any partner will give them the same short shrift. How about we raise our daughters not to fall onto the default of doing all the housework? Raise our sons not to expect to be catered on by women and to do their fare share? Between the two approaches we might get somewhere.

Glad its not just me! My family seem to eat me out of house and home TBH! I always feel embarrassed if I have a big shop in SB, or have to go a second time .On top of DH popping to local store as well! Have given up wondering what we spend on food now! Take away from local gorgeous shop F and C ,and a weekly treat of Salmon cooked various ways, helps the "If its Tuesday its got to be Sausages" sort of thing but I hear you its exhausting thinking of 100 ways to do mince and what to have for Lunch as well as dinner!

And when u ask them if they want anything adding to the shopping delivery - “No”
Oh, so u don’t want to eat or drink anything next week then ?????
Drives me MAD !!!!!!!

This is one thing good about lockdown. My girls who are 10 & 12 were shown in the first few weeks basic cooking skills. Scrambled eggs on toast, smoothies, pancakes, pasta and cheese, salads, omelettes etc
Now, I make one decent meal a day for the 3 of us, and we get ourselves our own for the other two. They know not to ask me what they should have. I explained to them quite clearly it's not my job to do their thinking.

The 3 people you live with op, are rude, selfish and thoughtless.

Share the mental load as well as the practicalities; adult DCs have to provide a takeaway or hellofresh/ gousto weekly.

We had this once, DH was cooking and asking me what to cook. I told him that no way, deciding is half the work. He hasn't done it again.

My DH is doing a basic meal tonight for us, somehow though he is using all of the pots and pans we have, how i'm not sure!

Op, are you really surprised at what happened with the soup?

Why did you offer them any at all?

I prefer my my main meal at lunch time, so can't see a problem with that.

If they "cook" their lunch, then what happens for their evening meal-do they not just make themselves something lighter then?

Empathising and despairing all in one go here OP.

So many entitled DC and useless DHs. Where do we all go wrong?

I actually have a DH who is a decent cook and can prepare an interesting dinner far better than I can but because of the way our working lives fall, I end up doing all the boring mid week stuff. But I so get you about the 'mental load' thing. DH will literally stand next to the cupboard and say 'have we got any x?' even though he could look in the damned cupboard faster than he could ask me. I tear strips off him every time and tell him to bloody use his eyes and look, but it's the fact he even DOES it that drives me nuts.

I have managed to train DC that one cooked meal a day is the max they are getting (I make sandwich lunches before I go to work so they would not dare ask 'what's for lunch?'). They get a hot dinner and are expected to be grateful. I hate cooking with a passion (and tell them, on a very regular basis, that I hate it and they are lucky to get anything), so they are generally grateful and relieved to get any offering.

I would genuinely and honestly rather give DC a pill than cook them a meal and they know this and accept whatever they're given.

I know I need to teach them to cook. But like others can't stand the mess and as plenty have pointed out, the mental load would remain anyway...

YANBU about everything else, but YABU about how much they're eating. Expecting a 6ft tall 21 year old to be full on a small bowl of soup or a toastie is just unrealistic.

Why are you shopping for the adults anyway?

Oh God, OP, you say it for me.

What's for lunch?
What's for supper?
Where's my big mug how the fuck should I know ?
We've run out of milk (cue argument with siblings over who had one teaspoonful more than another - these are ADULTS)

Oh, and my absolute favourite: leaving absolutely everything perishable just lying around, unwrapped, unrefrigerated - and carefully putting any empty wrappers/boxes back where they belong, so that the next person (me) finds that the thing they've been looking forward to is no longer there.

One of mine is a daughter, BTW. She is arguably the worst of the lot.

"one cooked meal a day is the max they are getting"

Same here-althogh it's cooked lunch for everyone.

If you want another hot meal you make it yourself-not using anything that is for other lunches before the next shop.

I thought that this was pretty much the norm!

I’m with you! We have 4 children aged 9 to 20, all home due to Uni being online etc. Yes the older 2 do cook a lot for themselves, particularly as they don’t eat meat, but I can’t quite believe what I’m spending on food. Husband cooks but I tell him ‘you are cooking tonight’ which he’s fine about but I usually have to go and buy the damn food! Girls do cook too but again I have to prompt and get it all.
I cook everything from scratch mostly too but I bought cook at home curries, 3 different ones!, last night and it was a bloody treat!!

'I'm making my own food for this week so that it's fine for me to eat - see here, these containers? That's MY soup/casserole/whatever. If any of you touch it, I won't even order the food shop next week. I'll completely bow out and absolutely all of the thinking and planning will not get done. Try me. Ok?'

Then happily eat your food, ask them once what they want in the order, shrug if anything isn't to their liking, and leave them all to cook. 'I don't know. I've eaten. You work it out.'

I felt like this during lockdown 1.0. After a while, DH stepped up and has for about nine months made at least one dinner (for us all) each week. Tonight, he is doing a baked Camembert and a baguette to start and then mussels and french fries for main. Ds and I will eat most things, so it’s nice to get out of the rut of meals that I make on a fortnightly basis and have something a bit different.

I am absolutely with you on the planning, shopping, putting away, deciding and then actually cooking it though. It feels relentless. And we are spending loads on food as it has taken on such importance.

Gusto has been my go to since March. 4 meals a week that I don’t need to think about and easy to follow recipes so anyone can cook. We were going to cancel after the initial 4 week offer had run out but atm it’s less to shop for and actually worked out not much more than we’d spend anyway on 4 meals for 5 people. Xx

@Pebbles574

Oh and DH and his lack of planning . . .

Me, on night before delivery, confirming order online: "Do you want me to order anything in particular for you to cook this week?"
DH : "No, just get the usual, that's fine."

DH (day after delivery): "Have we got any sausages?"
Me: "No, you didn't ask for sausages. There's mince, turkey, chicken, salmon and pork though . . ."
DH (with an audible sigh) "Oh, I just assumed you'd get sausages. I'll have to pop down to the crap overpriced shop and risk getting covid"
Me:

@Pebbles574 This this this! Before I do my list I ask DH and adult DC’s any meals they fancy this week. I always get the same answer just the usual. But then we have the sad faces when we don’t have a particular ingredient in.

I would quote my DM if they dared to ask what was for lunch.
"Shit and sugar sandwiches"
Just stop doing it.

New rules
Breakfast and lunch is DIY.
Rota for clearing up kitchen/ dishwasher.
Dont reply to where, what, why questions.
Buy reasonable amounts , once its gone its gone.
Meal plan on the fridge, shopping list next to it.

It’s only me and DH so it’s not so bad. But I want to eat one thing I didn’t have to think about.
When the cafes open again I just want to go somewhere and not even think about where we are going.

@Spodge

I feel for you. I'm royally fed up of all this catering and there's only DH and me!

I am sick of it too!!! I do all the cooking annoyingly. Why does it feel so much worse in lockdown?

I do the online shopping , plan lunches and dinners , I buy cereals and bread for breakfast and fruit , biscuits and crisps for snacks. My teens are then given an allowance for any snacks they want outside of this , so that they shop for them themselves.

They are generally respectful of these things and everyone is well fed. I'm sorry that some of you live with such animals!