I always heard stories about well-planned event went haywire due to unexpected obstacles. Among scary stories I heard like nasik tak masak, hidangan tak cukup eventhough memang dah bajet lebih, lain menu yang di plan- lain menu yang jadik.. and many many many more.

Today, I wanted to share with you challenges and series of unfortunate events I've face during organizing Malakoff's Joint Venture Open House 2010. The venue was at my place. Having tested with many difficulties, I can't ignore the fact that, no matter how a great planner on paper you're, Allah remained the Greatest Planner above all. He knows better.. Plus, this experience taught me to remained calm, tawakkal, redha and do not panic no matter what had happened, cause only when you gather your head together then you'll find solution.

Under normal circumstances, I would have my mum, my father, my two sisters to help me, this time I'm on my own so help me god.

Menu as planned earlier :

My husband told me few months before raya that he wanted to have satay during raya this year. It's normal culture among Tranung to serve satay as their Hari Raya meal. So, few days before Raya, we already started with the preparations. I didn't know that Sultan Centre did sells chicken flesh in bulk. I've seen only chicken breast sold by piece so we opted to buy whole chicken and de-boned it ourself. if only I knew about the ready made flesh chicken, no doubt I would have bought it first hand. Save us a lot of pain killers. Sitting for 3-4 hours straight is no joke man ! Serious back pain and cramp butt is guaranteed.

All in all, we had 5 whole chickens and 2 kilo beef awaited for us. The chicken needs to be separate from their bones and cut into cube. Lucky for me, En Muddy used to work part time at Pasar Borong Selayang hence he had experienced handling chicken. Lucky me again, the beef butcher had cut the meat into big chunk of cube. All we need to do was cut the portion into smaller cubes. Easy peasy !

Satay in the making processes went smooth I must say. I marinated the satay and after few hours, we started cucuk the satay on bamboo sticks. We planned to start grill the satay the next morning, on the event day. However, En Muddy taking extra safety precaution by trying to grill few satay sticks that nite using our oven. Lucky he have that instinct cause the end result was total big failure. The satay turned out to be very dry, causing it to berderai derai. There's no way I would serve that kind of satay to my guests. I was having a very un-easy feeling already. We sat down and had brainstorming session. As typical as I can be, I am the one came out with all the rubbish and non logical idea hahaha. We definitely cannot use the normal satay griller with charcoal as it will produce a lot of smokes. Last thing we want was having our neighbours calling firestation. Oven is definitely out of the list.Then En Muddy came out with idea to buy portable indoor griller. Good thing our house was located only 5 minutes travel from 24 hours Sultan Centre so off he go hunting for a griller.

He came home shortly after that with griller that cost KD 4 and immediately get into action. 1st batch of satay tester was placed on the griller. 1st few minute, it looks good. Suddenly it turned off. I quickly blame En Muddy for being all cheapo and bought cheap one hahahah. If it was for me, I would definitely tossed the griller away and called the satay project off. I'll SMS all the guest and inform them there won't be any satay tomorrow due to technical error, so dun hope for it. It is very fortunate that I'm marrying man with technical knowledge, hence he detected that the griller causing the extension plug to burn. All it need was another extension plug. Wallaaaaa... after the new extension plug put in place, the griller started it wonders. Since the griller was a mini one, we decided to grill all the satay half cook that nite, and will continue to bakar till garing upon guests arrival tomorrow to save the time. There's no way we could get all satay done if we started tomorrow.

{ Satay in place }

{ Two bucket of satay waiting to be grill. There another 2 buckets in the fridge }

{ Halfly cooked}

{ Halfly done. Yeayyyyy}

{ End product}

{ Timun+bawang+nasik impit to accompany satay}

All satay job done at 2 am in the morning. I wrapped all of it nicely in aluminium foil and proceed to next plan in the list. According to my list, my next task was to make bubur som som for desserts.

While I stir the batter on my stove I ask my husband to read out for me the instructions my mum gave me on my lappy and I think I heard he said " Kacau adunan sampai LIKAT dan tutup api, masukkan adunan dlm acuan yang di sukai ". Wah mak aku nye cara cara memasak dh macam cook book kan hehehe.. Ayat mmg terbaik.

