Carolyn Hax: All in good fun

[cereta]

Dear Carolyn: I heard my new sister-in-law, “Ann,” call my husband a jacka--, and I don’t know whether to talk to her about it. I heard Ann and her best friend whispering about something at a recent party, and I admit it: I eavesdropped. I heard her friend say, “Is the short one the jacka-- brother-in-law?” And Ann said, “No, it’s the tall one,” meaning my husband.

My husband likes Ann, but he also likes to tease and joke around about some of Ann’s quirks. She is nice and a good hostess, but she’s also kind of pretentious. Like she’ll use cloth napkins and china plates for a cookout, put flowers in a salad and call pouring custard “crème Anglaise.” So my husband teases her, saying she spilled flowers in the food or calling her Martha Stewart — mild stuff like that, all very good-natured. I know he’d be surprised and hurt if he knew what she thought of him.

I think this could blow over if I explained to her that it’s all in good fun and that he really does like her, but I’m not sure how to bring it up.

— Anonymous

Anonymous: The fastest blow-over opportunity is for your husband to stop being a jacka--.

You think it’s “mild stuff” and “all very good-natured,” but what you describe is an established member of a family constantly hammering on about how different a new member is from everyone else.

Have you ever been in that environment yourself? It’s never as pleasant or harmless as the person creating it thinks, especially over time.

You assume she’ll be okay with it — and therefore you and your husband can avoid making any effort yourselves — as soon as she knows it’s “all in good fun.” Maybe you’re even right about that. But you haven’t accounted for other reasons his remarks might annoy her. She could fully understand he likes her and means well, for example, and still find his shtick unfunny, annoying or stale. Even a crackin’-good Martha Stewart joke is a bad one the second or 17th time.

So the decent move is to flip your intervention impulse 180 degrees: Support Ann, and coach up your spouse. First, pick a quiet moment and suggest to him that the Ann jokes are wearing thin. Remind him you both like her, yes? And she knocks herself out to make things nice for her new extended family? So maybe just an even-more-good-natured “thank you” will do.

Then: When your husband still says, “Oops, there are flowers in the salad,” har-dee-har, say to Ann: “Ignore him. That looks amazing. Where’d you get the recipe?”

When she breaks out the china and cloth napkins, compliment her table. What’s china for at this point, anyway: adding a formal touch to the attic it sits in? And cloth napkins are: (a) Environmentally sound. (b) Much nicer and more practical than paper. (c) Homespun as all get-out. Choose whichever you’re least likely to pick on.

When she refers to crème anglaise, consider that she, like me, never heard the term “pouring custard” until you used it. Because this big country has a lot of regional pockets that we’re all born into by no choice of our own. To her, I’m guessing, you’re all a bunch of “quirks.”

Comments

[cereta]

Oh, hello, my brother and every damn enabler in my family.

Someone can mean something "in good fun" without it being the slightest bit fun for the object. What the person does then is the difference between a friendly jokester and a jackass.

[dorinda]

Yeah, I was really longing for Carolyn to ask the LW, "'All in good fun' for WHOM?"

[cereta]

I do give her massive points for the first line.

[lokifan]

Yeah! In general I was surprised and impressed by the advice here.

[ashbet]

I have never in my life heard crème Anglaise called “pouring custard” until this column.

(I’ve lived in France, the Midwest, the East Coast, and Texas.)

The LW and their husband both sound like jerks, and the “jokes” sound meanspirited and exclusionary.

[dissectionist]

I’m from California and Ontario (Canada), and have also never heard the term “pouring custard” before.

[oursin]

I'm actually English, and custard is something that pours by nature, at least, it did in my young days and was made from Bird's Custard Powder! (And then when it was cold, in my family it was called 'splodgy custard' but I think that was unique to us.)

Creme Anglaise is the posh original made from scratch version with eggs, milk, etc of which this was the poor, time-saving, relation

[dissectionist]

Ah, like mac-and-cheese as versus KD. The former can be made from scratch with high-level ingredients (though doesn’t have to be), whereas KD (Kraft Dinner) automatically comes from powder in a $2 box.

I love the term “splodgy custard”.

[ethelmay]

My first association with custard is the semisolid kind - "cup custard" I think it is sometimes called - and I forget about the kind that's a poured topping.

[laurajv]

joining the "who the heck calls creme Anglaise 'pouring custard'?" crowd.

[shanaqui]

Cloth napkins can be washed rather than tossed, proper plates can be washed rather than tossed, the salads are probably tasty or what she likes or what she grew up with, and crème anglaise is just what a lot of people damn well call it (maybe not where LW lives/grew up, but nonetheless). LW and her husband need to grow up, they're being jackasses.

[neotoma]

I think the husband is a jackass -- he doesn't know when to quit with the teasing, and he's not taking hints or even direct talks. It might blow over if LW explained to her husband that he needs to cut out the teasing, because SIL doesn't appreciate it and it's souring her on him.

Also, the horrors of putting edible flowers in a salad!

[conuly]

I know he’d be surprised and hurt if he knew what she thought of him.

Whereas she isn't surprised that LW and Husband think she's pretentious, because they won't shut up about it.

I know which person in this letter I am most sympathetic to, that's for sure. But who knows, maybe the term "Jackass Brother-in-Law" is an endearment, all in good fun.

[watersword]

My God, can it be, an advice column answer that isn't full of victim blaming????

[ioplokon]

I really feel like teasing, at a bare minimum, should come under "don't bro me if you don't know me" rules. Like, until you know someone well enough to know what their sense of humor is, and until they know you well enough to know it's all in good fun (which this isn't? you genuinely think she's pretentious and judge her negatively for it!), just be nice??

