Hari raya open house

We had our hari raya open house last Saturday, 27th October 2007. Exhausting? Yes but satisfied.... The series of events started with the groceries shopping with Azrai the day before ie. Friday. We went to pasar Chow Kit which has everything under the sun. Before we even started, we had to detour to Azrai's office in Glenmarie as he received an important phone call asking for a revised quotation. If you are self employed like us, you'd understand that every call is important to us and we have to get it done. So, our 10am shopping was moved back to 2pm. Good thing both of us know our way around the pasar and had a shopping list ready so we finished our shopping in just half an hour. This is not the normal grocery shopping for a small household. This is to cater for about 100 pax.

We later went to Setiawangsa to fetch Danial's nenek. Went back to Putrajaya and immediately start on the rendang. The reason why we went all the way to pasar Chow Kit is there's a shop that blends all blendable ingredients needed to cook. So, we don't have to peel the onions and all those petty things. Everything went into the big wok and all we need to do is to stir it occasionally. Cooking made easy thanks to pasar Chow Kit.

The stuff for laksa sarawak was prepared the morning of the open house. We managed to go for Abang Chop's and Kak Haz's open house at Presint 11 at noon. They served Mee sup which was yummy. Compliments to the Chef!

Our open house started at 3pm. The first guests were Aunty Fauziah and Azhan. We didn't expect them to come as Aunty Fauziah called Azrai earlier to say that they won't be coming as she has to go for her radiotherapy. Nevertheless, we're glad that they came anyway. I feel bad for Aunty Fauziah because there's nothing I can offer her. She's a good sport though to come for the sake of getting together.

The starting was slow. Family members first and later on, our neighbours came and followed by friends late in the evening. Danial was enjoying himself all the time that he didn't take his afternoon nap until very much later. He slept at 6pm only to wake up at 9pm. Good thing too because that's when the crowd started to come and we really had our hands full. Danial must be tired because he didn't stir at all when people went up to use the room to pray nor when the other kids sat around him watching the cartoon channel.

The last guest left by 10pm. Food was nearly out. Good thing too since we don't have much storage space to keep any left overs. Good thing that this is a once a year thing. The one day preparation for the one day open house left me with days of cleaning up. To date, I still have pots and pans and utensils and so many other things left uncleared. And I'm guilty as it is not starting work yet after over 2 weeks of hari raya holiday....