My sister-in-law is a vegetarian. The only one in the extended family of 15 or so. Her husband and kids eat meat and all 4 will be attending a family dinner hosted by another family member. Said family member said they would supply chicken and ribs and has asked others to bring various items. Said family member does not prepare or eat fish and has asked sister-in-law to either bring her own protein or eat the salads and other non-meat dishes people are bringing. Is sister-in-law justified in feeling slighted? Does it matter that sister-in-law has also said they won’t be able to bring food because she works that day? She works a 4 hour shift twice a week and everyone else works full time or is at university full time. Does it matter that sister-in-law never hosts such family dinners and insisted that family member invite sister-in-law’s brother, wife, and two kids, who are the only ones not directly related to family member? (That is, family member orignally invited siblings, their partners, and their kids) The sister-in-law’s invited relatives have cheerfully agreed to bring food, including fish for their vegetarian daughter.
Am I overly sensitive to be a little ticked at sister-in-law? Given that my mother has dementia and that situation is weighing heavily on me, I don’t trust my gut reaction these days,which, despite my request for optimistic sci-fi in an earlier thread, is to nuke planet from orbit when I break a pencil point
Your annoyance seems justifiable. If she’s not willing to bring food, she shouldn’t feel slighted. IME, vegetarians or pescatarians quickly learn to fend for themselves.
When I had to do a gluten-free diet for a while, I would attend famil events that always, always, had pasta as the main course and cake for dessert. I would eat the salad. When the daughter of the pasta queen declared herself vegan, I made vegan dishes that she and I would eat and no one else would touch. Pasta mama declared that I shouldn’t go out of my way for her daughter and I said that I ate many vegan dishes quite regularly and had learned to enjoy many of them but that I also knew what it felt like to not be given food I could eat at a family gathering as all she ever served was pasta despite my being unable to eat it. She took the comment with surprisingly good grace.
That said, it is on SIL to provide her own food if she chooses a diet that is not mainstream. But it wouldn’t hurt you to offer a bean salad as a side dish.
As long as nobody’s being an asshole with the side dishes (like being sneaking bacon into the salad dressing or green beans or something) then they’re in the clear.
Somebody could make a three bean salad or something, but so could SIL. In fact, three bean salad is best when made 24 hours in advance.
So…SIL and her family are not bringing any food to a family potluck where everyone else is bringing something? And she feels slighted? :rolleyes: I would certainly feel irritated with a family member who was bent out of shape because no one would cater to her and she was not willing to help herself out at all.
Now if she was bringing say, an awesome dessert, then I would think she would be somewhat justified in expecting there to be some main dish (veggie chili or lasagna for example) she could eat.
Family member who is hosting already ensured other people are bringing Greek salad, green salad, a corn casserole, cheese plate, and potato dish, and another meatless dish of some sort. SIL bailed when requested to bring something. Family member putting out the meat has ‘way less time and less money than SIL and her family unit.
As long as the host ensures there is something for everyone to eat, the host is in the clear. That list is plenty to eat. If SIL doesn’t like any of that, she can bring a damn cheese sandwich or a tub of hummus for herself. (And I say this as someone who frequently deals with and cooks for groups requiring low-oxalate, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, diabetic- and gout-compliant dishes, sometimes all in the same gathering.)
Having been a vegetarian for 10 years, and father of a teenage vegetarian.
Host has been great about giving a head’s up to SIL that if the sides are insufficient, then she needs to bring something. Ie, we’re being accommodating of your lifestyle, and inviting you to join the potluck with a non meat dish
SIL could easily pick up a shrimp platter as her contribution
SIL could plan ahead and prepare a veggie main that could be shared
SIL could put a smile on her face and eat veggie sides if it is too much trouble to bring something to the potluck.
BTW, the above is straight forward, reasonable and polite. You could have people like my mother that would refuse me bringing a veggie dish to a family meal, because she has food for all and it would be insulting to bring a dish. Time and again, the food for all had stuff like chicken stock or “just a little bit of bacon for the bean salad” or somesuch. So, I’d each the mashed potatoes and be pissed off. This is how it often works, and kudos to you folks for not being like that. SIL is being unreasonable
Jesus, that’s quite a list! Does any single dish encompass all so everyone gets some?
