Well, if I am asked to bring something it is usually either my Mac and cheese or my family chip dip,or both. Both come home with empty dishes. I often make them for my sisters church,as she claims that she cant make my recipe turn out the way i do. (LAZY!) Depending on the event,i might bring my buffalo chicken dip. I can't recall ever having leftovers of that either

If it were a gathering where I was told to bring something without any specifics I usually go with one of those. Usually the family chip dip,as i live in the south, and everyone brings Mac and cheese to such,just like your green bean situation. But our dip recipe is unique and i have never seen it anywhere else. But I get what you are saying and agree with it. Regarding the Mac and cheese there is a woman at my sister's church who used to bring the Mac and cheese to church functions. She would bring 3 huge pans of it I am told, and maybe half of one would be eaten. People who take a few noodles to be polite. I tried it once. It was SOUR! And clumpy. Apparently she put gobs of sour cream in a bowl,mixed it with white vinegar,cheese and noodles and baked it to death instead of making a proper bechamel based cheese sauce. Gross. She exclaimed that her family loved her Mac and cheese. Anyway, now my sister has taken over as mac and cheese provider for her church functions,with me as the labor behind it......

Skeeter, once upon a time I did food testing for a couple of national magazines. All sorts of people submitted their really good, very best recipes to possibly be published in an issue. We frequently had a difficult time finding enough recipes from contributors good enough to fill each issue. Tastes can also be regional: 'vinegar is wonderful' to 'butter is better on everything' to ' no fat had better touch this dish!'. And, a pot luck will bring contributions from many ancestral regions. Then there is the cost factor; what can I make that won't break the bank.

I hear you Skeeter! I have some favorite foods/recipes that I wouldn't assume other people would love. OTOH, I'm confident in the guacamole that people insist I bring. It's good. I'm not sure it's the best ever because that would depend on what you like in guacamole. I never use cilantro. Cilantro is controversial--there's a specific enzyme in your body which determines whether you like it or hate it--and if you think it's not guacamole without cilantro, you won't like mine. Similarly, if you don't like a bit of kick, you won't like it. But it's good and people go back multiple times for more, so someone besides me must like it.

Same with our family's signature appetizer--cheese borekes with filo. They're toe curlingly amazing, but if you don't like pungent cheese you won't like them. They're also oily--they're supposed to be--and not for people who dislike fat. And they're very flaky so not for people who don't like messy food. But while there might be one or two left after people have had their fill and are being polite leaving one for the next guy, then abandoned in favor of dinner, the pans come home mostly empty.

And those are my top contenders. People like my cooking. Even dishes I'm not 100% happy with get raves (I'm pickier). But I don't assume everything I cook will please everybody. For potlucks, unless something in particular is requested, I try to play to middle of the road tastes. The worst thing at a potluck is trying to show off a "special" or "different" recipe. Instead, aim for something fairly familiar but good that the widest variety of people will find pleasant and good.

But then there's Thanksgiving where there are always three sweet potato casseroles because three different people think they should be made with peach halves, or marshmallows, or whole. And no one else eats any of them because there are better starches on the table than any of the sweet potato casseroles, though they might take a dab to be polite. :)

I used to belong to a women’s group which would run fundraising events. Some of them included a light finger food meal, which all the members would bring a contribution for.

One of our earlier events, we just asked the members to bring whatever they thought was suitable. One lady brought a sort of spread for crackers that was made of smoked herring and smelled to high Heaven. It was no surprise to anyone that most of it remained on the individual platters we had set out on each table of guests.

So we on the organising committee decided that for future events, it would be better to have a little control over contributions. To achieve this without being toooo controlling, we decided to draw up a list of types of finger foods typically expected at these events, such as sausage rolls, finger sandwiches, mini quiche etc, work out how much of each we’d need, then divide that amount into portions so that each contributor only needed to bring a small batch. Then we’d post a sign up sheet with the types of food wanted, and tick boxes next to each in the number of dozens of pieces wanted. So everyone could choose what they wanted to make and how much, and just tick the appropriate boxes off so we didn’t have too much or too little of anything.

The first time we did this, the lady who had made the smoked herring spread came up and said, “Are you sure that’s all you want? Because I make this smoked herring spread that everyone just loves...”. We thanked her for the idea, but explained that with all her the random contributions we had received at the previous event, it had been difficult to ensure each table had a fair selection of everything, so we wanted a bit more uniformity. And it was unfair to ask her to make the spread to serve 150 people.

