Perfect Food Fix During A School Reunion Party

What would you do if your childhood friends decide to have a school reunion at your home? Can you even think of saying no to them? That too when you share picture of every recipe that your wife cooks with them?  They know very well that your wife is a very good cook and is a well-known food blogger…  Yes, you cannot say no to your childhood buddies.

My hubby has a big group of school classmates on whatsapp and they discuss about what happens day-to-day in their lives. Since the last day of school till today, they never met again. So one fine day they all decided to meet. So while discussing, a thought just came to their mind, why not meet at Kamat’s home? His wife is a good cook and she makes yummy food. My hubby got very worried and he could not even say no. For every recipe that I cooked at home, he would share a picture with them and they would say “ Dude, you always send pictures, atleast make us eat something that she cooks”. So this time hubby really could not say no.

At dinner time, my hubby was bit tensed and I could feel that just by looking at his face. I asked him what the matter was. He then narrated the entire incident to me and how his friends selected our home as the next place for reunion and how they all want me to forcibly cook for them. OMG, when I heard this I went nervous. How will I cook for 30 people?

 I started praying to Lord Ganesha, Mata Rani and all God’s. Mentally I asked them what I should do and to show me a way. I told them to give me some idea as this a noble deed that I will be doing… Feeding some people with food at my place. Should I say that I am sick and can’t cook? Or should I say that I am going on a project to client location? Or should I say that I am stuck in office over an escalation? OMG! I did not know what to do.

I had never cooked for 30 people in my life. Yes I am a food blogger, but that does not mean that I am professional cook. I can cook for maximum 10 people, what is 30? OMG… I could not sleep that night thinking about this. Hubby told me not to worry, he said that he will help me in the kitchen. But how many chapatis will 30 people eat? 30*3=90? OMG… and how many Kgs of rice to cook for so many people.

Just then I saw a tiny little owl peeping at me on the playstore. I love to browse through various apps on my smartphone or on my ipad to check out the latest apps. When I checked the description of this app, it said that TinyOwl is the easiest way to order food from your favorite restaurants. Another one is TinyOwl Homemade where home-chefs cook food and it is delivered to people around by the folks at TinyOwl. I got some second thoughts like, why not order from an online app like this? But then I thought… No! How I can I do that when they all want me to cook for them?

I was thinking about the same thing and in the morning I asked my hubby whether we can order food online though the app. They will deliver fresh and hot food at door step that too on time. I told my hubby that I can make a sweet dish like pudding or kheer for his friends from my kitchen and rest of the food we can order online. We also have a party hall in our apartment where we can host the reunion party. Hubby liked the idea.

Soon came the day of the reunion. First we made a list of all the veg and non-veg eaters and what their meal preferences are. We selected our favorite restaurant in the vicinity based on the ratings given by other people. We selected a hotel with rating 4 and above where it was also mentioned that the delivery time is 30 Min’s and that they deliver 100% on time. We ordered food for whole 30 people according to their meal preferences. We got the best crockery on rent too as we did not have so many bowls, plates, cups, spoons and forks.

We placed the order around 3 PM so that the restaurant gets ample time to cook for the party scheduled at 8 PM. Since the payment was huge amount, I decided to pay via my credit card. One can even pay by debit card or by cash. There were no hidden or extra charges other than that mentioned on the app and I could order from multiple restaurants too.

My order history was automatically saved in My orders tab. The TinyOwl team then confirmed the order and intimated the restaurant and even told us the expected time of delivery as this was a huge order.

The entire experience of ordering food on the app was awesome. Hardly any effort was needed as I only had to swipe across with my fingers. My location was automatically detected and a list of restaurants from my vicinity was displayed. I could also filter on the price, delivery time and rating.

Since my order was huge, I did not have to worry about minimum order.  They also provide option to select type of food like Indian, Chinese or Desserts. We selected Chowmein, fried rice, veg and non- veg curries, rotis, Gobi Manchurian, chicken chilly, chicken crispy and chicken lollypops. We ordered soft drinks from the local shop. As per the plan, I made Gulab Jamuns, Caramel pudding and kheer at home.

When the friends came home, they had a blast. Yes literally they had a blast. Imagine a group of old buddies who meet after 20 years… They met after so many years and they shared a lot of things which they missed about each other… first job, marriage, profession, etc. They loved the food and started admiring my cooking skills too. Just then I told them about TinyOwl and how we ordered food from there. I told them that only the desserts are home-made and rest all is from restaurant. I told them the reality that I never cooked for so many people before. It is always good to tell upfront rather than to sit with guilt forever. But they were very happy. They said that they never meant that I should cook everything. They said that they were pulling my hubby’s legs and he took seriously. One guy even said “ Bhabi, how can we expect you to cook so much for us? We were just pulling your hubbys legs. We just wanted to spend time together and that was all we needed”. They loved the Gulab Jamuns, kheer and pudding and said that it was out of the world and were happy that they could taste my hand-made food too.

At the end of the day they were extremely happy and went back with some wonderful memories. Thanks to the technology and the introduction of smartphones in our lives. These apps have a fix for everything, specially with apps like TinyOwl  there is a food fix at anytime and anywhere.

This post is part of Indiblogger & TinyOwl contest.