… and if so can you share it here so maybe OP or SIL can bring it to the next get-together?
(That was my feeble attempt to make my comment not be a hijack)
That sounds like an ample selection to me. I’m not vegetarian but I’ve made supper out of a Greek salad alone on occasion. With the other items available I wouldn’t see any reason she should feel slighted. If I were attending a vegetarian dinner, and they had all that, I would be satisfied even as a non-vegetarian.
Nah, my usual M.O. is to make a few things so that everyone has at least a couple of things they can eat. People I frequently cook for include:
Tom Scud, who needs a low-oxalate diet for medical reasons but is not remotely fussy other than that (so no spinach, almonds or most other nuts, tea, tahini or other sesame products, chard, sweet potatoes, and a bunch of other things, but those are the main ones)
My BIL, who has diabetes, gout, congestive heart failure, and lactose intolerance, each of which comes with a fairly substantial set of limitations (almost no carbs or sodium among them), and also will not eat cooked vegetables as a rule
A vegetarian family, the parents of whom are my friends for 30+ years, with 2 kids who are anaphylaxis-level allergic to nuts, and the youngest of which is also severely allergic to eggs and dairy (they literally have to keep a nut-free house because their kid has ended up in the ER so many times)
Another friend who doesn’t eat gluten or dairy, but will eat pretty much anything other than that
My sister, who doesn’t have any bona fide dietary restrictions, but is picky as hell and won’t eat any cooked vegetables at all, lamb, fish, or anything more adventurously ethnic than Italian, or any legumes or whole-grain anything, among her other numerous food dislikes and aversions
My mom, who will try most things as long as they aren’t spicy at all
Various friends/in-laws with small picky children, but more of the regular picky-kid variety, except that Tom Scud’s sister and her family are mostly vegetarian, meaning that if we are together for more than a meal or two (say for a week around the holidays) are basically not going to want to eat any meat more than a couple of times, and if they do eat it, will have a strong preference for it being humanely raised
So a typical menu might include some kind of raw vegetable dish, some very simply cooked poultry, some kind of legume dish, a cooked vegetable dish, a rice or pasta or potato dish, and a dessert which people can either eat or not. It’s often easier if anything that isn’t meat is vegan. The vegetarian friends with the highly allergic kids, in particular, are awesome about making sure that there is something for the kids to eat, often bringing an extra dish or two or packing food for the younger kids separately; the older one is now college-age and doesn’t hang out with us much anymore, so it’s not as much of an issue. I try to make sure there is at least something substantial and vegan that the people with actual allergies can eat, like hummus or some other kind of bean/lentil dip or spread, and pita and/or raw veggies.
If I ever get sick of my current day job, maybe I should become a dietician…
Another way to keep things relatively simple is to do some kind of assemble-your-own thing like tacos. That way people can just do beans and cheese and veggies, or can add meat if they feel like it. (And with corn tortillas, it can be gluten-free.) You can just make a pot of beans, some grilled marinated chicken if you feel like it, and put out bowls of other stuff like other veggies, salsa, cheese, etc. that are simple to prepare.
P.S. Presumably this person would be eating dinner that day whether she were coming to your place or not. Why can’t she just bring whatever she would have been making for dinner otherwise? Let her put it in a freaking Crock-Pot before she leaves for work.
SiL can stop being such a special snowflake. Mind you: I’ll admit to having a special hatred for people who insist that words mean what they say they mean, and not what everybody else understands them to mean.
My own 1.SiL is being a PITA regarding food but we’re educating her. She can tell us what is it she’s not able to eat, we provide appropriate food (that is, food without those ingredients), but she’s not allowed to write the menu unless she brings the meal herself. For some reason she expects my mother or 2.Bro to provide duplicate meals, rather than just come up with a menu that’s diet-appropriate. People have the right to pass on a dish, specially with the amount of food my family tends to pile up as soon as something’s supposed to be a celebration, but not to expect a parallel meal.
She is being bloody awful but why are you giving it space in your head? Your brother married her and lives with her and the dinner is at someone else’s house. Let the front line troops deal with her as they wish. Go, eat, be merry, love the ones you love, ignore the rest. Sounds like you need a break and she really isn’t much of your business.