sounds like my kitchen! sad face
So true. To the guests it probably smells good. My wife is vegetarian as well and will sometimes cook some mushrooms which even she thinks smells bad. If guests are staying, we’ll burn a scented candle to get rid of cooking smells. Very rarely do our guests cook. I do the cooking for their breakfast and most go out for lunch and dinner.
Even our vegetarian guests don’t mind waking up to the smell of bacon cooking.
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Yes Barnes – straight in with “if you are so vehemently opposed to those cooking odors either stop allowing cooking or stop hosting”.
IMHO (and yes, I am allowed my on opinion) if a person is so obviously not prepared to accept those non-destructive things which guests do (we can tell from the language s/he uses), that person should probably not be a host – their attitudes will be reflected in their treatment of guests, which in turn reflects on the rest of us!
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as long as I’m allowed one as well
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Yes, that’s more or less me, I’m afraid. I’m a pretty half-hearted vegetarian sometimes. The only thing that really allows me to say that I’m vegetarian (albeit half-hearted) is that we never have meat or fish at home. As we rarely eat out, I’m vegetarian most of the time. 
Luckily, there are no diet police - I’d be in trouble if they existed!
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I’m unlike himself - he’s one of those belligerent ‘nothing with a face’ type vegetarians. He’s not even tempted by bacon. Yet … he wears leather.
I don’t understand the logic either!
Yes, I’m glad you agree, that it can go into furnishings and into the walls. It does! I’m sticking to the outdoor verandah for guests’ cooking!
It’s fine for them to use spices, you can never tell people what to cook or what not to cook (it saddens me that people promote the cruel practice of animal farming; personally, I’m pescetarian) so they can use spices or cook with meat or use lots of oil, whatever they want to eat. I just personally prefer my clean and pure food without spices that have sat on a supermarket shelf for several years full of mould. I’ll use fresh herbs from my garden any day, thank you!
Why do you say I’m “complaining”? Why are you assuming I’m complaining? I am merely making a comment, sharing an insight! Is that not what this forum is about? I had no idea how ghastly some foods that people cook might be until I started hosting, and seeing what people actually cook and eat, and I’m just commenting on it. Hosting is a great experience where we LEARN about people from all over the world. Let’s learn and share together!!!
I have a restaurant across the road from me, literally 10 footsteps away. I have a huge array of further restaurants and cafes in the main shopping centre, a five minute walk. Plus I’ve said on my listing that if the weather is really horrible, we might be able to negotiate that they can use the kitchen inside the main house. That hasn’t happened yet. Everyone seems happy just to eat out or cook on the verandah. Nobody has asked to use the inside kitchen yet. So it seems to work out fine. Nope, not a Kiwi.
Oh Ken, what a lot of baloney, to tell me to stop hosting! I LOVE hosting, you don’t get it. I’m merely making an insight, as to how horribly people eat, what horrible foods people eat. They can eat what they like. I’ve not told them not to cook, or to only cook vegetarian, etc. I’m not the bossy sort. I’m keeping on hosting, I’m keeping on letting them cook their ghastly foods from all over the world, and I’m merely sharing a thought with you guys, as I never had any idea how ghastly we as humans cook and eat. I’m learning as a host (only been hosting for a few months), and it’s merely interesting, how people will actually cook like that, eat like that, like gross. I think it’s gross, but they are guests and can cook what they like! Am I not allowed to share an insight on this forum?
Yes, no action required, absolutely! Let them cook. People must eat.
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Reading comprehension is one thing but writing styles also play into how a message comes across.
In the opening statement of this thread, the OP uses the words, “ghastly:, “revolting”, “vile” and “sickening” in describing the guests’ food. In a subsequent post, she again uses “ghastly” (3 times) “horrible/horribly” (3 times) and “gross” (twice) about the food of others. She states she is merely commenting, not complaining. Perhaps, but it does present the OP’s opinion in a certain judgmental light, does it not?
It should not be surprising that a forum commenter also used judgmental words in relation to the OP’s comments.
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Isn’t that funny? I would prefer to smell fermented fish and Japanese food long before pinesol which makes me cough endlessly and feel nauseas.
And the requisite LOL.
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She’s Australian - gunyah is an aboriginal word for dwelling
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Kiwis put “hey” at the end of every sentence, hey.
Who is this “they” whose behalf on which you speak? I once took a cooking class in Hoi An in Vietnam and the instructor assumed none of us had used or liked fish sauce. She said: “to you fish sauce smell funny but to us cheese smell funny” with a little laugh on the end. I looked around and I bet at least half the class, like me, had fish sauce in their pantry and used it regularly. I find it’s best not to make assumptions about what people do or do not find funny based on their appearance or assumed ethnicity. LOL.
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I had a Basque roomate who would could octopus in a way that really smelled horrible to me. It was so bad I finally had to say something and ask if there was a different way she could cook it. And she said yes there was and I never had to smell the revolting smell again although she continued to occasionally cook it. Amazing what effect a little conversation might have.
Fish sauce and shrimp paste/blachan are some of my kitchen cupboard essentals, but only the blachan stinks, so I cook it outside. Portuguese fishermen dry octopus on the washing line, then slice it off to eat as a snack. I was once challenged by an old boy to try a piece; my revenge was to give him a piece of blachan (raw), which he found disgusting but had to eat. The octopus was merely very chewy.
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