Wouldn’t you have to get everything re-kashered if human blood got in your kitchen. How do you avoid that?
I’m not a vegetarian, but I’m dating one. The way it falls out for me is that when we cook and eat together, we eat vegetarian, but if we eat out or elsewhere, I sometimes get a meat dish.
Here’s my take on the situation (and various other issues that have arisen).
It is rude to invite someone with known dietary restrictions to a dinner party and not make any effort to make something the vegan can eat. Which isn’t to say that there will defintitely be a whole meal for you (or even a main course), but there should be at least a side dish. It’s not like the whole thing will fall apart if you set out a bowl of cheese to go with the salad and let people add their own.
It is not rude to suggest that if someone can’t eat the food you provide, that they bring their own.
It is slightly rude to phrase the invitation in that way, but I think that, if you didn’t already feel that she didn’t approve of you, you wouldn’t have noticed. The way I would do it is to say what the menu will be, which dishes will probably be edible for you, and that you are invited to bring your own food if that won’t be enough.
It is rude to bring food to a dinner party unless you’ve already discussed it with the host. Whether or not to allow people to bring meat to a vegan dinner party you planned is completely at the host’s discretion. If you can’t come to an agreement, the polite thing to do is to decline the invitation.
Not counting a bottle of wine or a dessert, or perhaps a box of candy. In other words, not an item that must be served with said dinner, and can be accepted as a “hostess gift”.
Otherwise, we are in agreement. 
My son is dating a vegan girl these days. I made sure she had three separate vegetarian dishes to eat when we tied on the feed bag. This chick just doesn’t like you, or so it seems. Go do something you want to do.
This is a really excellent point, and one I have never considered, even though I have friends who keep Kosher. Thank you for pointing it out - I will be very careful what I bring to their homes, even if I don’t expect them to eat it.
I cook meat for my SO at home all the time. Like I said, I’m a pretty damn easygoing vegan. I always go out of my way for other people so they don’t think I’m trying to push my ways on them (I would never dream of throwing a dinner party and everything vegan, since I know that would squick some people like Dr. Derth out). I think that’s why I get so put off when someone refuses to make any efforts to accomodate me.
Of course, I never got a formal invitation. That email was pretty much it.
Good point. I’ve never dealt with this kind of thing before because all my friends and family (and my exes families) always went out of their way to make sure I have/had stuff to eat. I always felt very welcome and always really appreciated it. This is the first time I’ve dealt with someone who has known me a good bit of time and refuses to lift a finger to accomodate me. It makes me feel very unwelcome.
She’d only need to get whatever came in contact with the blood re-kashered.
Are we related?
My cousin and his wife are vegetarian, and they served a fabulous afternoon vegetarian buffet at their wedding, with even some smoked salmon thrown in. Our uncle (not his dad) invited everyone back to his house for burgers on the grill so everyone could get a decent meal. :rolleyes:
Once my folks were over for an impromptu dinner, and I decided to make spaghetti, quick and easy. My dad was flummoxed as to how I was going to make spaghetti sauce without a pound of hamburger. :rolleyes: It was me and Paul Newman cooking that night.
Cripes, we’re not even fully vegetarian (no red meat except for a deli sandwich now and then, most meals are meatless), but my family still makes a stink about how we eat, even though we have never complained about meals they serve or restaurants they choose.
I understand the vegan concept and could probably put together a decent no-animal-products-whatsoever meal given enough advance notice. We’ve cooked for vegetarians to much acclaim. But if I ever weren’t sure about someone’s unusual dietary needs, I would probably couch it in terms of not being sure I could get it right, and would they like to bring a dish just in case? (Or maybe even ask them to share a recipe.) Certainly not the way Rude Sister did. I call BITCH. Blow her off and see you REAL friend.
This is a long thread, and I’m sure I’m repeating what others have already said.
1.) You’re not just blowing it off, so it wouldn’t be rude at all. Your best friend is moving away; that is a high-priority event. I would suggust you go with your friend even if your SO did care. A birth day can be celebrated anytime.
2.) I think it would be rude not to consider the vegan. What really makes the rudeness question moot, however, is the bizarreness of not having some sort of nice, meat-free dish. When you said that you’re a vegan and the SO isn’t, my first thought was how nice it is that you can share a dinner of steak & potatoes! Apparently, at sis’s house, dinner is something along the lines of “We’ll be starting with a meat salad, and then we’ll move on to meat soup. The main dish is meat, of course, and for dessert we’ll have candied meat. And to drink? I found this great wine made from meat! Yum!”
Hey, they must be German!
(Seriously - my grandmother made salads and *deserts *with meat and lard. Even the red cabbage has bits of bacon and pork fat in it.)
This is my experience too. In fact, sometimes people go TOO far in trying to make sure I’m accomodated.
Jeeze louise, I’m happy eating sides! I don’t need a whole vegitarian nut loaf for myself! (Particularly when you know that NOONE else will eat ANY of it, and the leftovers are going to be wasted.)
What makes this especially rude is that the party is for lezler’s SO, it’s not like he and lezler are guests #150 and 151 at the wedding and nobody knows he’s dating a vegan. It’s his birthday party, and his girlfriend is a vegan, I’d expect a bit of consideration for her dietary restrictions.
It’s not that hard to have a side dish or two that can double as a decent meal for a vegan, even if you’re a meat and potatoes family.
The OP is vegan, which means that even a little bit of butter means she couldn’t eat it. But how hard is it to take out some pasta and veggie before adding the butter sauce and mix them together with some seeds or something.
My mother makes a kick ass cashew loaf every thanksgiving. The only problem is, the meat eaters are on to it. Now I have to rush to the table to make sure I get some before they all devour it! Seriously, my friends start calling me about a week before Thanksgiving to ask if my mom’s making it and start harassing me the day after to bring them leftovers.
That is some good cashew loaf…
You are SO not allowed to post that without a recipe, Missy! :mad:
This is exactly my point. It’s bad enough she didn’t even bother to contact me directly about the party or even ask if I’m coming, but her refusal to accomodate me even a little just makes me feel really excluded and unwelcome. It’s not like we just started dating, we’ve been together for two years and living together for over a year. It wouldn’t kill her to be a little more inclusive.
The weird thing is, she supposedly likes me. She gives my SO grief for not having proposed to me yet. But then she pulls stuff like this. It’s all very strange.
Gimme your email and I’ll give you a bunch of recipies, including my vegan brownies that non-vegans request at every get together I go to!
No offense lezlers but I see you as the rude one, not her, she is inviting you into her home, inviting you to partake of the food she is prepairing if you so desire to partake, you are the one receiving, she is the one giving. You are the one expecting a entitlement, I think that is shameful.
Deth, not Derth. 
But it wouldn’t “squick me out” as long as there was a “derth” of those “meat/cheese-like substances”. Plenty of nice fresh salad, corn on the cob, taters, and such-like is great 
. Just please fergawdssake skip the imitation crap.
You call me shamful and expect me not to take offense?
Anyhoo, I’m sorry but, I think if you invite someone you know to have dietary restrictions to your home for a dinner party yet refuse to provide anything for them to eat, you are the rude one, not the guest.
After all, it’s not like I can say “oh, the hell with it, I’m starving, lemme get a little of that beef stronganoff!” It would make me sick. In my book, expecting a host to provide something for me to eat that won’t have me puking in the bathroom all night or else suggest politely that I bring something for myself, is not rude.
And no offense, but I think you and Dr. Deth would make some cruddy hosts.