No stress, just Eid

Gracefully avoid the chaos of hosting by planning ahead

SLOUGH, ENGLAND:

Let us get the most important thing out of the way first. There is no such thing as stress-free hosting. Of any kind, be it Eid or birthdays or brunch or what have you. The most obvious way of conquering stress-free hosting is to reconsider doing it at all. The other is to have all your food catered. Spending all of Eid morning dressed in your finest and sweating over a stove, accumulating sweat patches and grease stains along the way, is probably not the Eid look you pine for. 

But the odds are that you are in a position where you can neither take back that rash invitation to an open house, nor pass the buck onto last-minute caterers or an entrepreneurial homemaker working out of her own kitchen. Perhaps you have a tender ego that cannot bear to let your glory be supplanted by faceless chefs. Perhaps you live in a large family that considers the very notion of caterers to be more scandalous than a runaway bride. Or perhaps those wretched caterers are not just picking up the phone. 

Whatever the reason you find yourself in this laborious position, there is no need to collapse into a pool of tears - at least not for too long. Crying, we concede, is an acceptable response to making 300 kachoris for a free-flowing river of guests who won’t stop coming. However, we cannot allocate all of Eid day to sobbing. There is work to be done. 

Plan your meal

Tempting though it may seem, there are no answers to be gleaned by staring into the fridge or your cabinets to dream up what your menu may be. Nor will this menu reveal itself as you scroll through Instagram reels of recipes that look as easy as making a bowl of cornflakes on your phone screen, but in practice, turn out to be roughly as difficult as turning lead into gold. Ergo, now is not the time for navigating uncharted territory. Stick to what you know, something you can do with your mind far, far away from the kitchen without posing any risk to your food. 

The day before, write down your menu and stick it to your fridge with a magnet. Do as much as you can the night before, such as putting your ingredients and equipment (chopping board, knife, etc.) on the counter and measuring out the amount of rice you need. You will not have time to bicker with a disgruntled fellow adult and send them sprinting out to buy more tomatoes midway through cooking chicken karahi on the day itself. Make sure you have everything you need a day ahead of time, such as water bottles, cold drinks, and tissues - and, of course, tomatoes. 

Work smart, not hard 

Even if you don’t have anyone coming until dinner time, start off nice and early in the morning. Today is not the day to regain any beauty sleep you have sacrificed over the past month. Head into the battle in the kitchen as the sun comes up and tackle that list. Cross off everything as you go along. The list-makers amongst you will already know that the very act of crossing off something is an oddly satisfying exercise. 

A word on those aforementioned kachoris. These are an extraordinarily bad idea to trot out before guests if you have made the brave decision to host an open house brunch. Not only do kachoris involve a lot of standing around in front of bubbling oil and risk splattering the beautiful shirt (and farshi shalwar) you wrestled out of your tailor’s unrelenting grip the night before, some of us have also found ourselves in the mortifying position of running out of flour after the first 150 kachoris and had to discreetly shove a pouting housemate out to get some more forthwith. 

Stick to lunch or dinner. Brunch is probably the worst meal you can choose to host, but if this is the path you have taken, find something you can prepare beforehand. Stuffed naans are a cunning option, because you can spend the day before stuffing and rolling them and only need to throw them on the tawa before any guests arrive. 

Plan other things too

Planning ahead is not relegated to just your meal, because of course, Eid day is about so much more than throwing food on the table. That table, for a start, needs to be laid out accordingly. The night before, think long and hard about the crockery you need, and decide which item will go in which serving dish. Write it down if need be. Take out the corresponding cutlery, because some of us have found ourselves bereft of serving spoons at a key moment and have had to run to a kind, well-stocked neighbour for help. (Not recommended.) Extract all your fancy plates from the bowels of the fancy cupboard (or wherever you hide the good stuff) and lay them out on the table accordingly. The rest of the family can eat on the sofa for one night. Remember to cover everything up with a sheet lest an adventurous lizard or curious cockroach decides to explore this beautifully decorated table of yours in the middle of the night. 

Speaking of all things beautiful, have your clothes ironed and hung up one or two days in advance, as nobody will have the time or headspace to be ironing when they also have to cook. Decide in advance what accessories you want, so that you are not rooting about fruitlessly for those green bangles before remembering that your sister absconded with them last week because they went perfectly with her own Eid outfit. Also, have all the Eidi stuffed in named envelopes the night before. You do not want to be scouring the house for a pen that works as an assembly line of children line up before you with palms outstretched. 

Ask for help 

Finally, forget about doing it all alone. If you enter stupid contests, you win stupid prizes, that is the Eid host’s motto. Be ruthless about delegating tasks. Make a list of what grunt work needs doing and shamelessly outsource accordingly. If you are in the fortunate position of having house help, you have probably already got this covered. If not, you may have other pliable adults and children in the vicinity. Depending on how old these children are, they can be roped into chopping cucumbers for a salad, peeling potatoes, and laying the table. If you have babies or toddlers, divine intervention is the only thing that can sort you out. Do not make the mistake of hosting again for the next few years until your children are old enough to be useful. 

Have something to add to the story? Share it in the comments below.