11 Reasons Friends Avoid Your Dinner Invites

AUTHOR: Ben Rice

Cooking is a noble pastime, but one must undergo challenges and lose bad kitchen habits to achieve culinary enlightenment. Some of these habits can irritate the casual witness, and a recent online discussion allows people to vent their frustrations at their friends’ cooking methods. Here are their nonplussed insights.

Table of Contents

1. Kitchen Hackery
2. Messy Units
3. Disorganized Cooks
4. Cutting Board Etiquette
5. Ingredient Malpractice
6. Bread Butchery
7. Dirty Hands
8. Anemic Sauces
9. The ‘Just Add Anything’ Paradigm
10. Misshapen Cutting Game
11. Waste Not, Want Not
12 Dirt Cheap Poverty Meals That Taste Like a Million Dollars
12 Nostalgic Snacks That Need to Make a Comeback Now
14 Casseroles So Good, You'll Delete Your Takeout Apps

1. Kitchen Hackery

Different types of knife — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

I love my kitchen knives, which are sharpened before each use and are crucial to performance. However, some chefs are knife heathens, holding the knife badly, cutting with a terrifying downward swipe, or even worse, using the wrong knife. If you are one of those who slice big wedges of onion because they are using a penknife, kindly stop. Thanks.

2. Messy Units

Woman cleaning dishes — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Gordon Ramsay is renowned for his furious retribution for chefs who keep a dirty station, a sackable offense in a professional kitchen. Sadly for some spouses and partners, their other half leaves a kitchenware metropolis for them to wash up after dinner. Oh, those people who don’t immediately soak used plates or pans in water, I am looking at you!

3. Disorganized Cooks

Messy kitchen space — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Cutlery drawers full of mismatched knives and forks, a lack of dishcloths, surround wrap, or cupboards stacked with unusable produce are examples of a disorderly kitchen. The worst part is seeing people not put things back where they belong — wrappers, boxes, or perishable foods left out at room temperature.

4. Cutting Board Etiquette

Handsome man preparing food — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Okay, be honest - do you use a plate to cut food? If so, why? Surely, you have a cutting board somewhere; if not, you should. However, at least a plate is better than using nothing at all, another method for some frustrating people. Moreover, if you use a chopping board, well done, but stop using the knife blade to scrape it clean — use the other knife edge.

5. Ingredient Malpractice

Hand cooking Wagyu beef, famous meat of Japanese — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Do you know that A5 Wagyu steak you spent your holiday bonus on? Please don’t do any of the following things to it: cook it well-done, underseason it, or turn it into burger meat. Respect your ingredients, and your guests will respect you. However, should you meet the conditions, you must still cook that protein on a high heat — steak in a cold pan is borderline depressing.

6. Bread Butchery

Woman cutting bread loaf — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

A personal eyebrow-raiser is when people buy their bread as a whole loaf but use the wrong knife or a poorly wielded bread knife to slice it. Where I live, supermarkets come with a free bread-slicing machine, which means bread hackers’ days are numbered. If your local grocery store or bakery doesn't provide this service, it's probably best to purchase your bread already sliced or put the effort into learning how to properly do it yourself (YouTube is a great start).

7. Dirty Hands

Washing hands — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Some chefs don’t take hygiene seriously, which is life-threatening in worst-case scenarios. A good example is the movie Goodfellas and Henry Hill’s cavalier attitude to breaded chicken cutlets, tossing them from hand to hand before wiping his hands on a kitchen towel. Sadly, those substances Karen flushes down the toilet may have impacted Henry’s judgment, but please wash your hands, dear Henry.

8. Anemic Sauces

Chimichangas with Mexican condiments and sauces — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Nothing angers a keen chef more than watching a friend or partner cooking a stew or gravy but not thickening the sauce sufficiently. Using a starch basis like flour or cornflour is essential to giving sauces their luscious thickness. Please spare a thought for meat lovers whose hearts bleed at having to pour broth on their roasted meat.

9. The ‘Just Add Anything’ Paradigm

Chef training students — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

Young people experimenting in the kitchen — students especially — throw whatever is nearby into the pot, hoping for the best. While this method is a good learning curve for future cooking, some home chefs can’t shake the habit well into adulthood. Why not add some cream to that chicken and black bean sauce? That pasta looks lonely — here’s some ranch dressing to cheer it up. Stop it!

10. Misshapen Cutting Game

Big pieces of vegetables in salad — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

While some of us perfect the art of slicing garlic or deskinning a pepper, others don’t have time for that malarkey. You probably have that buddy who treats a salad bowl like an enemy, adding whole olives, vast wedges of tomato, and lettuce leaves the size of diapers — the kind of concoction you might find on a Flintstones dinner table.

11. Waste Not, Want Not

Silicone Spatula — Image Credit: Shutterstock.

When someone spends hours making a delicious sauce, only to leave a quarter of it in the pan, it is hard for perfectionists to take. I know that wooden spoons are best for stirring pasta sauces but terrible for scraping all the sauce from the pan. All one needs is a $3 silicone spatula, whose flexible head maneuvers even the trickiest of saucepans — stop that sauce waste, now!

Source: Reddit.