FoodBanter.com - View Single Post

wrote:
> I have a question for ya'll. My husband and I get together with a
> group of friends every week to play games and hang out, and we all take
> turn making dinner. Several of us in the group like to cook and enjoy
> trying out new recipes, but some just bring sandwich meat and bread or
> pizza or something easy like that. It happens occaisionally (and most
> often when one particular group member is in charge of dinner), that we
> run out of food. I was wondering if anyone has any good websites I
> could forward to the group that give estimates of how much to buy/cook
> of various things (e.g. "x pieces of chicken" or "y lbs meat" per
> person)? .
>
> What got us thinking is recently, the member in question picked up
> fried chicken and sides for dinner. No big deal, except that there are
> 7 adults (4 men, 3 women--1 man was absent so total of 6 for the
> night), and she got 12 pieces of chicken and two tiny sides (one might
> have fed 2 people and the other maybe 4) plus a loaf of bakery bread.
> There might have been 2 chicken breasts in the batch, and the rest was
> legs, wings, and maybe a thigh. Several of us basically had bread for
> dinner that night. She actually asked as we were all leaving if there
> were any leftovers!
>
> I don't usually have trouble, since I grew up in with 4 siblings, so
> cooking for a group is easier than cooking for 2. But others just
> don't know portion sizes (or they think "serves 4-6" means they can
> feed 7 adults??). I found a couple of websites that talk about feeding
> crowds, but they're talking 20-50 people, not 7-8.
>
> Any help or pointers that I could pass on would be great! My challenge
> will be to find a way to bring it up without embarrassing anyone....

Bring a sandwich and a Thermos of soup along and leave them in the car
when it's her turn to cook. A really /good/ sandwich. When the food
runs out before you've been served, you can go get yours out of the car.
Say (as cheerfully and nonjudgmentally as possible) something like, "I
knew you never bring enough food so I packed a lunch." HTH ;-)

Bob