Cooking for picky eaters

BlunderWoman

BlunderWoman

Senior Member
I feel like finicky eaters take the joy right out of cooking. There is a friend of the family I like as a person, but I HATE having to cook dinner when I know she's coming. She really doesn't like any vegetables at all that I can think of. She won't eat anything with tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, the list goes on and on. Basically she only likes meat and potatoes and rice. I understand when someone has allergies, but I really hate cooking dinner when this woman is coming. I notice her ways have influenced her son he's in first grade. That kid won't try anything his mother doesn't eat. I feel upset about this because vegetables are so important to the body. I never say anything though . They are coming for dinner Sunday. I'm thinking about just having KFC at the table. I hate cooking for her. I'm not talking about vegetarians.. that's easy for me to work with..I'm talking about people who hate most vegetables and other things
How about you? Do picky eaters take the joy out of cooking for you?
 

My sister is a wonderful cook but she married a man who has no appreciation of her art.
He declares that he isn't hungry and isn't interested in food. However, he never knocks back a beer.

Consequently she loves having friends over for a meal and family are always welcome to stay.
Even when she stays with me she loves to cook and I step back and let her free rein.

I suggest for this woman that you serve a tasty meal where everyone serves themselves but include potatoes and rice so that she can fill her plate. If she avoids the tastier items, then her loss.

I bet she likes dessert though ?
 
Warrigal said:
My sister is a wonderful cook but she married a man who has no appreciation of her art.
He declares that he isn't hungry and isn't interested in food. However, he never knocks back a beer.

Consequently she loves having friends over for a meal and family are always welcome to stay.
Even when she stays with me she loves to cook and I step back and let her free rein.

I suggest for this woman that you serve a tasty meal where everyone serves themselves but include potatoes and rice so that she can fill her plate. If she avoids the tastier items, then her loss.

I bet she likes dessert though ?
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Too bad for your sister. I've seen that too. I had a friend who just told her husband one day " There's balogna in the fridge. I will never cook dinner for you again." LOL
Nope..she is picky about desserts too. *sigh* But your idea sounds good. Thanks!
 
BW the woman sounds like she's got some kind of food phobia. I have a friend who won't eat anything orange, no carrots, no squash, no sweet potatoes, no oranges, etc. Could be a kind of OCD, like those people who don't want foods touching each other on the plate.

The buffet style sounds like a good idea to me too. Cook for the others and let her eat what she wants, don't call attention to it either, maybe that's what she's after.
 
Reminds me of my father in law in his later years. After forty years of Rosie's cooking he decided he couldn't eat onion and garlic anymore. She had a family to cook for plus she was from the old country. She always assured him his plate had no onion or garlic and he'd scarf it down. Actually it was the exact thing the rest of the table was eating...gofigya
 
That's why I seldom entertain at home with a dinner. It's so much easier to meet friends at a restaurant. This one can't have gluten, that one is vegetarian, that one is not only vegetarian but Vegan, the other one is on a low-salt diet, he's cutting out carbs, she won't touch sweets. Arrrrgggghhhh.

We had guests a few years ago who woke up the first morning and wouldn't use 2% milk in their coffee, even just the once. They were on diets and would only use skim milk. All we had was 2%. They insisted on driving to the store and getting skim milk so that they could have coffee. How much difference could a tablespoon of 2% make overall?
 
It certainly is no fun cooking for picky eaters. I can't say the hubby is picky, but the food he likes is so boring. I can't try anything new. Meat, potatoes and a vegetable. Night after night. Not even gravy or a sauce on anything. Once in awhile I can get away with a casserole if he can recognize all the ingredients.
 
Sister-in-law up in Vancouver BC is a vegan. If you go to eat at her house, you never know what you are eating, and it is probably better that way.
 
Those poor ladies with nitpicky husband-tyrants, I suggest you tell them to make their own dinners -- and go ahead and try new stuff - for yourself, isn't it time to take off the leg irons?

Most vegetarians and vegans make way more delicious meals than many of the meat/potatoes varieties - have no fear, its not a deer!
 
jujube said:
That's why I seldom entertain at home with a dinner. It's so much easier to meet friends at a restaurant. This one can't have gluten, that one is vegetarian, that one is not only vegetarian but Vegan, the other one is on a low-salt diet, he's cutting out carbs, she won't touch sweets. Arrrrgggghhhh.

We had guests a few years ago who woke up the first morning and wouldn't use 2% milk in their coffee, even just the once. They were on diets and would only use skim milk. All we had was 2%. They insisted on driving to the store and getting skim milk so that they could have coffee. How much difference could a tablespoon of 2% make overall?
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I agree that going to a restaurant is a good solution to this problem.
 