I dunno which part went malfunction that time. His eyes or my ears because my batter doesn't taste and look like my mum's one. After all was scooped nicely in the mould tray, I went to my laptop cause I know there's something missing somewhere and found out that my mum actual instruction was " Kacau adunan sampai KILAT dan tutup api, masukkan adunan dalam acuan yang di sukai ". Seeeeeee.. simple techical error produce big different when it comes to cooking. I was thinking of making another batter, however clock already strikes 3 and I need to wake up at 5 to prepare other meals, hence tawakkal je la and pray that miracle do exist and somehow, there's bubur som som fairy god mother came to visit that night kah kah kah.

That morning I woke up at 5 and as expected, no fairy god mother came by, and my bubur som som was left un-cooked like the way I remember it last nite. Sighhh...

When I came to Q8, I brought together 2 boxes of infamous Cik Mat ready-made Kuah Kacang paste. I used one during makan makan with Indonesian friends and left one for Hari Raya. I didn't plan to host any Open House so 1 box is more than enough for my small family. However 1 box only produce 1/2 pot of Kuah Kacang so it's not a balance ratio with my satays. It is rather incomplete to eat satay with no kuah kacang in my opinion, hence I had to top it up. I didn't bought any extra peanut as I thought the ready made paste was more than enough. It's also rather too late to ask my husband to go out and get a pack of peanut for me as he also was pretty handful organising the house, table and chairs.

Lucky me, I still had peanut I bought for Nasik Lemak so I seen no other option, I diverted the function to made Kuah Kacang. Sorry Nasik Lemak, you had to settle down with no kacang goreng to accompany you.

This is my 1st time making kuah kacang and I have only internet to guide me. Finally I had to admit, internet did bring more good influence than bad hahahah.. Despite my lack of experience and few adjustment and tasting session by both me and husband, I think my Kuah Kacang turned out alright. Thanks Allah for made it easy.

Without any intention to boast, I never had much problems cooking nasik lemak before. Hence I'm pretty confident to cook Nasik Lemak for my guests. Lesson learned : NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. I put it last in my list as I wanted to serve my Nasik Lemak steaming hot, more appetizing I think. I started cooked it at 10 pm and guests will start arriving around 12 so it should be just nice.

By 10:45, I checked my rice in both cooker, weirdly the rice in both still under jelantah state. So I added more water. 20 minutes later, no changes. To make it worst, my rice cooker pointer kept 'tendang" the button cook to warm and I have had to reset it again and again and again till at one time, it just refused to be set to cook button anymore and remained in warm. How Now Brown Cow ?

I tried all petua I've known in the book.

Put a cup of water in the middle of the rice, not working!

Take out half of it to give more space, still not working!

It's already 1145 am, my guests will be arriving anytime soon, so as a backup, I cooked 6 pot of Plain Rice, just in case. In the mean time, in between sweating and frustrated, I am thinking of what to do with my quarterly cooked rice. I pray for Allah to give me way out of this mess. Then I told my husband, let's steam it. If it's working, it will be Nasik Lemak kukus. If not, I guess, we had to apologize to the guests for making them eat Nasik Lemak without the Nasik... I mean, what's the point rite? Nasik Lemak without nasik lemak was better off not having nasik lemak at all. However, since I already cooked Sambal Ikan Bilis, sliced the cucumber, boiled the eggs, fried the ayam rempah.. I have had to come up with something to replace my nasik lemak if my steam solution doesn't work out. It is indeed worth a try as I dun feel like giving up just yet.

We steamed it batch by batch in small portion. 1st batch was a benchmark so as to say. If it doesn't turned out as I hope for, I'll just replace it with Nasik Putih then. Luckily, it turned out well. Every bits cooked well and the texture also nice.

Alhamdullilahhhhhhhhh....

Major Phewwwwww of the day. Finally I can breathe easily. All in all, it took me 6 rounds and all 10 pots of rice was nicely ready to be served to my guests.

{ Bahan sampingan dh siap, nasik tak masak masak. Sorry no nasik picture cos by the time I'm done with it, my guests already flooding my house but I guarantee you it looks exactly like how nasik lemak should :)}

{ Sambal ikan bilis }

{ Sila teka ape ni :) . No price for correct guess as tuan blog tak berapa nak kaya.}

I've decided to make bandung soda as our main beverages since I never make any. I found one recipe in internet and the way the blogger described the taste of the outcome just make me drooling over my monitor. I just had to try it myself. My biggest problems are I dunno which syrup that taste nice here in Q8 and I just can't find any Ice Cream Soda. Mind you, most syrup here have a strong taste and smell of pelaga so you just have to pray hard you will pick the right brand. Case in point, I picked brand Rabee out of many brand in the rack.

