How do you feel about baked sales, and gifts of food from people that you know only casually?

Usually I’m not picky. But there was one lady at one of my former jobs that I had to actually watch wash her hands and prepare food before I would take any from her. She was a hardcore crazy cat lady, and always smelled like cats and cheap cigarettes.

Blegh.

It’s my favorite kind of baked goods. Store-bought stuff is too sugary. At events at my old high school such as football games or marching band competitions, etc., there’d always be a tent that sold baked goods, and it was my favorite thing to buy. They were assorted home-made cookies in Ziploc bags and costed less than a dollar a bag.

I’ll take all the goodies I can get, just no fruitcake, Mincemeat or, Rhubarf pie. Gag me with a baked good!

I won’t eat anything from a bake sale. Also, unless the participants are close friends or relatives, I also won’t do potluck dinners (for example, a community or organizational event).

If you’ve ever gone door-to-door, raising funds for a charity or promoting a political cause, you’ve seen too many filthy, bug-infested kitchens. A person’s appearance gives no hint; that individual might shower every day, and always wear clean clothes, yet let his/her kitchen become a garbage dump. No, I never eat food prepared by someone I don’t know very well.

I don’t eat food from bake sales, but I often give them money without taking any food.

I switched departments one year at work, and they had an older woman who “ran” the holiday buffet. People would chip in 10 bucks each and she’d get cold cuts and breads and cake and cookies.

Gawd,it was just awful. She got the bread and cake and cookies from the day old store, cheapest low quality meats and sliced cheese.

The next year, I had them get it catered by a good local deli. It was so much better.

@zenvelo It sounds as if your colleague collected money, bought cheap, low-quality food, and pocketed the difference. Does this seem possible? Could she have been deceitful and tacky enough to treat her co-workers in such a manner?

@zenvelo Ewww, nasty!
@SadieMartinPaul I agree, you never know what lurks behind close doors. Me? I am a fastidious cook and keep a very clean prep space. I wash my hands so much when cooking I need about a gallon of hand lotion. lol

@Seek_Kolinahr I worked in a food factory for years, and one of the nastiest women I ever worked with (one that had to be inspected 14 times because she just couldn’t ‘see’ the residue on her machine) claimed to only sleep 2 hours a night so she stayed up baking ‘goodies’. After I worked with her, never did another ‘goodie’ pass my lips. And she had pets.

@dxs & @Coloma Here’s where I’ll put this story:
A couple years ago I stopped at a yard sale and there were 3 adorable girls and their dad tending it. It looked like rain, so I offered to help carry tables in. The girls had bags of the most delicious looking cookies for $1. A whole container full. I bought 3–4 bags, got in the car and pulled away, munching. DELICIOUS. I couldn’t stand their hard work being rained out, so I whipped around and bought another $20 or so. They were thrilled and I passed out cookies the rest of the day. I never say never to baked goods!

Once in while, @SadieMartinPaul, I’ll buy at a bake sale if it seems like a cohesive group that would police each other. I have a weakness for little old lady groups and charity-group functions.

I’ve done that, too @YARNLADY. I tend to do that at lemonade stands as well as bake sales.

I’ve seen that done, @zenvelo! We used to collect for meat, where ‘the guys’ just chipped in $5 each and someone bought the meat for the carry-in at work. One time we figured she collect in the neighborhood of $25 and brought the same amount of meat that I could have brought for $7. Soon I volunteered to bring the meat.

I’m pretty pick and prefer to see the kitchen where it was made, but on a rare occasion, I will pick something up from our local swap meet (which is regulated as it’s in city limits.)

At work, we get a lot of food dropped off and we started calling it ‘stranger danger’ because you always wonder about the safety.

Food dropped off, @KNOWITALL? Stranger danger is a cute name for it, though.

@ibstubro I work in media so people bring us stuff all the time…lol

^^ I’d probably have to skip the lot, @KNOWITALL. There’s a lot of scariness out there in the world. lol Might be fun to re-gift, though. ;)

When I moved from coastal North Carolina to Vail, Colorado, sight unseen, the apartment complex I chose was loosely referred to as “Tortilla Flats.” This, of course, refers to the population of immigrants from Hispanic countries living there. Them, and me. Little blonde chick with a strong Southern accent. At the time that I had moved we really hadn’t seen Hispanic immigration in North Carolina, so I was mystified. Long story short, every Sunday women and children would come knocking on my apartment door selling whatever they’d whipped up that week. At first I gave polite ‘no, thank you’ replies. But soon I broke down and decided to try my first tamale. ¡Mé encanta! I’m a really good cook myself, so I trusted that these homemade Sunday treats brought door-to-door were worth trying after that. Never had a dish I wasn’t thrilled to try.

I will also say that when I have worked the medical tent at Burning Man we weren’t allowed to eat any goodies people gifted us for helping them. I payed those forward, and never heard any complaints ;)