That worked, and I hope the lady’s feelings were not hurt.

Well, my lasagne always disappears, potatoes au gratin, (homegrown/made) pesto pasta. When there are those tiny avacados around I buy them as well as large avacados and serve a blop of guac and a half cherry tomato in the tiny shells next to chips (their own little bowls!)

I'm usually asked to bring dinner rolls, or decorated cookies/cake/cupcakes if it's a birthday/anniversary/graduation/etc. The alternative is when I'm asked to bring a meat dish, because we raise grassfed beef and providing a main dish can be expensive for those who don't have my full freezers.

There is seldom any left, no matter what I bring, and if there is, arguments have ensued over who will take the remaining portions home. I don't think anyone has died from eating my cooking, so maybe they're just safety conscious.

I'm not sure there are any dishes that every one likes. As I've often said, taste is subjective, not objective. I would rather walk through smoldering embers than eat the hot pepper relish that my husband, step-sons and one son in law put on everything from pancakes to brisket, yet the jar is always empty and they ask me to make more.

I wouldn't eat greens until well into my adulthood as I didn't like them. Turns out that my Grandmother copiously dressed all greens with straight apple cider vinegar and I do actually like greens, it's the vinegar that I can't stand. Don't like pickles either, so that makes sense.

I dislike wine and beer is disgusting, but other people happily empty the bottles, so there's that.

Most of the pot luck type events I've attended have asked for specific items and like Colleen's system, we had sign up sheets. Depending on the number of attendees, some are asked to bring salads, some main dishes, some bread, some dessert, etc. The person who truly does not cook was always asked to bring drinks or paper products, thus saving the rest of us from having to smile and nod while eating things like the above mentioned herring spread.

Annie

Yes, we had the paper products and potato chips section as well :-)

We do the same kind of sign up sheets. I've been to large group functions where everyone is supposed to bring a salad, main or dessert based on the initial of their surname, but "salad" to a lot of people means starch and mayonnaise, "main" means a salad, and way more people bring desserts than people want to eat because, "Oh, I know I was supposed to bring a main, but everybody loves my butterscotch banana upside down pie casserole so much I just had to make it!"

Okay, that's being mean. Most of the desserts are actually good (though a few are always like unto poison) and they really are bringing them because everybody's on a diet and they don't get other chances to show off their really good baking skills, heedless of the fact that everyone else is on a diet and is desperate for lean protein, not fatty sugar. When I've been in the dessert group I've known to bring a platter of melon slices with a few raspberries for decor. No cream, no dip, no dressing. It's always all gone, while the multitudinous cream cakes linger untouched. One snarky lady once said something about how sad it was that I didn't know how to bake, or something like that, and I said how much more fulfilling it was to know how to feed people than to know how to make butterscotch banana upside down pie casserole. ;)

For our group annual Christmas get together, you had to write what you planned to bring on the sign up sheet (divided into apps, side dishes, desserts, drinks/paper goods/plastic cutlery etc) so we knew we wouldn’t get twelve Mac’n’Cheeses and two green salads - as it’s summer here we had a BYO meat barbecue/grill.

This came about because the first time everyone obviously thought, “Oh, everyone else will bring potato salad or a pavlova and I want my dish to stand out” (small country town cooks here can be very competitive :-) ) and the result was that _no one _ brought potato salad or pavlova.

For an Aussie barbecue that’s like the 4th of July without fireworks so we all agreed we needed a sign up sheet with details to be sure _someone_ signed up for potato salad and someone else for pavlova :-) and we had a nice variety of other dishes.

You know, I've decided I must just be lucky, because I know a whole lot of really good cooks. At church potlucks everyone knew that Mrs. May would bring dinner rolls and Eileen would bring date filled cookies and Mrs. Mast was going to make pasta salad and they were all good.

In the office we all knew that Bob was an excellent cook and would bring something like shrimp and grits or bring a torch so he could make creme brulee on the spot. I'd bring the sliced tenderloin or something similar, Kim would make au gratin potatoes and Scott would stop at Meijer and pick up deli sushi. Jamie would bring chips and drinks.

In my family they mostly just let me cook, because I like to cook and they like to eat. I've never attended a function where there are three uneaten versions of anything.

