Man, I read through the whole thread ready to rip into Inky for not having vegan options for an invited vegan guest – and then you go and tell us that she didn’t tell you she was vegan before she came by.
That means it’s entirely her fault. Hopefully she’s learned her lesson, and next time she’s invited somewhere, she’ll make her dietary restrictions clear ahead of time.
Part of being a good host, of course, means making sure you accommodate your guests’ needs. I occasionally throw pizza parties, and I looove my stinky pizza toppings (olives, blue cheese, feta, etc.) But before I make pizza, I ask guests whether they can eat all that stuff. If I know I’m going to have a vegan guest, I’ll make some cheeseless pizza.
I won’t, incidentally, cook meat for meat-eating guests (except in rare circumstances): if a person feels a strong need to eat meat with every meal, I’ll want to know that ahead of time, so that I’ll be careful not to invite them over for chow. That’s cuz I have an ethical stance against purchasing meat. If someone has an ethical stance against purchasing veggies, of course, it’s fine for me if they don’t invite me over for dinner.
But it sounds like you know all about being a gracious host, Inky, and that this fool just doesn’t know anything about being an intelligent or gracious guest.
I agree with the Rodent Rancher here. FH. What a beeeeeeeeeyotch, Inky-
Slight hijack…
I have a friend with a child who is literally deathly allergic to wheat, nuts and many other foods. Poor kid is so cute. He’s under ten years old and KNOWS what he can and can’t eat…
My friend and her husband have handled the situation perfectly, not making a huge deal out of what he cannot eat, making good-tasting healthy foods available to him, researching alternatives and treatments, making sure he has plenty of safe food at school, and teaching him to be calm and assertive with others who still try to get him to try foods that could frikkin’ KILL him.
It’s amazing to me how many people don’t believe that this level of food allergies exists. They roll their eyes at the idea, as if these people are finding excuses to limit their kids’ diets.
Talk to my cow-orker, who swore it was eating a pasta and veggie salad with no meat when I asked her specifically about it. Not only am I a vegetarian, but I simply cannot eat shellfish of any kind.
She got mad when I spit out the first bite, and insisted “Oh, you can’t really taste the little bit of crab in there.” Yeah, right.
Heh. Someone I know was once invited to dinner at a client’s house. The client’s wife called them and asked if they had any dietary preferences. They said “Well, we’re not strictly kosher…and we usually try to eat pretty low-fat.” What were they served? Chicken livers wrapped in bacon. :smack: I kid you not.
This seems almost an idiot question, You are going to someone’s house for a turkey dinner and expect the possibility of no vegetables? I may have not caught it at the time (if I were hosting and asked) but very well might have said, what kind of turkey donner have you been to that didn’t have vegetables? Which would have made her explane further.
That’s really here nor there.
She should have made her (most likely self imposed) diatary requirements known to you several days before the dinner. She should have not brough her milkbox (tofu box?) to stand on and preach. She should appoligize to you and your guest for making you look at her nippeling at rolls while you were eating.
Do vegans think that a vegan dinner will be available to them if they don’t notify the host of their veganism?
Sorry to hear this, but I could see it happening. I had a vegitarian friend over for dinner (actually a friend of a friend) and didn’t realize that the vegetables I served were cooked in meat stock. When I found out it was too late.
I want to go on record right now as stating that if any of my female dinner guests want to nipple at their dinner rolls while they eat, I will certainly not complain. In fact, I will likely invite them for dinner more frequently.
She should have offered to bring a vegan dish for everyone to enjoy if she was going to be such a snot about it.
Franky, it sounds like she’s not even a real vegan - if she was should would have been specific before the party (God knows when I’m going to a party I make sure the host knows I don’t eat pork. It doesn’t always work - a former friend made an all pork meal. She didn’t tell me about the bacon in the samosas until I was half-way into one. Boy was she mad when I spat it on the floor - it was an accident - a reflex action I had no control over.)
She sounds like she was just being a snot-box for attention. I would have told her to shut-up. Literally. (I take my dinner parties very seriously.:D)
Generally, I think that people are freaks when it comes to food. The whole allergy thing just freaks me out. I have a severe shellfish (especially shrimp) allergy. As in if I realize the instant that I take a bite that the food has shrimp I might make it to the hospital in time. Naturally, I find this worth mentioning when I am invited to dinner, and yet I have had folks try to slip me shellfish.
On the other hand, I have worked as a chef for many years and can tell you that the allergy people freak me out. They will request (for example) a hot fudge sundae with no nuts because they are deathly allergic. I will explain to them that I can 100% guarantee that there will be not nuts deliberately in their food but that there is a huge cross contamination risk if they are that allergic. Most of them eat it anyway and I have not killed anyone yet ( But damn that is not karma that I should have to deal with!).
