So, Eid…
My Eid started off just like every other one with me weeks before it, saying, I wouldn’t be doing anything for Eid. But then the day came around and I had a full house with several friends from far and near who have come to celebrate with me.
First of all, this post is way overdue because I’m actually talking about Eid el Fitr which happened 4th of June, 2019. Looking back, it was such a great memorable day.
Anyways a week to Eid I decided that I was in fact going to celebrate Eid with some of my friends, nothing more than 10 people. I started sending out invitations and going shopping for decorations so that I could get that started before it was too late. When it comes to last minute preparations, we all know decorations come last, and I did not want that. So I started with that, knowing it could stay up for long and wouldn’t get damaged unlike the foods I wanted to cook for Eid.
My food list looked a little like this;
Yam balls
Spring rolls
Salad
Fried plantain
Puff puff
Grilled barbeque style chicken wings
Chinese style fried rice
Chinese style chicken curry
And, Jollof rice.
We all know a Nigerian party ain’t complete without that Jollof rice. I also promise you that all these tasted a whole lot better than it looks.
I started rolling the spring rolls four days to Eid, because I knew I could freeze them all up and fry them on the day. I ended up frying them up a night before actually, by that I mean 3:00am, yuup there was no sleep that night. I also rolled up the yam balls and fried it the same night. I took a two hour nap after that and woke up 5:00am to start cooking the rice, for both jollof rice and the Chinese style fried rice. I finished cooking both rice and Chinese style chicken curry by 11: am. I had already mixed my puff puff dough when I woke up at 5:00am, and because there was no sunlight, I had to heat up the oven a little, before putting it in there to rise. I fried the puff puff and plantain while I popped the barbeque chicken, I had marinated two days to the event in the oven to grill. By the time I was done with the frying the chicken was done as well, it was 12:00 pm by then. I mixed the salad and cleaned up before 1:00 pm. I definitely hate having a messy home when hosting, so I needed to get that done before the gussets arrived.
Luckily a friend of mine had come earlier than everyone else, she helped me fix up my room while I was dealing with the kitchen and living room.
I actually got to chill a lot before people started showing up at 5:00pm, that was not the plan, but that was when they showed up, and I wasn’t mad at all. It gave me the chance to shower, do my makeup properly and even take pictures.
As Eid got closer the list of people showing up grew, most of them showed up, some canceled, and a few didn’t even bother. But it was all good, everyone had so much fun and the people who turned up were just the right amount my home could hold comfortably. I panicked so much because I didn’t want to have too little food, that I ended up making a lot, but that was not a problem, I just packaged it and ate leftovers for days with my friends that stuck around after Eid, better too much than too little.
At the end of the day planning is key, Start things way ahead of time. Foods that can be frozen make them few days to the event and on the day start really early that way you can be done before noon and possibly take a nap before people start to show up. I had that chance, I just decided to chill and do nothing with my own time, either ways it was unwinding before the guests started showing up for the Eid party.
Do you love hosting for Eid or would you rather be a guest at someone’s home?