The only problem I've ever encountered was when we stopped having a cookie swap at work because people started bringing in cookies from the Wesco gas station bakery and packages of Chips Ahoy. Most attendees would bake their own, but those few outlaws wanted to get a nice selection of homemade cookies with no effort at all on their part. The grumbling from the bakers commenced, we started specifying that cookies must be homemade, the outlaws howled that they "didn't have time" and we were excluding them and then I gave up in disgust. I do admit that it didn't take me very long to get disgusted and tell the "outlaws" to just bake their own &*(%$# cookies or go to a good bakery and ditch the Chips Ahoy. I then got the complaints that the bakery was just sooooo expensive, and they couldn't afford it and, well, that was the end of that, but it was pretty much spoiled by only three people from an entire group, and not because they wanted to cook a specialty, it was because they didn't want to cook anything at all!

Annie

At my work we always had big potluck dinners. The company would buy the meat and we provided the sides. It was great for a long time. There were turnip greens, deviled eggs, cheesecake, fresh green beans, pies,ect.

Then it started going down hill. Only the core group brought homemade or in the case of the ones that really couldn't cook, good things from the best bakeries in town. Most everyone else just brought chips or nothing. They, however, were the first to dip up a overflowing plate of everything as well as spare plate or so to take home to the family.

The last few years I worked there, the dinners were bought by the company and we just stopped bringing anything. Then the moochers were complaining that there wasn't any good food anymore.

I generally will not touch any Mac and cheese, and I do not like macaroni (although I like other types of pasta, and I certainly will not touch what my sister makes. She makes a lot of dishes that I do not like, and I prefer not to go to her house for meals of any sort. When I visited our parents for Thanksgiving or Christmas, I did most of the cooking, and my sister in law would ask for some of the recipes. My brother in Texas will not eat anything with garlic in it, and so I had to make special portions for him of things that I normally put garlic in. My nieces were always happy when I would cook - they did not like my sister's cooking either, and my mother had no interest in cooking.

At work, we often had very good potluck lunches, as my co-workers came from diverse ethnic backgrounds. There were only one or two of what I might call moochers - not enough to spoil anything.

My sister in law in Texas makes excellent pecan pie, and I did get her recipe for it, but it's really not on my diet now, and I also no longer get free pecans from Texas. I love them, but they are expensive to buy. I might have to ask for some, as my family still has a huge pecan orchard, although we are in the process of selling that particular land to my nephew.

I used to have a cookie swap with my friend Eva, and she would invite friends and relatives over to her house for the baking. I would usually make toffee, and so I think the people who made cookies got the better end of the deal. I did not care because I enjoyed the company.

Annie, I think what you've benefited from is a community that's more like a family. That's the way we do Thanksgiving. While someone might bring something new and different as well, everybody brings the same good dish that they're reliable for year after year (including the three not so great, but not awful sweet potato casseroles). For smaller non-family, or family-ish style groups, the detailed sign up sheets are an event-saver, exactly as Colleen described.

Lars......NO......GARLIC?????????????

Nancyjane, I can’t use garlic or onions as both make DH very unwell for days after consumption. It’s a pain because we both love garlic, it just doesn’t love DH.

Nancyjane, I cannot eat garlic anymore. Used to love it, but it gives me such horrid acid reflux and other digestive issues, that I truly try to avoid it at all cost. I'm very careful in restaurants as so many dishes include garlic in them.

We do a couple of "parties" each year at my pulmonary rehab. This Thurs is our Christmas party. I've never taken anything that everyone didn't totally devour and were telling others to try. My angel food cake, pumpkin crisp, and this week's Nantucket Pie (really a cranberry coffee cake) are always gone in a flash. Ninety year old Harry's beer cheese is always gone very quickly, and no, he will not share the recipe. I've been asked many times for my recipes and I'm always delighted to share them. I didn't "create" any of them. The angel food cake is my grandmother's recipe. Heaven's only knows where she got it as she was born in rural Arkansas in 1879. I doubt she got it from a book! The pumpkin crisp was brought by a now-deceased member of the group - loved it and asked her for the recipe. I take it for our Halloween Party in memory of Liz. The Nantucket Pie is my variation of Laurie Colwin's recipe. I prefer my cranberries whole, not chopped, I add no nuts, and I also add some freshly grated orange zest. Other than that, it's her recipe.