Rabee syrup, please please please dun failed on me.

As for soda water, definitely there's no ice cream soda here hence we need to replace it with plain soda water. However, soda water here came in small small bottles. There's few familiar brands that caught my eyes like Perrier and Schweppes. However we took another brand that I forgot it's name hahahha... Other than that...tawakkal !!!!

Anyway, below are the recipe. Thanks a lot to http://itsajugglingact.blogspot.com/ for a lovely recipe. I owe you big time as my guests all loved it to the max, and I ran out of this bandung soda within 1/2 hour after the party started. say no more !. I can't make another batch though as I never expected this overwhelming response over this bandung soda and did not bought extra syrup, hence we had to serve mango juice to our guest after that. Sufficed to say, statistic recorded less number of visits to water tumbler compared to when the tumbler contained bandung soda :).

Recipe was copy paste from her blog. Saya mintak halal yer tuan blog. Anyway, for those in malaysia, it will be easier to make this drinks as all the ingredients can be found easily you just have to follow the recipe accordingly and adjust based on how many of guests you invite . For us in Q8, there's some adjustment need to be done.

{ Something like this, however our soda water bottle was smaller}

{ End result. I gave 5/5 for this bandung soda. Most yummiest bandung soda I ever taste and all my guests agreed with me. Highly recommended}

After all those above-mentioned challenges, I ended up exhausted and looking worn out before my 1st guest even arrive kah kah kah. Seriously I look like as if someone just ran over on my cat.

Yan, Lina and Ayu (other joint venture partners) arrived shortly after that with their planned menu. I just hope they didn't have hard time preparing theirs like mine.

Guests started flowing after that non stop till 9 pm. Despite flaws here and there, we had a blast hosting this open house and I hope my guests experiencing mutual feeling too.

Other menus from my open house partners :

{ A very moist and yummy banana cake by Yan}

{ Mee kari dan adik beradik by Yan}

{ Sinfully delicious lemon chicken by Lina}

{ Samosa by Lina}

{ Agar agar yang sangat cute by Lina}

{ Bahan bahan sampingan Laksa by Ayu }

{ Kuah laksa by Ayu}

{ Dodol homemade by Ayu. Hebat sungguh tau buat dodol ngn microwave jek. Sedap lak tuh. Because of Ayu, merasa orang kat Q8 makan dodol :) }

{ Rendang Ayam by Ayu. It looks way nicer than this actually. Ni pic lepas re-heat esok pg nyer sebab my husband just forgot to snap photo of rendang out of busy-ness melayan tetamu. Ni gamba rendang dah terhangus skit sbb tuan yg panaskan ni terleka basuh pinggan mangkuk. Sorry Ayu :(. Mintak maaf sangat mencacatkan rendang awk sikit hehe }

{ Arabian candies by Indo group from Fintas }

There are more foods actually like kuih raya by Ayu, kuah lodeh by Kak Siti yang tak sempat di snap.

Enough with foods, let move on with guests of the day. Below are among pictures of tetamu yang sempat di snap. Pity some of the guys have to eat and sit outside since my house adelah sangat "besarrrrr ". Some of the dishes also have to be put outside due to lack of space. Outside chairs and table adelah sumbangan Lina and Lim. It is arrangement made between us as when they had open house, we will lend our chairs and table to them too. More economical this way.

My last guests left around 9.30 pm. Despite balance of my energy left enough only to drag my feet to bed and dozed off, I still have major cleaning and clearing job to do. So with a help from my husband, we cleared the leftover, pack whatever left and put into freezer, clear the garbages, vacuumed the house, make sure kids and us got shower and call the day off around 12 midnite.

Thanks a lot for all the guests kerana kesudian datang ke Malakoff Open House 2010. Harap jangan ade yang serik despite many flaws pada hari kejadian as it is involved a lot of hard works to organize an events, be it big or small. I had learned a lot and hope to do better in future. Insya allah, this one tradition worth to keep.

To Ayu, Yan, Lina and families : U guys rawkssss big time.... It's truly an honor to be part of the team.