[castiron]

This. Friendly teasing only works when the teaser likes and respects the teasee and the teasee knows this bone-deep. LW and her husband clearly don't respect Ann; they think she needs to be taken down a notch.

There are absolutely relationships where teasing means "you're my peer, so we can kid around", but there are also relationships where teasing means "I'm your superior, and don't you forget it".

[sathari]

All of this times about a million!

[castiron]

LW calls Ann "pretentious", and then says "oh, my husband would be hurt that Ann thinks he's a jackass because he pokes fun at her all the time"??? Yeah, LW needs to take a long look in the mirror, because this "knock someone down to size" bullshit is assholery.

[mrissa]

Jesus Christ the pouring custard

POURING CUSTARD

My ability to even left my body

[melannen]

+1

[movingfinger]

There was a mass wave across the nation, judging by the WaPo comments.

What was interesting to me was, reviewing the comments to try to figure out what regionalism the LW is stuck in, I can't. This seems to be a very tiny locale's or class's term. Brits and Empire types call it custard or crème anglaise. USA Americans call it crème anglaise or custard sauce. I'm still not sure about Canadians, who have a broad band of regionalisms, but I'm suspecting it's more crème anglaise there.

[annotated_em]

If it would hurt the husband's feelings to know that the new sister-in-law is calling him a jackass, then maybe he should stop acting like a jackass.

Also, LW should consider that eavesdroppers rarely hear anything good about them and theirs. Sis-in-law didn't call husband a jackass to his face; she was talking to her best friend, who has clearly been the recipient of previous confidences.

ETA: Oh and add me to the tally of "never heard of pouring custard till today" folks.

[petrea_mitchell]

Add me to the list of people who have never until today heard the term "pouring custard". Or, for that matter, "crème Anglaise".

[p_cocincinus]

So I did a little light Googling and there are a lot of recipes that refer to it as BOTH crème Anglaise and pouring custard, and several others that refer to crème Anglaise AS a pouring custard (usually in such a way that it made me wonder if crème Anglaise was a TYPE of pouring custard, and perhaps there are others, but that doesn't seem to be the case). I also see recipes that refer to it as JUST crème Anglaise, but none that appear to refer to it as JUST pouring custard.

I hadn't heard it referred to as pouring custard, but I cheerfully admit the only reason I'm familiar with it is because I've watched A LOT of baking competition shows. I've never seen Game of Thrones or Succession, but I've watched every single episode of the Kids' Baking Championship on Discovery+.

[movingfinger]

Zabaglione would be another type of "pouring custard," according to its uses, but I have never seen it called "pouring custard" because it is a distinct thing.

[melannen]

It seems to be the same stuff that's referred to in my collection of (deeply unpretentious) American community cookbooks as "custard sauce".

Creme Anglais is generally what they call it in books intended to teach the average person new kinds of recipes, like Fannie Farmer or the American Heritage Cookbook.

Pouring custard makes it sound like you learned to cook from BBC America and you think sticking out your pinky to drink tea is posh

[minoanmiss]

When I saw the title I said "oh no" and the letter did not disappoint (in how much the LW disappoints)

I have heard the term "pouring custard"! I think on a British cooking show that was not the GBBO.

That said:

Dear LW's husband, a White man (so you'll respect his authority) once said the failure mode of "clever" is "asshole".

Dear LW: eavesdroppers never hear anything good. I am however slightly relieved that you and your husband are assholes together. You might have married other people and eroded their spirits with endless "teasing".

Dear Ann: please invite me over. I will bring you my favorite lavender lemon pound cake, the one that an ex-boyfriend "teased" me was poisonous until I cried.

[torachan]

Not sure I could have told you what crème Anglaise is, but I've heard the term whereas I've never heard the term pouring custard. (Pouring custard is definitely more straightforwardly descriptive! I can immediately imagine what it would be. But I've never heard it called that lol.)

[ethelmay]

Maybe she's calling him a jackass all in good fun and he should be a good sport about it. That would make just as much sense. (Also, what's with the "jacka--" spelling? It's not an obscene term.)

[librarygeek]

It has "ass" in it, it must be obscene to the type of person who thinks referring to "pouring custard" (regionalism) as "crème Anglaise" ( more broadly used regionalism) as pretentious.

I wonder what terms they use for different types of donkeys and mules, to not recognize jackass as such.

[katiedid717]

I'm wondering it if might be an automatic publishing filter - I used to frequent a message board where the word "cockroach" would get changed to "c*ckroach" because it had a no-no word in it.

[melannen]

I'm pretty sure ass is still considered a curse word in most journalistic style manuals.

And yeah, my first thought reading this was that SIL and Husband were the siblings, in which case that would be totally normal as affection....

[oursin]

What I want to know is, how many times has he made these 'all in good fun' remarks? Because there is a point where it's not just the remark itself, it's the nineteenth time he's called her 'Martha Stewart' and the joke was old to begin with. A lot of these 'joke around' types are seriously lacking in coming up with fresh material, or indeed knowing what's funny in the first place.

[cereta]

Yes, THAT. I think most people would start to lose their "all in good fun" acceptance of teasing when someone will just not. let. go of a particular point. I finally got to, "your opinion is noted," which of course then became another thing to give me shit about.

[katiedid717]

As someone who likes to make sparkly mocktails, pretty cheeseboards, and host dinner parties, I think I want to be friends with Ann. There's nothing wrong with trying to add a little bit of fancy to your life.