My mother mades the best Christmas cookies I've ever eaten anywhere. In her small town, "Cookie Exchange" parties were quite popular. It made my mother furious to take her wonderful cookies, have then snatched up instantly, and then have to take home a bunch of tasteless, cardboard cookies! She quit accepting the invitations to these. It was hard for her to make them with such arthritic hands, and they were filled with butter, so they were not cheap to make either.

I am lucky to come from a family of wonderful cooks. I'm delighted that both my son and daughter, and no my granddaughter and one grandson, are becoming very good cooks. My DD is an outstanding cook - truly gifted.

I'm known for my crepes (savory and sweet), and make them regularly for extended family get-togethers and events, as well as here for my immediate family and neighbors. They are my go-to because there are never leftovers. I'm making Meyer lemon crepes for Christmas brunch next week.

But we were invited to extended family for Thanksgiving and asked, at the last minute, to bring an appetizer. I put together a salmon dip that everyone loved. They finished it that evening and asked for the recipe, etc. I made it again last weekend for a holiday party I host for neighbors, and it was barely touched. So, who knows? Different crowds, or maybe the cranberry margaritas I was serving were just too distracting.

As an added note, I attended a funeral church service last month and afterward, a luncheon in the church hall. The food was provided by the church's women's group. It's not my church and I did not know the women, but I felt so badly going through the line... there were about 5 or 6 potato dishes, and a few weren't touched. A lot of work went into making and transporting those dishes. I'm always the one to take a few servings even if I don't eat them, just out of appreciation.

Reading all these has reminded me of the time I took a huge pan of homemade perogies to a PTA pot luck in Waukesha, WI . The first people in line filled their plates to over-flowing with them, and most of the people in line didn't even know the perogies had even been there. Everyone had brought good food, but perogies in a Polish Community? gone!

Yet another reason against potluck/buffets. We went to a Christmas party that a club we were in had. It was a buffet (you paid for it). The first few Pigs in line piled 3 or 4 plates full of the ham, prime rib, and turkey, leaving scraps for the middle in line (us).

Why do people think it is okay to hog the food just because they are first in line and scr** anyone else?

I also tend to take a serving of dishes that look untouched, so the maker’s feelings aren’t hurt, which as you might imagine has mixed success.

At a potluck barbecue with DH’s work colleagues and their families, I took a decent size serving of some potato salad. I looove potato salad, any kind, even a slightly weird one in Vietnam that included diced apple (it actually was pretty good).

DH had warned me that the host’s wife was known to be a less than stellar cook. I suspect she made this potato salad. It was like you would expect someone to make who had never actually _had_ potato salad, but had only seen an out of focus picture labelled “potato salad”.

So it had cubes of potato. I am pretty sure they were the canned kind, as the texture was odd. But instead of a mayonnaise based dressing, instead it was coated with unseasoned heavy cream :-P. Nothing else. It was amazingly bland. I was too polite to just tip it into the trash, so I choked it all down like Mom taught me.

"Family favorites" at my house are not my favorites. On mom's side it is stuff loaded with sugar like penuche or divinity, which is . . . divine but empty calories and I just can't afford them these days, and on dad's side it is fat, salt, empty starch or perhaps sugar or red meat, my dad's main food groups, all of which I don't like or try to eat only moderately. I make home-made scalloped potatoes, less salt version, and my dad goes, "meh" but then raves about a box mix version he makes. His "family favorites" includes lots of canned soups, etc. He was born and raised in the Great Depression, and I find that generation's "favorites" include lots of store-bought ingredients and sugar, two things that were the height of luxury for them.

I'm often surprised at what gets raves at my parties. Often it is not the thing I spent hours on, but then I'm only a so-so cook. The simpler the better for me, less chance for me to screw up!

Let's sum this up: Don't lie to yourself.

LOL!! Mrs. Pete, too true!

Kate and Sherry, how sad it is that you've encountered such selfish people!! I've been lucky enough to be amongst people who take small helpings, at least until everyone has been served. Sometimes at large meetings, especially when someone inexperienced calls the numbers, there isn't quite enough to feed everyone well, but everyone still gets a good plate, and the less there is left, the less people take, and then the hungry ones go out after. I do admit to liking being at the end of the line, however, so that if the only vegetables are meant as garnish, I can take some. :)

I don't know how to deal with selfish scharfers. Maybe hold back half the food for the second half of the company?

