Cerita-cerita Zainur

I'm emotionally unstable. Makan nasi pun tak lalu even though lapar sangat. Even spicy and sambal cooking which always been good appetizer to me failed to do so. I don't know if this has something to do with hormane exchange or what so ever but I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with pregnancy. 99.9% sure!!! Itulah... dalam previous entry punya berlawak nak kenakan orang kan sekali masin mulut Chekgu.....hadoiii.... Bukan tak mahu pregnant tapi setiap hari terpaksa hirup udara kimia yang toksik saya pun jadi pening inikan pula kalau ada baby yang di kandung. That's another different story to tell.... *sigh*

Anyway, today I wanna share my little experience in organizing a so called open house for Raya celebration. Actually if I have a choice I don't want to do 'open house'. There are many reason behind it and one of the most BIGGEST reason ever is "Mak tak pandai masak nak!!!" *dush*

Okaylah fine, setakat masak untuk 2-4 perut tu boleh lah. Tak adalah sampai tak reti sangat. Kata orang takat nak isi perut yang lapar. I PASS! But, to cook for 25-30 adult people not including kids is something that I never did before! Not even imagine it once! *gosh* Do I have choice?

Since most of the seniors here already opened their house including my bestie so they'll keep asking me bila pula nak open house. Haishhh... Memang myself ada niat nak jamu beberapa orang senior especially those yang dah banyak tolong us masa we first arrived dulu tapi bukanlah nak jamu sampai berpuluh-puluh kelapa kepala okay!

Tapi sampai bila mak boleh mengelak nak? Lambat laun rumah mak tetap akan mereka serbu sama ada mak ready atau tak. Maka al kisahnya terpaksa lah mak open house juga...

So, me and habibi discuss waktu terbaik untuk open house ni. We're suppose to do it in weekends tapi banyak weekends yang full dengan activities and last-last we chose Friday night which is on 23 September from 7pm till tetamu rasa nak blah... Haaa... And we planned to cook Nasi tomato with beef tagine prune, ayam masak merah and salad as main dishes while dadih and puding jagung as dessert. And believe it or not I have never cooked ayam masak merah yang sedap before this. Usually kalau masak, most of the times akan sangat pedas sampai husband yang tahan pedas pun tak boleh nak telan! Haha.... walhal I dah ikut resepi yang baik which I google from internet lah. So we blamed the cili kering! Sebab even I used small amount of cili pon the red colour pudar tapi the taste is super hot! So cili yang salah bukan salah saya yang tak expert nih. Yeay!

So what happen next?

On Thursday evening we went to shop for the groceries. Then after isya we started to prepare the ingredients. Habibi helped me a lot in the kitchen. In fact habibi lah yang tolong siang daging 2 kilos and ayam 3 kilos. We fried the chicken that night and cooked dadih as well. Around 2 am baru tidur maaa. And the next morning we get up early. I do the cooking while he do the house cleaning. Everything went okay... so far... sampailah time masak nasi tomato.

Jeng jeng jeng!

Masak tu we masak 8 cups each untuk 2 periuk nasi elektrik. Periuk nasi pon terpaksa pinjam bestie because mine punya muat 6 cups aje! Kat sini problem bermula apabila periuk nasi tersebut asyik menendang aje. Nasi belum totally masak tapi the periuk dah off cooking. At first I wasn't panic at all because normally after I kacau-kacau and korek-korek the nasi dia akan okay and the periuk will continue cooking. But this time around, every 5 minutes dia akan off. Aaarrrrghhhhh...

I was panic and blur don't know what to do. Tanya habibi yang confirm tak pandai masak dari I ni lagilah tak membantu. We keep adding water into the pot. We thought air yang kurang. Bertambah tensi bila dua-dua pot jadi gitu. Habibi pon dah panic. Apa taknaya lagi 2 jam lebih tetamu nak datang. Wakaka... Lauk siap nasi mentah? Oh no!!!!!Kalau kat Malaysia mesti I dah kelam kabut keluar beli kat restoren aje! Haha- Poor me~

The funniest part is tetiba I rasa nak balik Malaysia! Not because of my phd thingy tapi... Mak tak dapat tahan malu nak andai kata 2 tahun lagi duduk sini orang kata open house mak makan nasi mentah! Alahaiii.....

Di pendekkan cerita I siap 'bercakar-cakar' dengan habibi sebab dua-dua pun dah panik and tak sangup tanggung malu! Last-last suruh habibi called kawan yang we all pinjam periuk ni. Konon tanya awat periuk hang asyik menendang aje. BTW, my bestie tu husband dia a great cook. Open house lepas pun husband dia yang masak. Wallaa kelas gitew...

So her husband cakap angkat periuk nasi tu letak atas api dapur yang kecil. But before that, balut periuk tu dengan aluminium foil supaya tak keluar wap. Masak dalam 20 minit insyaAllah okay! So we all follow aje lah and alhamdulillah salah satu periuk tu nasi tomatonya masak elok while the other one yang we all asyik tambah air tu agak lembik sedikit but still boleh di makan!

Maka dengan itu selamat lah Mak dari kena balik Malaysia sebab malu... Kah kah kah...

What ever it is alhamdulillah we manage to organize it well. Ayam masak merah Mak yang selalu tak menjadi pun habis licin sampai ada yang tak sempat merasa. Tak tahulah sedap ke tidak janji licin I senang hati uols! And my tagine pula dapat pujian dari mat saleh. Katanya sedap! I'm glad! And there are a few things that I learned and InsyaAllah next year will be even better and I proud of myself sebab at last I dapat juga membuktikan yang wanita tak berapa pandai masak ni still boleh masak sendiri untuk jamu 30 orang makan tak payah pakai catering macam dekat Malaysia uols.... *cehh berlagak taik kucing!*


psst: Penggunaan kata 'Mak' adalah merujuk kepada penulis manakala 'Nak' kepada pembaca budiman...