Would you (like my MIL) feel "cheated" if you didn't have an Iceland-type cake spread after a buffet?

[Moomin]

For my 40th in a few weeks time , for the food we are doing crisps, nuts, crudities and dips on every table, then french bread bagettes with posh fillings mid-evening.

For pud I'm borrowing a choc fondue and doing stuff to dip in on the main table (marshmallows, fruit, etc) and then I thought it would be good to have bowl of sweeties and chocs on every table. MIL is 'panicking' that people will expect an array of gateaux as far as the eye can see. I think it would be unncessary and naff.

if she wants the cakes, let her provide them.

personally i think that if its a party, more food is better than less food. in fact i dont think you can have too much food, ever.

moomin we did the choc fountain at DS's wedding it was such a hit, just make sure you have LOTS of strawberries and cherries (I bought a cherry pipper from Lakeland was much easier)

I am so unfashionable.

I love buffet food, especially cheese and pineapple on sticks, vol au vents, sausage rolls, finger rolls and crisps.

But yours sounds lovely! Can I come please?

I have been to 2 parties in the last few months where virtually the only thing there was to eat was cake. It wasn't really a good idea tbh.

The word gateau itself is so 70s/80s!!

Whats in the baguettes?
I would feel cheated if I came to a 40th and got baguettes.....

However, I would be over the moon if I came to find a bucket full of fresh baguettes, and Camembert, Port Salut and Brie, a tray of smoked salmon, a bowl of Scrambled eggs, coronation chicken, selection of cured meats, rocket, lettuce, sliced cucumber for me to make my OWN perfect baguette!

For pudding? Melon & Pineapple fruit salad? Sliced up Jam roll? Or chocolate log?

I think you will run around like crazy to fill up little bowls on individual tables. Better to have one long table with foods, it encourages people to get out of their seats and strike up conversations here and there.

Message withdrawn

Having said that I don't understand the appeal of chocolate fountains/fondues either.

I just prefer savoury tbh (followed by profiteroles!)

I want some of the crudities. Don't have to be fresh.

ooo hark at Quintessential and her bagette fillings!!

It will be fresh french bread, beef off the joint with horseradish; ham off the joint with summat (maybe posh pickle) and brie & cranberry. LOads of kettle crisps and nuts on table, loads of fresh crudities on tables. and dips.

It's the kind of food that I like and it's my party, so everyone's stuck
with it. Live band, lots of bubbly and buckets of ice for bring a bottle too.

and several teenage dds of my friend who will bring stuff out when we swap courses. Don't plan on running round re-filling bowls - Crisps and dips will already be on tables then for pud the girls will just swap the crisps for big glass bowl of sweets and little choc bars for each table and leave it at that.

Oh please dont hark at me Just got carried away into my own private baguette heaven!

Your stuff sounds nice enough to me, can I come?

psml at your MIL Moomin.#
Is she the knid who would also have plastic compartment thingies of vile sloppy dips?? Bleaarghh!!

Prawn rings.
The ear wax of Beelzebub.

lol at Beelzebub's ear wax - euuuwwwwwwwwww. Made more so by the fact that Kerry Katona endorses them of course.

I received at least two complimentary comments much acclaim on MN the other week when I called DElia's frozen mash 'dog cough'

MIL is the kind who cannot, cannot give you anything without it being wrapped in about 3 plastic bags to transport home.
Spare clean socks for the dds that were in the changing bag when they went to stay come back in the changing bag within a plazzy bag.
Portions of coq au vin that she cooks as a treat for dh (I'm not joking) come in a tupperware box and a plastic freezer bag and a sainsbury's plastic bag.

She is singularly responsible for global warming.

...you could get a cake specially made by an artisan baker...otherwise you will get a cake/gateaux and everyone will say "oh, they shop at Waitrose/Marks/Tesco/Iceland then" as they are so obvious...!

I've given up with the cake. I know full-well that MIL will have organised this and paid for it as a present, which I am of course grateful for... but it will be a square dry fruitcake, coverd in horrible white icing which I hate and a big 40 in pink icing, possibly decorated with silver balls on the top. And she will cut it into 3000 pieces and put them into serviettes (and then into a freezer bag no doubt) to give out to guests as they leave.

I can only dream of a mountainous chocolate ganache a la choccywockydoodar.... oh well.

Ah Moomin, you describe it so well.
Brilliant.

Oh this has made me laugh. Don't forget a couple of bottles of lovely sweet Lambrusco. Red wine should only be drunk with Yorkie bars.

Cod - talking of prawn-rings and vol-au-vents, was your MIL a bridesmaid and did you witness the event?

I think I'll just try to get MIL bladdered so that she forgets about the cake.

Whatever I decide to do it will come back to bite me on the arse the week after my party, when it will be time for MIL's At Home for FIL's birthday.

Oh, do post!
My worse ever do was a distant relative's Christening reception for their kid in a social club in Staffordshire.

Full blast disco at 2:00 pm in the afternoon, a rash of kids in sunthetic fabrics, tattoed blokes mainlining Lamber & Butler and the food! The food! |Dear God it was unspeakable.

I do think YABU about her cake however

it might not be to your taste but I think it is rude to bitchy about her getting you a cake because it is not stylish enough

This isn't a AIBU thread, it's a 'MIL has mental ideas about party foods' thread, so I feel well within my rights to blather on about the cake and whatnot . Of course I'd never say owt to her about the cake to her face - even I'm not that crass ; that what's mumsnet is for, isn't it? being able to rant (sometimes unreasonably) about everyone in our lives that aren't as perfect as us....

Unless you are my MIL in disguise...., in which case, then I do apologise and I am ashamed of my dreadful and ungrateful behaviour, Margaret.

Your party, you choose the food.

My elder stepson is having his Bar Mitzvah party in a couple of weeks and my partner came home yesterday evening having just met with the caterers to decide on the menu. The main course is going to be... cod . At a party that is going to cost well in excess of 20,000 euros. Is it possible to think of something more boring?

But I can't and won't say anything. Not my party.

...Also re. the cake... MIL will be spending at least £40 on this (if dh's cake is anything to go by) and will get 'the woman from down the avenue' to do it. I would MUCH rather she save her £40 and put it towards a couple of bottles of bubbly for herself to drink on the night. (plus it gets her bladdered, so 2 birds with 1 stone and all that)

I love cake and am not fond of fruit. I would never do a buffet wityhout some kind of cake afterwards, its the best part.