I guess I must know some extremely polite or considerate people, because I've also not had the problem with the first people in line taking huge portions, leaving nothing for others. Most people take a "normal" portion and then if there is some left after everyone has eaten, they go back for seconds.

As I've mentioned, my only problem comes with people who just won't cook at all, but do expect that other people will cook for them while they put in minimum effort.

lpink, I also love the fat, the sugar, the salt, the empty carbs. Love 'em, but don't eat them regularly, they are "holiday" foods and thus, only a splurge by nature. I do like some healthy things too, of course, but if I find penuche or spinach quiche, I'm definitely going for the penuche. However, if that penuche is sitting next to a big plate of very rare, very thinly sliced beef and some homemade rolls, I'm going for the beef. I have my list of priorities, you know. (grin)

Annie

I appreciate your comments and observations on the subject. I do see however, that I'm not the only one who suffers occasional thoughts about food offerings that are presented in group settings, as well as those line hogs who load their plates to overflowing leaving only bits and pieces for those in line behind them.

I might also mention here that I have a special animosity for those trolls (of ANY age past toddler) who constantly hang around the serving table/line pre-serving time and continually snag a bit of this or that, maybe stuff a roll or biscuit with a piece of meat, etc. and if confronted, will try to explain it away with some flimsy excuse ("just thought I'd try it or my sugar was low and I had to eat something or I just wanted to see what it tasted like, etc.) It's even worse when they do it bare handed instead of using the service utensil provided. This includes those that visit the dessert table long before meal time to grab what they can, eat it and then go back for seconds after the meal.

Yes, I'm weird that way and my wife constantly reminds me that just because we try to show off our "best" company manners in these situations, not everyone else does.

We were invited to an annual Christmas party last week where everyone is invited to bring food. The selection is always eclectic to a degree with a plate of some meat and other dishes that range from vegetable to weird salad combinations. This time, the meat consisted of what appeared to be a very small plate of smoked turkey and from the fellow that apparently doesn't cook, two pepperoni pizzas. Some of the vegetable (?) dishes consisted of what appeared to be a lot of cheese, a grain or possibly rice with some unidentifiable green bits mixed in which was presumably broccoli. In any case, there were a lot more people than dishes so somebody(s) cheated and didn't bring anything. And just so I you won't think I'm bagging on others while not admitting to my own offerings, I brought tamales from a very good local Mexican restaurant in my area. Mind you, while I'll readily admit that I'm not usually the most adventuresome cook around, I always do try to provide a food offering that is rather benign in terms of weirdness, that is, a colorful green salad, some vegetable that's not drowning in cheese or an unnamed condensed soup, smoked ham, a seasonal fruit salsa and chips, etc.

Again, thanks for your comments. Just glad to see that others suffer in silence at times just as I do. ;o)

Middle class is stretched, and a prime sign of the times was me going to the mainline protestant church for a choir concert last weekend in my small home town, and bragging up the reception ahead of time to my new-to-the-area husband, with memories of after-church on Sundays of my youth. This year, everything there was store bought. Even the cookies that looked home made I could tell came from a box mix. I don't blame the church ladies, everyone there was old too, many still have to work on beyond the "official" retirement age, and no one is picking up their torch. The youngsters couldn't even make it or were home with the little ones I guess. There is no rule that says church receptions have to be a home-made cookie competition or the world is going to heck in a handbasket, but it's just a thing that is dying out that I feel sentimental about. Times have changed for many.

In the case of the perogi eaters: we were all just plain stunned at the piggishness of those first in line; we hadn't ever had that happen before. I was asked to make and bring them again the next year, and did so, but.... brought in several pans and set out only one pan at a time. I think that those first few were so hungry for homemade perogi - not store bought - that they were just plain overcome with desire to eat as much as possible, At least that's what I prefer to think since I knew them all. ;-))

PIllog, I totally agree! I have a friend who is a dog trainer. On her voice mail, she says, "Train; don't complain!". True for children and husbands as well!

When Mom hosted all of the holiday get-togethers, I'd often bring new and different dishes. People often commented how good they were and that I had interesting ideas :-)

I don't have a sweet tooth at all except for pie, and hubby liked my desserts I'd make. I made one of those peach dump cakes once and we both found it far too sweet. I made it once for a family gathering and everyone loved it! LOL