I had 15 Pakistanis in my house over the weekend. I'm still recovering.
We had planned a big welcome weekend for Chachoo's wife. Two out of three cousins in the New Jersey area were going to come with their families, as was Mian & Chachoo's sister (my sister-in-law) with her husband and daughter. Even though Chachoo's wife's arrival has been delayed, everyone still decided to come since it was already all planned out.
M's sister arrived first, around 3 o'clock on Friday. I had prepared a dish for lunch that my mother-in-law calls Burmi Dish or Burmese Dish* that I'm not sure is really Pakistani or if any other Pakistanis really eat it, but my in-laws do. After lunch M, Chachoo, and my SIL's husband played cricket. The baby got a few swings in too while SIL and I sat around chatting. I made potato and chopped spinach Pakoras (veggie fritters) for sham ki chai, or afternoon tea.
Cousin #1 arrived around 10 at night. He brought his mother, father, and son with him, who are in America working on their green cards. Cousin #1 is also married to an America, but she's from a Guyanese family so I feel like she has a bit of an advantage over me in the non-desi wife situation. She wasn't able to come because she'd been so over-taxed at work recently.
I cooked Nihari for dinner and I used a store-bought spice mix because I (read: my mother-in-law) don't have a recipe for Nihari. I cooked it without the aid of a pressure cooker for EIGHT HOURS because I wanted it to be authentic tasting. At the very last minute, I added flour to thicken it up and it all was destroyed. I guess I added too much flour because it turned beige in color and bland tasting (it's supposed to be a dark-brownish-red and spicy). I tried to salvage it by adding more spice mix and then food coloring, but I was out of red color and used yellow instead, but it didn't help. Ironically, my sister-in-law had cooked some Nihari and brought it with her, so I served that instead and hoped it would be enough and thank God, it was. Later when my SIL asked what the problem with my dinner was, I explained and she insisted on tasting it and said it tasted like Paya - which is another dish entirely and the two are not supposed to taste similar. So, wow I have some weird yellow bland nihari/paya hybrid in the freezer. Not a good thing.
The evening was spent playing ludo, badminton, cricket and card games. Many cups of tea were drunk, none of which were prepared by me. Chachoo has become the #1 chai manufacturer in the house these days. M and I went to bed around 2 because we had to get up early to make breakfast the next day. I heard later that most of the rest of the guests stayed up until 4 - even some of the children!
The sleeping arrangements had been difficult to figure out with so many people. We brought the baby into our room and gave his room (with queen-sized bed) to M's aunt & uncle. Chachoo was going to leave his room and give it to Cousin #1 and his son. The other bedroom was given to M's sister and her family and poor Chachoo was to sleep on that same spare twin mattress on the floor. At 4AM, though, apparently they all decided to re-arrange my arrangement and Chachoo and Cousin #1 slept in Chachoo's room together and sent the son up to sleep with his grandparents.
Cousin #2 arrived the next morning with her husband and three daughters. They only stayed for the day. We had gotten up early to prepare a breakfast of Pakistani-style breakfast potatoes, Halvah (which is usually made from semolina but I made some from yellow channa lentils), a sweet dish made of raw green mangoes called Gorumba (which I'd made ahead of time) and BRAIN. Ick. I did not partake of the last one. Everyone seemed to enjoy everything, but I got rave reviews about the Halvah. Unfortunately, when you're a gori- or non-Pakistani wife the "rave reviews" sound more like an incredulous"YOU made this?!?!"
After dinner, there was more badminton and games, this time including a few rounds on the Carrom board M built with his own two hands. The kids rode in circles around our driveway with wagons and tricycles while the adults got right to work on lunch. M had marinated beef and chicken for "Bihari kabob" and got to work threading the thin beef strips onto skewers while I started slicing veggies for salaad** and making two kinds of dipping sauces - a classic cilantro one and a new cumin & yogurt one I learned from Chachoo's wife while we were in Pakistan. Then I trekked everything downstairs so we could all eat outside in the amazing weather we had in our area over the weekend. I helped fan the barbeque flames and mop M's brow in the meantime. M had brought a Pakistani-style barbeque grill with him when we came back from Pakistan because it's hard to fit lang metal kabobs on a regular American barbeque grill. Also, the meat isn't supposed to touch the metal grill. (I don't know how to explain that part, I'll have to just take a picture of it.)
After lunch, everyone started packing up and leaving. All three families had driven away within an hour or so of finishing eating. Mian, Chachoo and I cleaned up for another hour. Then the men collapsed and both napped for an hour or so and we all reconvened to watch Men Who Stare At Goats later in the evening after the baby had been put to bed.
In a word, I'd describe the weekend as Exhausting Two words: Fun & Exhausting. Too much to think about right not: Chachoo's wife is coming soon and it will all happen again.
*Burmi/Burmese Dish - I cook a pot of beef in tomato gravy w/ red chili powder, cumin powder and some other spiced, and in another pot of, weird vegetables with some lentils & water. When the veggie-lentil mix is totally soft and mixed - sometimes I use a stick blender to help it along - you add it all together in some kind of thick, mashed-veggie & beef glop and serve with rice. Perhaps I'm describing it very well, because so far it sounds disgusting but in reality, it's one of my favorite dishes, and one of the first Pakistani foods I truly loved and craved and requested by name.)
**"Salaad" is what we call plain, sliced veggies served with Pakistani meals; as distinct from the American-style salad where the veggies are mixed and usually served with a dressing. Pakistani "salaad" is more akin to a crudite platter. M and I just draw the "A" out really long and pronounce the word like it's said in Pakistan to denote the plain veggie one so that the other one know what we're talking about.
