There is never wastage if you send the leftovers home with your loved ones...

I'm sure you are quite confident in what you want to prepare for your family meal and what you are not prepared to make. As you can see, everyone has different family values. And in the end, you will choose to do what is best for your family.

So to answer your question, "bad manners? or just me? "

Only you have the answer to that question.

I dont' use mayo in mine ... I use a salad dressing that is really hard to find. It's a yellow dressing with poppy-seed-like things in it, but it's not a poppy seed dressing. When I can't find this, the closest thing is Marzetti's Cole Slaw dressing.

I also don't put mustard in my potato salad. Potatoes, salad dressing, hard boiled eggs, sweet relish and onions.

No, no, serve cold with bbq chicken - yummy! We usually add Mayo and radish, hard boiled eggs, celery, green onions...but there is lots of things you can add to your taste - I've seen lots of different recipes. My mom likes the potatoes diced and my sister likes it mashed...but real potatoes, not instant!!!!

Leftover mashed potatoes? What is this phenomenon?

And to add my two cents...yes, it is totally rude for MIL to all but demand certain dishes and expect the leftovers. If she MUST have the dish, she's welcome to make it and have as much as she likes. It's selfish and inconsiderate for her to ask you to spend your time and money on something that's just for her (and to take home, no less!!) when you're creating a celebration for the entire family. People can say all they want about how much you value family, but how much does she value YOU by putting you in that position? Do you not have enough to do (and spend!) making dishes that everyone can enjoy?

You obviously don't understand or agree with her situation, but that doesn't mean you need to be so haughty about it. You have a warm relationship with your in-laws and that is wonderful. Not everyone does or can. Not everyone can afford to make more than enough to share and she's not refusing to share nor is she refusing to cater to her in-laws per se - she just doesn't want and probably can't afford in this economy to make too many things that only one or two people will eat. It's one thing to make a special request and a whole different and very rude thing to demand it after the request was refused.

I dare anyone to take my place and have a warm relationship with my MIL. She doesn't have a good relationship with any of her SILs either, she drives them nuts too. And I've heard a few comments from people who have either worked with her or attend church with her, enough to convince me that it isn't just me that brings out her behavior.

I am envious of people who do have good MILs. My FIL wouldn't be bad if he didn't listen to my MIL so much and parroted what she says.

This is a woman who feels she has the right to tell me how I should arrange and furnish my home, dress my children, what stuff we should buy, etc. When my husband bought me my first KA they were with him and tried to talk him out of it.

It took at least a couple years of turning her offer to help rearrange my kitchen for her to get the hint. The big reason she wanted to do that was because she can't reach my plates and cups. She does not live with me and needs to get something like that maybe once a year.

I have found that if I give in to something once I've already said no she gets worse for a period of time. That's why if it isn't rude of me to refuse to make her what she wants I'm not going to.

I try to avoid fighting with her for the sake of my husband and children. Most often I keep my mouth shut when talking to her and then find someone to vent to.



And for people commenting on my worry over waste and it being called leftovers, take a look at my menu. There will be leftovers but there is only so much food that six people can eat, even figuring sending stuff home with my MIL, before the leftovers go bad.

Originally Posted by maryjsgirl

You should have shared all that info to begin with.

So sounds like she is a bit of a control freak. So it's probably driving her nuts for you to be hosting and not her.

Seems like this is more over a battle for power and not one over a menu.

If I had known this thread would be more than either telling me that manners said I should cook what was requested or that I wasn't required to I probably would have and that leftovers are either expected or something the hostess offers.

I had no idea when I asked the question that it would turn into something about how I should do it to be "nice" because that wasn't my question. I probably should have also mentioned that my MIL doesn't normally make fruit salad that my kid will eat, most often it's the one with coconut, and she knows he doesn't like coconut.



My MIL is not unhappy about me hosting in the way you mean but rather because my FIL's family quit doing extended family meals. This is the first holiday without a large gathering. My husband's aunt has been the one hosting for a few years because her mother lives with her and does better if they stay home where she can sleep.

I finally got confirmation ten days ago that the aunt wasn't doing a meal because I gave my MIL a two week RSVP deadline so she finally 'fessed up that the aunt had said she wouldn't be doing a big meal four weeks before that. She even let slip that she had my FIL call his sister to ask if she'd changed her mind, I'm sure because the sister would have been annoyed at my MIL calling about it since she'd already said she wasn't.

I know you were, I was just quoting you to address the issue. I'm sorry if you thought I was saying it TO you.

I really think my issue with the leftovers has been misunderstood. My issue was that she TOLD me that she expected leftovers. I guess I was always taught that you don't ask for that stuff.


I will confess that while I had planned on sending stuff home with my in-laws I didn't because they had irritated me with the being late because they were eating at someone else's house.

The being late was really annoying because we had told them that morning we had unexpected company coming in that afternoon so I was going to be sure to have the meal on the table at the time I had given them weeks ago.


The icing on the cake was when my MIL goaded my FIL into calling while they knew we were visiting with our company, who we hadn't seen since January, to ask a question they've asked at least 12 times since Fargo started having flood problems. I'm sure that my MIL didn't call because she could probably tell I was irritated the last time she asked it, I was polite but people not understanding simple geography after it's explained to them 10 times gets on my nerves. My husband was not amused either, he knows who prompts his dad into alot of things.

I have to agree. As children we were taught that we couldn't even ask for stuff at gramma's house because it was rude to ask.

And again I will suggest that those who make a blanket statement about "let's all love each other 'coz it's FAMILY" either are very blessed to have a normal, non-toxic family and have no idea what it's like to deal with people who would shock even Jerry Springer (the category that MY family comes from, which is why I live 75 miles away from most of them), or they live in a nice city called Denial where it's important that everyone LOOK like they "all get along".