My oldest was a picky eater as a kid and at this point I just don't cook for her. If they come for the weekend, it's either restaurants or she brings her own food and cooks for her family because yes, she is still picky and her kids are picky and I just can't be bothered to try and make them happy with all their 'I can't eat colourful, can't stand cooked ?, don't like that, don't like this.....They're on their own. It's not like I love cooking anyway, so their pickiness just frees me from that odious chore.

Heck, I used to love it when my husband went on his road trips with his motorcycle buddies because it meant I didn't have to cook for ten days. Peanut butter sandwiches for everybody for every meal!!! Yahoo!
 
This reminds me of my late husband. He was a good man in every way except his eating. You could count on one hand what he would eat. It didn't matter what I fixed, he would complain about it. It got so bad, I just started fixing the frozen dinners and told him, "You're going to complain about it not being good anyway, so eat this". I used to love to cook but that made me turn against it and retire from cooking. People would ask me about it and I would respond with "I have retired from cooking. You retire from everything else so why not cooking".
 
I would like opinions please. I eat most everything except for turkey, long story there but I won't touch turkey.

Everytime I go to a relative's home for dinner she serves turkey knowing full well that I will eat everything else served but not the turkey. And she has done this for year's now.

So does that make me a picky eater?
 
Redd said:
I would like opinions please. I eat most everything except for turkey, long story there but I won't touch turkey.

Everytime I go to a relative's home for dinner she serves turkey knowing full well that I will eat everything else served but not the turkey. And she has done this for year's now.

So does that make me a picky eater?
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No, you're not a "picky eater". Everyone has something that they will not touch. If that's all my husband wouldn't have eaten, I would have continued to cook. A picky eater in my book is someone who dislikes a lot and then complains about what they do eat.
 
Redd, if she does that every time you come for dinner, IMHO, she is playing passive aggressive power games with you. Not very nice. Jeez you are allowed to dislike turkey without being picky.
 
Cookie said:
BW the woman sounds like she's got some kind of food phobia. I have a friend who won't eat anything orange, no carrots, no squash, no sweet potatoes, no oranges, etc. Could be a kind of OCD, like those people who don't want foods touching each other on the plate.

The buffet style sounds like a good idea to me too. Cook for the others and let her eat what she wants, don't call attention to it either, maybe that's what she's after.
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She eats strawberries..so I don't think that's it. She won't eat red veggies. I can't think of any veggies I have seen her eat.
 
Redd said:
I would like opinions please. I eat most everything except for turkey, long story there but I won't touch turkey.

Everytime I go to a relative's home for dinner she serves turkey knowing full well that I will eat everything else served but not the turkey. And she has done this for year's now.

So does that make me a picky eater?
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I agree with Shalimar on this one. She's doing it on purpose. Weird. Not liking turkey doesn't make you a picky eater.
 
Shalimar, I like that passive aggressive theory of yours. That is likely it. I asked her why always turkey and her answer was that cooking a turkey for just her and her husband seems a waste of time. And she said one of these days I will eat it, Don't hold your breath :p

I must admit feeling just a tad resentful as when I entertain them I generally will serve two main meats to choose from and yet at her place I must be content with salad, potato and a veg. This woman is known for being frugal and when turkey is 99 cents a pound she stocks up. And she is very very well off. The rich get richer ;)
 
Redd said:
Shalimar, I like that passive aggressive theory of yours. That is likely it. I asked her why always turkey and her answer was that cooking a turkey for just her and her husband seems a waste of time. And she said one of these days I will eat it, Don't hold your breath :p

I must admit feeling just a tad resentful as when I entertain them I generally will serve two main meats to choose from and yet at her place I must be content with salad, potato and a veg. This woman is known for being frugal and when turkey is 99 cents a pound she stocks up. And she is very very well off. The rich get richer ;)
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If I were you I would tell her " No thanks I ate before I came. I knew you would be making turkey."
 
BlunderWoman, luv it and Easter is coming up at her house. I'll remember this response and use it if I work up the nerve, thank you for your quick wit :)
 
Yes, I think a lot of the "pickiness" is attention getting behavior. I have a relative who claims to have all sorts of allergies but I notice that they seem to change a lot and seem to be tailored to the occasion. Whatever is on the table, she's allergic or intolerant to. But I'll see her eating that item the next time.

I have much sympathy for people who have true allergic reactions to certain foods, but I think in some cases, it's "fashionable" now to be allergic to this and that and the other.
 

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