Issues with invites

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Hi:
I had recently had a gathering at my house for New Year's Day. I had sent an invitation out about two and a half weeks before and no one had said yes until the last minute.

In the invitation, I had asked everyone to bring over something of an "Original recipe" since most of my potlucks end up being nothing but fried chicken instead of cooking. Never the less, four of my guests ignored my requests and brought over fried chicken. One of them is a married couple and they also brought over fried chicken. I got a little irritated and said to the married couple, "Just so you know, this was supposed to be a gathering where everyone made something instead of buying friend chicken." I had offended them enough not to want to appear to interact with me very much while appearing to have an attitude at my gathering. In fact, they did not smile or anything because they were so upset.

On top of the fried chicken, I managed to bake a chicken and do a stuffing while others seemed to disregard what I had asked of them.

So my question is, how do I communicate to my friends that I don't care for fried chicken at my parties and that I want the other? I don't want to be a people pleaser but at the same time I don't want to put them on offense because it's "My party."

Hi Summer Twilight,

I read this and a previous post and thought there may be an additional reason for the guests response. Although I'm not sure where you live...I reside here in the USA, and we have a popular franchise place called Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). Here at KFC they are specifically known for something called their "Original Recipe" chicken. Perhaps your guests misunderstood your invite and took it literal to bring some Original Recipe chicken??? Or perhaps they bought and brought it for fun, thinking that it would be a good play on words. At times, people can think literal and this may be a case where this occurred and then they were confused as to why the Original Recipe Chicken was not welcomed. Again, just a guess...not sure really.

I used to attend a weekly bible study and each person would sign up to bring a different "type" of food. For instance 1-2 people would bring an appetizer, 1-2 people would bring a main dish, 1-2 people would bring a side dish, and so on with dessert. That may be a good way to get everyone to understand that you would like some variety if/when you have your next party or event. It truly is frustrating when everyone brings the same thing....and am thinking that is why our group ended up having to be more specific with what people should bring. Once before we had straightened this out...we had almost 7-8 desserts and no real substance...talk about a sugar rush!! !

They brought it because it was last minute and they probably did not have time. While I see where they were coming from, I felt like they disregarded my requests. I wanted some variety since fried chicken is what I refer to as junk or garbage food with no value. So I got a little annoyed.

Okay. It sounds as if you have a good understanding of their reasons/intentions. I'm sorry that they did not take the time to prepare something original at home. Parties with a potluck can be quite good....but as you have implied, they can also not be good if everyone brings the same food item or even a main course without any variation. I'm hopeful that your next gathering people will understand and maybe you can explain this to your friends again, if needed.

No1: potluck means it is Pot Luck what you get. Means just be grateful for whatever people bring. If you specify what they should bring then it is not potluck. If you want people to bring specific things tell them to bring the specific thing or nothing at all

No2: asking people to bring prepared food for New Years Day after probably partying the night before is not very wise. No wonder that all you got was fried chicken.

No3. Get new friends who have better food standards. Fried chicken is nasty. Probably wasn't even free range.

Other one sounds a little blunt in terms of the "Homecooked meals" Should I put that in the invitation instead of in person?

Knowing what dish to bring can be challenging. Whenever I've been invited to such a party I have been asked to bring something more specific e.g. snacks, dessert, main (meat or veggo) dish or salad. Too much freedom can be a bad thing because people might end up bringing the same or similar things.

I was interested in knowing the etiquette of 'potluck' parties, so I did a search.
http://www.thekitchn.com/potluck-etique ... you-153378
http://entertaining.about.com/od/etique ... -Party.htm
http://shewhoeats.wordpress.com/2008/01 ... etiquette/

My family asks for specific things, maybe after a few years of the same people you can be specific too? My specialty is Cheese Sausage Balls

Oh someone brought over cheese sausage balls on New Year's Day. They were good too.