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Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
my judgy confession
Inspired by the hamburger soup post.
I like food. A lot. And I like to cook. And people say I'm good at it. (Though I've gotten kind of fuckeffort since Maddie arrived and I went back to work, at least on weeknights.)
Therefore, I judge people who can't cook and/or serve tacky, gross food. (MIL's runny pistachio pudding poured in a prepared graham cracker crust, I'm looking especially hard at you.)
I know that this isn't entirely fair. I think some people try and just aren't good at it, the same way that I suck at crafty projects. But whether you can't cook well or you just don't, when you serve me some fuckeffort crap, I judge you. Hard.
Re: my judgy confession
this is why everyone needs to find ONE recipe--it can be an easy one, that makes them look good.
My pecan/honey pork chops is high on that list--easy, fast, and looks fancypants.
I've never figured out fancy meals. If I'm having someone over to my house for a dinner that one might call formal, it's usually just a huge amount of food.
What makes a meal fancy? If the FILs come over, they're pretty much happy with anything I cook. I will fix a big pot of beans and a cake of cornbread. I'm not ashamed of that, nor would I be all WTF if someone served it to me.
If I brought a dish to a party though I'd probably bring something that wasn't beans. I've never been asked to bring anything but dessert and an app, so truthfully I'd be at a loss.
I'm a big fan of quality--assuming that your beans and cornbread are tasty, they sound good to me. And your FILs are better guests than I am--I know that I should be happy that someone has gone to the trouble of preparing a meal to share with me. But when someone overcooks canned vegetables until they lose all color and flavor, or make mashed potatoes from a box, then call them a side dish, I judge them hard.
Basically, I just really like to eat, and poor quality food leaves me really disappointed.
I also judge people who - on an ordinary day - worry about food presentation. I'd say 99% of the time, my meals are served straight out of the pot, pan, or dish it was made in. I hardly ever move the food to a second dish simply to make it look pretty. It's just dirtying another dish unnecessarily.
*Pioneer Woman, I'm looking at you.*
I don't care what it is, but make it flavorful and good. I agree that everyone should have ONE meal they can make well. It's okay not to LIKE to cook or maybe you aren't the most efficient, but you should be able to feed people.
If not, don't have people to a meal.
6 said what I was trying to say so much better than I did.
As for serving from the pot, hells yes. I only worry about presentation when I'm entertaining.
DH always puts everything in serving bowls when he cooks or helps cook. It drives me crazy when it is just the two of us. I still don't like to put pots and pans on the dining room table, but instead I prepare plates in the kitchen and only take those to the table. We tend to eat less that way, too. When it takes getting up and walking to the kitchen to get an extra piece of turkey, we are too lazy to do it.
I just a friendly gal looking for options.
Grandma does the whole presentation thing. The other night, she'd cut up a small loaf of bread to go with dinner and was getting ready to put it all in some fancy bowl, when sFIL said, "Now, what's wrong with the cutting board? Tastes the same whether I grab it from that, or that bowl."
She gave him a dirty look, but left the bread on the cutting board.
Oh, ok. Yes, if I'm cooking for other people my food is from scratch. If I'm not going to bother, I'll just order out.
I judge myself for not being a good cook, esp when I come from a long line of great cooks.
However, I guess not enough to learn.
I don't so much judge people who put forth the effort and are just for whatever reason not good at it, but you know those adults who say they can't cook and always get takeout or pre-prepared foods? I judge them hard. How on earth does a person get out of their teens without their parents saying "if you're still hungry, then cook something your damn self" and learning to do it?
I totally agree that everyone needs one meal they can do well. I also don't do serving dishes unless it is a holiday or we are entertaining.
DH still likes boxed mashed potatoes. I make them for him once a quarter or so, unless it is the holidays. Then his family makes them for big meals. Ugh!
My day-to-day meals are pretty simple. Last night we had chicken and couscous with squash. I set up the plates in the kitchen, and I put the BBQ sauce for DH on the table in the bottle. ::shrug:: No need to make more dishes.
THIS