Adventures in Potlucking

[ImSusan615]

Every year during the holidays, my co-workers and I have a dinner at one person's house.  There are eight of us in the firm, and the four of us partners provide the food and drink in potluck fashion, and we invite our associates to enjoy and not worry about bringing anything.  My partners and I always have fun beforehand coming up with the menu, and everyone commits to bringing a certain dish or dessert, and we're careful to coordinate so we have everything covered for a nice sit-down meal.  The last two times have been at my house, since I have the biggest dining room and all the china and serving dishes and such. 

Anyway, this past time, we had agreed to a menu of salad, spiral cut ham, scalloped potatoes, steamed broccoli, corn, rolls, various desserts, sparkling wines and ciders, etc.  I had the house and dining room festively decorated, and it was going to be a very nice dinner.  One of my partners, we'll call her Ditzy, had committed to bring the salad and rolls.  However, on the night of the dinner, she arrived a little late.  She said she hadn't had time to make a salad and rolls, so she had run through the drive-thru at Captain D's (a fastfood seafood restaurant) and picked up a tub of cole slaw and an order of six small hushpuppies.  Knowing Ditzy as I do, this did not surprise me, and I was prepared with salad fixings and rolls just in case.  I was tempted not to serve the cole slaw and hushpuppies, since they really didn't go with the meal, but I thought that would be rude, so I did serve her offerings in nice serving dishes.  But no one touched them, not even Ditzy. 

So have any of you ever run into the same sort of adventures in potlucking?  Do you normally try to keep enough on hand to take up the slack for someone who does not bring what they said they would bring? 

[kingsrings]

I would only do that if I noticed that a certain person had a bad habit of doing this. I wonder why she didn't just stop at the grocery store deli section, where she could of gotten something much more decent and fitting than fast-food. The only thing that irks me about potlucks sometimes is when people sign up to bring something, and then they don't stick to that plan and they bring something else. For instance, I sign up to bring a fruit platter. Then someone else shows up with the same fruit platter, obviously not reading that I had signed up to bring that. So then mine doesn't get eaten as much, and I have leftovers which I don't want. Maybe it sounds controlling or petty on my behalf, but for potlucks I wish people would make sure to pay attention to what others are bringing so that there are no duplicates or too much or too little of one kind of dish (for instance, just mostly desserts or appetizers and few entrees).

[Just Lori]

I grew up in a church where potlucks were a regular thing.  Usually, you'd get a great variety of main dishes, side dishes and dessert.  But one month, nearly everybody brought lasagna.  There were several varieties of lasagna, with maybe a couple of chicken dishes in between.  At the time, I did not like lasagna.  So I was excited when a lady showed up a little late, after the line was forming.

"What did you bring?" someone called from the line.

"Lasagna."

Of course.

[NYGirl100]

My story relates to one of my friends.  We had tried potlucking as a good way to get together when we were first out of college, since a lot of us were still broke and can't afford to go out to restaurants all the time.  My apartment was the biggest and my roommate also participates, so we agreed to have it there.  There were 6 of us at the time.  We would always plan ahead of time what everyone would bring, and this would be through e-mail so everyone would have a record.  After awhile we start noticing that this one person would always volunteer to bring dessert, and would invariably show up with a box of Entenmann's cookies.  We tried to switch it around so that everyone gets to bring different things, but she threw a fit and refused to participate.  So we stopped inviting her.  

[Suze]

We had one girl at work that would "decide" for you what you should bring.

Not too bad, you didn't have to think too hard about what to bring, but if she liked the way you made a certain food.  You were asked to bring it every time.

now I like to cook, but she liked my deviled eggs, so unless I pitched a fit, that is what I usually brought.

[twinkletoes]

As another poster mentioned, I have had the potlucks where everyone brought one particular food item.  While I liked it, I didn't need a dozen variants of the same dish!

At another potluck, someone was very excited to share his special homemade cole slaw.  Only no one ate it, because he had sent pictures of his cat walking around the kitchen to the group a few days ago.

A few months ago, a relative of mine wanted to organize a potluck, and we'd all get together to watch a football team.  The relative hosting the party specified she was making her famous tiramisu and some cookies and cakes, but said we were all welcome to bring side dishes.  The relative even said she wanted us to reply to all to ensure we didn't have 12 bowls of cole slaw or only chicken wings.  My cousin, who is a bit dim, responded to "all" and said she was making tiramisu brownies, and would that be ok?  I don't know if anyone pointed it out to her that it was the same thing as what was already being made.

[BatCity]

I used to work at a small company that held potlucks once a quarter.

One guy on my team had an outrageous sense of humor.  He was a single guy, so those potlucks were his only chance to cook for others.  As time went on, his creations got crazier and crazier...we didn't really care whether they were edible, everyone just looked forward to what he would come up with next.

The one that sticks in my mind is the time he brought jello...but not just any jello.  This was some sort of blue color (blueberry, maybe?) in a shallow dish with little plastic models of seaweed and rocks to make it look like a beach.  And crawling half-out of the blue bowl of jello was...a fully cooked lobster.

Nobody ate it, but someone got pictures. 

[caranfin]

I went to one of DH's work parties where the announcement said "bring a covered dish," and some guy brought a banana on a paper plate, covered in foil. 

[MadMadge43]

I went to one of DH's work parties where the announcement said "bring a covered dish," and some guy brought a banana on a paper plate, covered in foil. 

Awesome!

We finally had a potluck at work and it was a great success. We had 12 people, our first time, and everyone felt they obligated to bring enough food to feed 12 people fully. So needless to say there was 12 times too much food. What a waste.

The other that blew my mind, my Aunt & Uncle belong to a "dinner group", the host plans the menu and sends recipes to everyone. There's usually a theme and it's all very high end gourmet. It can take months to plan the right meal and get it organized (they do this every other month, six couples to the group).  One couple, shows up late when they're the first course, so they are no longer ever in charge of appetizers and when they host are never prepared when everyone shows up (still vaccumming and such). For a casual potluck I could almost not make to much of a deal, but for a potluck like this completely disrespectful of everyone.

[Evil Duckie]

.

[Sterling]

I can't get over 6 hushpuppies for 8 people.  You can buy a bag of salad and premade rolls at any grocery.

I worked at one office that ad a Thanksgiving potluck every year.  Everyone thought they were great cooks but honestly the 5 years I was there the food was always terrible.  My favorite was every year someone would say they wanted to do thier families special stuffing.  It was always stovetop.  One year we had a woman from a different part of the state make country gravey, you know the white kind with lots of pepper in it.  We all were pouring it over our biscuits and fried chicken when she asked if it was a regional thing that we put mashed potatos on everything. 

[ImSusan615]

I can't get over 6 hushpuppies for 8 people.  You can buy a bag of salad and premade rolls at any grocery.

This is really quite typical behavior on her part, just not a lot of common sense there.  Now we can't plan any food function at the office without some smart aleck piping up and offering to bring the slaw and hushpuppies...

[kingsrings]

I have grown up in CA too, and have heard of potlucks from the time I attended elementary school. I think this guy was just making up excuses.

[Evil Duckie]

We figured that the guy was either totally clueless or didn't want to bring anything. Most of the men thought the latter and us women thought the former.

He did move here, the midwest, from Orange county in January.

He did learn one thing. No one will let him forget it. He is told on every potluck that he is suppose to bring not only a dish to share but a bowl full of food or an 8 piece chicken pack to share as well.

[Suze]

sounds to me that he was trying to be a smart.....um.....butt

And it backfired on him, by you all telling him what to bring *everytime*you have a carry in