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What to tell OOTers to bring to T-giving?
I am hosting Thanksgiving- my M,F,S&BILs are all coming from out of town. They live 4-5 hrs away and always want to bring food and it creeps/grosses me out! I hate the idea of food that was made who-knows-when then being put in a car/train, traveling for 5 hrs on the interstate @ who knows what temperature (in the car w/ my IL's dog & my smoking FIL.) Also my MIL has brought semi/non-cooked food down here before and commandeered my oven and that's not what I want to be dealing with when I host my first Thanksgiving.
S&BIL were down this weekend and SIL asked what she could bring for Thanksgiving and I said wine. She grimaced- I know MIL will ask the same thing.
I was not raised where Thanksgiving/Christmas were potluck events- the hostess always did the majority of the cooking and maybe one or 2 guests would bring an item each that was her specialty or something my mom didn't like to make. How can I gently tell them this/steer them towards brining non-perishable stuff?
Re: What to tell OOTers to bring to T-giving?
It is always interesting to hear how other families do things - LOL. I think your suggestion to the family members to bring wine - is fine. Since you get creeped out by temperature issues-make sure you kindly suggest RED since whites are typically refrigerated. Along that same line-if there is a cocktail peeps like-ask them to bring a bottle of vodka, etc. Typically $25 even for a good brand. Essentially around the same costs of when I bring a potluck size item to share for a group.
For the others where you don't want perishables or baked items to take over your kitchen - I would suggest asking them to bring crackers or the like to keep kiddos happy (if they are coming). Something you know is non-perishable. Tell them you're making a great dip or something and you'll need extra varietals of crackers.
Finally, and perhaps on a charitable note-kindly (after all, they are just trying to be helpful) tell them that you're happy to host, you've got your system down and this year, you and the DH have decided to ask guests to bring non-perishable items to bring to your local food shelf, or church. Think about it- most people bake pies, cookies, chips/dips, crudite, cheese...and it can be upwards of $20-$25 - why not spend it towards helping others?
I agree with telling them that their presence is more than enough and to please not worry about bringing anything else with them. Stress to them that you understand how far they have to travel to attend your dinner, and you don't want to burden them with anything more.
If they just refuse to take no for an answer, ask them to bring a pie.
I don't think she gets creeped out by a bottle of white coming to room temperature. I think she's grossed out by the thought of cooked chicken sitting out for 5 hours and then being eaten (which is a very BAD idea, by the way).
I'm Team Dessert if they absolutely insist on bringing something. Pie, brownies, cake, etc. Nothing that requires refrigeration. The last thing you want are people getting sick on Thanksgiving because of spoiled food.
Just because your family didn't do it as a pot luck doesn't make it OK to declare that your ILs have to do it that way, too. I know a lot of people on here get upset by that fact, but the fact is: it is a family holiday. To many people, you don't dream of going to a family holiday without contributing to the meal. (It's kinda the whole concept of the first Thanksgiving, ya know?)
Anyway, why even worry about it? Tell them each to bring a dessert and move on with your life. One can bring the pumpkin pie, the other a fruit pie. You don't have to eat it.
And here's another fact - driving 5 hours with food out-of-temperature is disgusting and simply BEGGING for a foodborne illness. And if I'm cooking dinner in my kitchen, I don't want my guests running in to take over my oven to warm up the disgusting and bacteria-loaded food that's been sitting in the car.
It's one thing to "never dream" of bringing food to the dinner when you live nearby. But when you live several hours away, you should realize that your options are limited when it comes to what you can contribute to the meal.
When I'm hosting dinner, and a guest keeps insisting on bringing something even after I tell them that I have everything covered.......I actually find that rude. Completely rude.
We travel for almost every family meal so I'm a wiz at making things that I can prep at home and either cart in cooler or assemble once we get there. Some people haven't perfected that but I wouldn't assume that bc someone is traveling they won't be able to bring edible food.
Let them know they don't have to worry about a thing but if they insist you'd love some help with dessert or beverages. Those are usually the easiest to transport from my experience.
Ditto Maybride. By refusing to take no for an answer, it lends the impression that you don't like the host's food. Showing up with a hostess gift, fine. Berating the host into letting you bring your bacteria-ridden whatever, bad.
OP, foods containing potentially hazardous products (basically anything with protein) can only remain between 41 and 140 degrees for 4 hours before it needs to be tossed. I'm sure that their car would be right smack in the middle temperature-wise and would be bacteria's wet dream. If they start in on you, I'd throw that out there.
ETA: And that 4 hour window includes the processing plant, the packaging, shipping it to the grocery store, unloading, walking around the grocery store with it in the shopping cart, getting it from the store to your house, preparing it for cooking, and then putting it away once cooked. That really doesn't leave time for a 5 hour car ride.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that guests should bring out-of-temperature food. The point is that hosting a family holiday meal isn't necessarily the same thing as hosting your own dinner party. Who says that just because family is eating at someone's table that she is the queen? The family needs to gather somewhere and it may just happen to be one particular person's house. No one wants to feel like a mooch.
