Playing Hostess

Gosh I'm tired! I swear, I don't know how the society laydeez do this whole entertaining thing on a regular basis... it's bloody exhausting!
The guys from my old office came over for the day. I invited them to lunch, and promised them a home-cooked meal, since I felt I owed it to them and the years of bliss they've given me. I had a vague idea of what I wanted to do, but quite obviously didn't realize how much effort it really takes...

We'd planned for the whole lot to come over by 10 am, to give us some time before lunch to catch up, and play some games (yeah... we're real card game addicts.). This meant I had to have my cooking done by the time everyone arrived, coz it woulda sucked if the whole visit went by with me stuck in the kitchen. So I woke up this morning at 6 to make sure I'd have everything ready an done by 10. And then panic began.

While entertaining all those thoughts of good luncheon-hosting for weeks ahead, I'd completely forgotten about buying the damn ingredients I needed for the cooking! Thus, a better part of the morning was spent bribing my slug brother to drive me to the market to get the stuff I needed. He, having gotten his license just a few weeks back, spent another good hour getting me to the shops. I hurriedly bought the groceries, and rushed back home to make time, and immediately started preparing my 'gourmet' dishes. I'm an average cook, and can manage an omelette or two, so I figured my decided menu of biriyani would be a piece of cake to handle. That's because I hadn't considered that it was biriyani for ten people, which is something I've never attempted before.

For one thing, we didn't have pans big enough to cook in, so yours truly had to improvise with making several pots of the same dish, to be combined once it was all done. The cooking was eventful to say the least, what with the constant tears thanks to the never-ending number of onions I cleaned, the planned tempered potato & cauliflower overcooking into pure starch pulp, and the cat making off with a large portion of the marinated chicken. Nevertheless, I did manage to get my act together by and by, and have my fare ready by quarter to ten. I had somehow completed a menu of biriyani rice, boiled eggs, chicken korma, raita, malay pickle and potato & cauliflower mish-mash.

Was just beginning to feel rather proud of my accomplishment, and grateful to mum for having cleared up the house a bit and laid out the table for me, when I suddenly remembered I'd left the rice in the cooker too long. A stressed check confirmed it too, now matched the potato's consistency.

Had I known that my visitors would delay their arrival by 2 hours (!!!), as they are typically prone to do, perhaps I would have saved the panic attacks for later and gotten more sleep.

They eventually turned up at 1.30, and to put it in a nutshell, we had a blast. We played game after game - giggled at 'Mad', shrieked at 'Twister', created a cacophony during 'Mafia' and got hysterical over 'Uno'. In the interim, they ate my biriyani, and took second and sometimes even third helpings!! Made the whole pre-process totally worth it. I now know why women beam like sunflowers when people compliment their cooking.... it felt DAMN good to be told that my efforts were successful. :))

Cleaning up was less of a pleasure, but mum helped out. As soon as the guys left, I put on my shoes and went out with mum on a window shopping expedition for cars. Spent the rest of the evening checking out vehicles that were way too expensive, and haggling with dealers who assumed that my gender made me stupid.

And now, I've just gotten home, and collapsed onto my bed. And. I. Am. Tired.

AH well... twas worth it. It was great to see the guys today... I was reminded of how much I miss them. Maybe I'll invite them over again soon.

But I'm hiring a caterer next time.