How important hot food Lechayim/Vort

amother

↑ Burlywood ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 4:59 pm

amother Tiffanyblue wrote:

I live in Crown Heights. There's a mini lchaim as soon as the couple comes home with immediate family and usually a day or two late a Lchaim in a hall. Standard is miniatures, cakes, salads, and hot food is extra. It is very much not a given that there will be food at the Lchaim.

Interesting. Here there’s a lechaim when they get engaged, sometimes it’s combined with the vort but whoever needs to know is told. The lechaim is in a house or a hall, depending on different things. After the lechaim is a vort and it can be anytime, can be in a house or a hall, can be fancy or not, many different things go into where to have it and what to serve.

amother

↑ Aquamarine

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 5:08 pm

amother Burlywood wrote:

You can also make the food yourself. If you’re making cakes and cookies, making a kugel isn’t any more work. Or making your own franks in blanks.
The previous poster said it best-it isn’t expected but it’s nice to have.
I’m just saying it can also be done on a budget. It isn’t all or nothing.

Not everyone has the time or energy especially at such a fraught time to make kugel and Franks in blanks for a crowd of 200. Something has to give, if a person can't give the time or money, and maybe the give is on the guests not to expect hot food.

amother

NeonGreen

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 5:18 pm

Don't serve food
Don't get insulted if people don't come

Don't insist that someone should spend $$$ and hours traveling to your party and not serve food. If you want them to come to your Vort give them food. If you can't then then don't be insulted that someone did not come.

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 6:27 pm

amother Burlywood wrote:

I totally understand. But if you’re going here and there and getting food from different places, you can go to Costco and get some heat and serve foods. And usually you know ahead of time that you’ll be making a vort so you can plan things and have them ready.

Again, who said the host is going here and there and getting food? And no, you don’t necessarily have time to “just” run into Costco- that can take half an hour or more!
You seem to be ignoring where I said that very often people make a vort in a shul or a hall that doesn’t allow random outside food, so what then? It’s not as if it’s “just a few extra dollars” to get more food.

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Wed, Aug 14 2024, 6:38 pm

amother Daphne wrote:

I find it disrespectful to expect people to come and honor me with their presence and be absolutely impersonal about it as if they are not family.
My SIL fed me food when I came to the bris, 8 days postpartum. I didn’t expect it but that was a given.
Feeding a traveler is basic.

It is absolutely not a given that a woman should feed company 8 days postpartum! What does that mean she fed you? Didn’t you eat at the bris?

amother

Diamond

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 12:18 am

amother NeonGreen wrote:

Something about your attitude gets to me. Have you ever struggled financially? Have you ever made a simcha on a tight budget? If you are spending money and driving for hours, you are a close family member and should be coming because you are excited to share in the simcha. If you are coming to get wined and dined and have no interest in the simcha, stay home.

amother

↑ Apricot

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 12:35 am

amother NeonGreen wrote:

Are you coming for the simcha or for the food?

↑ erm

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 1:34 am

amother Daphne wrote:

If you consider it a given, you expect it. When I visited my out of town relative who just had a baby, I brought food for her and her family. That was given.

Reality

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 2:18 am

amother Apricot wrote:

Are you coming for the simcha or for the food?

That is ridiculous.

Love is a two way street.

If you really want someone to come then treat them appropriately.

amother

↑ Daphne ↓

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 3:24 am

erm wrote:

If you consider it a given, you expect it. When I visited my out of town relative who just had a baby, I brought food for her and her family. That was given.

Are you putting words into my mouth? We arrived and it was there. We travelled with multiple trains because our original train was cancelled, not with a car. They lived in a place with no kosher eateries. We came in and there was hot food in the house served to us. End of story.

amother

↑ Burlywood

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 7:22 am

Ema of 5 wrote:

And if you’re paying for a hall and have to use a caterer or food service that’s also expensive. If you can cook at the hall there are filling, cheap, nice things you can make.

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 8:08 am

amother NeonGreen wrote:

I don’t know anyone who won’t come to my simcha because I might not have the food they want. When I go to a simcha that’s far away, I make sure to feed my kids. I have snacks in the car, and based on what time the vort is, either we stop on the way home, or we have a late supper.

Chana Miriam S

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 8:20 am

erm wrote:

If you consider it a given, you expect it. When I visited my out of town relative who just had a baby, I brought food for her and her family. That was given.

I read this as the need for benching at a bris. I’d be expecting a meal to be served at a bris, or at least bread. Am I just ignorant?

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 8:27 am

amother Burlywood wrote:

And if you’re paying for a hall and have to use a caterer or food service that’s also expensive. If you can cook at the hall there are filling, cheap, nice things you can make.

Right, if you have to use only specific caterers that could be expensive, so don’t insist that people should pay more than they are already paying.
I have never made a vort, but I have made other simchas. I can tell you from my experience that I would not have had time to cook food for who knows how many people in the week leading up to the simcha. And that was for a simcha that I had extra planning time for.
A hostess needs to do what works for her. For some that will mean being able to cook or order hot food. For others it won’t. Those attending the simcha need to plan as if there is no food. If you want to make sure there is hot food at your own simcha, that’s great, but don’t put it on others to meet your expectations.

amother

↑ Daphne ↓

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 8:38 am

Chana Miriam S wrote:

I read this as the need for benching at a bris. I’d be expecting a meal to be served at a bris, or at least bread. Am I just ignorant?

Okay a huge elephant in the room is the actual location of the simcha.
Are there caterings, cafes, restaurants available or not? How accessible are these?

Am I inviting out of town guests to a booming beehive of kosher businesses or to a virtual desert where they will eat crackers on a park bench after several hours of travel if I don’t serve them food?

Is the food at the simcha limited by budget, by availability of options or by both?
Many brissim in small communities are something something with fish and bread.
It makes a ton of difference.

↑ Ema of 5 ↓

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 8:42 am

amother Daphne wrote:

Are you putting words into my mouth? We arrived and it was there. We travelled with multiple trains because our original train was cancelledQ, not with a car. They lived in a place with no kosher eateries. We came in and there was hot food in the house served to us. End of story.

You came in where? To the house or to the bris? Often a bris will have breakfast food, because that’s the time that it is usually called for- eggs, pancakes, etc. But not always. And I wouldn’t be upset if a bris that I traveled to didn’t have hot food. I’m not going for the food, I’m going for the bris.
If I knew I was traveling to a place where there were no kosher eateries, I would make sure to prepare something for my family.

↑ Chayalle

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 11:18 am

amother Firebrick wrote:

My sibling recently made a vorte. She knew she was going to have people traveling in from all over so she had hot food and it was definitely more than I've seen other vortes put out. I was very grateful. If we would've just been traveling with adults we would have been ok. But we were traveling with our family. Everyone was whining they were hungry. Bh for the food! No one has to put out anything, but it's really nice when you do especially if people are traveling from a distance.

This is EXACTLY why I did hot food at my girls' vorts.

amother

Hosta

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 11:53 am

Always bring snacks and some food with you. Even if the simcha has food, it might be served later and kids get hungry earlier than adults.

amother

↑ Daphne

Thu, Aug 15 2024, 5:48 pm

Ema of 5 wrote:

Have you ever traveled by train?