On the other other hand (I have three, you know) with just a little communication, good faith on all sides and effort it really is possible to have a wonderful meal for all concerned. Case in point: last Thanksgiving I cooked a meal for about thirty (with the help of my brother, Og bless him) family members. These were folks that ran the dietary spectrum (Vegan, Celiac disease, ultra low-fat due to heart condition, traditionalists that wanted all of the classic Thanksgiving stuff, gourmets that rejected all of the standard stuff, lactose intolerant folks and recovering alcoholics).
And you know what, we were able to have a spread fit for a king, all properly labeled and everyone was happy. It can be done, but everyone has to try.
While I agree with everyone who said she should have told Inky she was “vegan,” sometimes even that isn’t enough.
I am most definitely not a vegetarian, nor is anyone in my family or any of my close friends. For the most part, we’ll eat anything that isn’t moving. If it is moving we’ll put the brakes on it and then eat it. The only dietary restrictions are individual matters of taste. My brother-in-law and girlfriend don’t like tomatoes (whackos), and my sister doesn’t like any kind of fish.
Vegetarian discussions are meaningless buzzing to me, because I’m not interested and I don’t pay any attention. Telling me you’re “vegan” and leaving it at that isn’t going to cut it, because I really don’t know what you’re talking about.
If I invite you to dinner and you have any dietary restrictions, please tell me what they are specifically at the time I extend the invitation. If you don’t tell me in advance that you can’t/won’t eat mashed potatoes with butter in them, you’re going to be out of luck.
If she really was wearing shoes made of leather, as the OP observed, then she can hardly get on her high horse about being vegan. The animals that died to make her shoes lived in similar conditions to those everyone else was eating.
I’ve had a couple of vegan coworkers. The one at my first job was semi-preachy (“You know, those jelly beans have cow bones in them.” “Mmmm, cow bones.”) but fully understood that a lot of people don’t understand what veganism entails, and that when someone brings food for everyone, she probably won’t be able to eat it. (I made a couple of batches of cookies, but made sure to ask her for a vegan butter substitute beforehand – she was delighted, and recommended Earth Balance, which I now use instead of butter all the time. The cookies were delicious, and everyone could eat them)
My second vegan coworker wasn’t preachy – he’d explain to you the motives behind his veganism if you asked, but considering that our job involved making dairy-based drinks all day, if he tried to lecture people he’d lose his voice right quick. It also took him forever to find motorcycling clothes that didn’t involve leather and such, but he went out of his way to find them. And, of course, no leather shoes. (I tried not to wear my suede jacket when I knew I’d be working with him )
The bitch in the OP strikes me as the kind of person who makes a huge deal about being vegan so that she can “look” superior to everyone else, and love to espouse some of the party line, but doesn’t truly understand what being a vegan is all about. (leather shoes?!) Having a restricted diet for whatever reason means that if you’re invited to a meal that someone else is preparing, you need to be sure they fully understand what you can and cannot eat beforehand, and oftentimes you just have to bring food of your own to share. Most people will try to accommodate – though I’m disappointed to hear that there are assmonkeys out there who will try to “trick” people with allergies as well as other restricted diets.
Sounds like in this instance, it was DEFINITELY her fault. “I don’t eat meat” does not translate to “I don’t eat any sort of animal products whatsoever.” She needs to learn to tell people exactly what she will and will not eat, and not be bitchy about it if she DOESN’T say and there’s food she won’t touch. It’s not YOUR fault if she didn’t tell you!
As for food being pushed at people who are deathly allergic to it, how STUPID can you get?
Though I am not allergic to mustard, I have a VERY STRONG aversion to it. I do not eat ANYTHING if I suspect it contains any amount of mustard. Or mayo, for that matter. I don’t eat sandwiches I don’t construct myself so that I know exactly what’s in them. Once somebody fixed a tuna sandwich for me without checking to see if I LIKE them. Tuna itself is fine, but mixed with that horrible white stuff…eeeeeeew. But it’s really easy to deal with – if sandwiches are being made, I step in and make my own, without making a Statement about it. Otherwise I go hungry, but I don’t complain, unless it’s somebody who knows me well enough to damn well know better. It’s MY problem, not theirs.
I’m sober, and while I don’t have an issue with food cooked with wine or liquor (because all the alcohol has cooked off, or at least enough of it that I don’t have anything to worry about. And it doesn’t trigger a craving because I don’t think I’d like to drink meat-flavored wine.), I do have problems with people handing me stuff to drink. I prefer to either make it myself or at least watch it being made, because I’ve been handed alcoholic beverages by mistake. (I can usually smell the alcohol when I raise the glass to my mouth, so I’ve never actually drunk an alcoholic beverage by mistake.)
I must be a terrible hostess, because I’d have asked her politely to stop her comments, then shown her the door.
Shoot, I’ve told my father-in-law if he ever made another racially biased statement in my house again, he’d no longer be welcome in it.
When you, as my guest, are being so rude as to make my other guests uncomfortable, it is my duty as a hostess to rectify the situation. And I have no problem with rectifying your ass right out my front door. Period.
FH. What a beeeeeeeeeyotch, Inky-
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