The biggest part of being a good hostess is making sure guests are comfortable. Having a MIL who feels like a louse is NOT the way to build a strong family relationship.
If the problem is that the food is genuinely at risk for contamination, that is a separate issue from the host wanting to hog the menu.
I have my OOTers bring cookies. My grandma, who lives 3+ hours away always brings the apple pie, which is fine.
Pie and rolls. Salad. The centerpieces?
They are just trying to be nice. I don't know these people, but most know basic food safety and would work around it.
I think that you're seriously overestimating the knowledge of the general population. Most people in fact know very little about food safety. The fact that in the OP she says that her MIL brings "semi-cooked food" and throws it in the oven on arrival says a lot...........you can't half cook something, let it sit at room temp for 5 hours, and then finish cooking it - not safely.
She doesn't know basic food safety- they visited the weekend we moved into our house & stayed in hotel the night before our moving day. Moving day she shows up and wants to make the movers cold cut sandwiches w/ cold cuts she brought down... um, no, DH went and bought them sandwiches because I didn't want the movers getting sick from lunch meat gone bad. That evening she whipped out chicken parm she had "semi-made" and finished is off in our kitchen. Seeing as we had just moved that day & had a 5 wk old baby, I hadn't unpacked anything and really didn't want anyone using our kitchen, so I tried to just order pizza but she wouldn't hear of it- she went to the supermarket and bought paper plates, and 2 bags of salad and finished the chix parm. She took the extra salad home w/ her, because it was her favorite and on sale @ our market.
When she hosts thanksgiving or any other big family dinner- she 1) stresses out 2) has the intown guests bring something- IMO you only get one or the other- you can't say the next day that you don't remember a single conversation you had because you were hosting 12 ppl for dinner, if you only made 3 or 4 of the dishes.
The flip side of that is having a MIL who has no sense of what being a good guest involves. Giving your entire family food poisoning isn't exactly building a strong family relationship, either, ya know? And by the sounds of it, her MIL would rather risk that than not being able to bring something. I'd rather she just felt like a louse.
ETA: And regarding the food safety issue. How many of you know the proper cooking temperature of beef, chicken, pork, game, etc.? What about the proper way to cool food or the proper way to store it? Yeah, you can look that sort of thing up online, but how many people actually would versus eyeballing it? It's not something that you can bank on the general population knowing. If she's bringing partially cooked chicken parm, she's definitely in the dark about food safety.
rolls for dinner or for leftovers for sandwiches later (chips /etc. for later too if you are planning on that), dessert or a relish tray would probably work
I understand your point but I have found that people WANT/NEED to feel included so tweak your menu in advance to fit that...it's for the good of all!
I feel your pain. My ILs are so unsanitary it disgusts me. My MIL will give us canned food that is 3 yrs old! Oh and she always cans meat... which is okay if you have a steam canner (she doesn't). Uck..gag a little. I throw 90% of the food she gives us... like the freezer burnt meat from their freezer!
Anyway, rolls are a good choice. Do you make anything from a box or can? My MIL refuses to eat stuffing that isn't Stove Top. Or maybe ingredients for items you will make that day such as potatoes.
Holidays aren't potluck in my world, either. Demanding to bring something can often screw up the hostess' carefully planned menu. I don't think you're rude at all for wanting to host your way.
Since you have those type of relatives, choose something very specific. I would say cookies or brownies would be the safest option that MIL can actually fix, but if she'd go for it, mixed nuts or drinks would be fool-proof. I would be leery of her bringing pie - pecan is safe at room-temp, but I get funny about fruit and pumpkin pies left at room temp, I prefer those to be refrigerated.
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says fruit pie is good for 2 days on the counter then 2-3 more after that in the fridge. Uses mostly government sources.
http://stilltasty.com/fooditems/index/16376
cookies, beverages, rolls to put in the oven for 10 mins last, pies, cranberry sauce will be fine un-refreigerated, cake, brownies
There are plenty of things to suggest that are safe.
If they lived an hour to 2 hrs away I wouldn't have a problem with it, but seeing as my ILs have total disregard for basic food-handling safety, I have to be prepared- I need to protect myself, my unborn child and my other family members. If someone got sick from eating tainted food @ my Thanksgiving table, it would be my fault, not the fault of the person who brought the food from 4 area codes away.
My comment wasn't a remark on your concern, it was in response to the replies about the guests being rude. I honestly didn't know this was such a hot button issue.
FTR- I offered suggestions.
IMO, it's not rude to offer, it's rude to insist like the OP's family. When your hostess says, "I'll handle everything, thank you" it means "I'll handle everything, thank you." It doesn't mean push harder and be a pest.
In my family, holidays are formal dinners, not potlucks. I'm an equal cook to my aunt (so she's not worried about my ability to produce something edible), but that still doesn't mean she wants my help this year for Thanksgiving. She has spent weeks poring over cookbooks finding just the right recipes where flavors, textures and ingredients all carefully complement each other - who am I to interfere when I'm a guest at her home? I'll set the table or do the dishes.
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