To imagine all this was done at the late hour, It was an emergency cooking. I was at work on Saturday when a friend called to tell me about these contracts.
The good thing was, preparation for items and all that would be needed was already made available only left with who to cook the food.
After the call i had to start calculating in my head, in my mind as yesterday “ Today is saturday, tomorrow sunday.supposed to be at work by 12pm tomorrow…..”
I already had doubts about going before remembering I could swap my off day for tomorrow Sunday.
It was a last minute decision though and I really prayed that my boss permits me as well as my colleague whose day off was today.
Yes yes! It was prayer answered and immediately went home after my closing time to bathe and get ready for the night.
Let me not even start the summary of how frustrated I was in finding the location last night. I successfully arrived a few minutes past 10 pm after roaming the whole of portharcourt since 7pm in the evening, let's just make this a discussion for another time.
I met my friend and a few others who came to assist doing a thing or two before joining in. We planned to put the meat, chicken and pepper on fire and have them ready, then sleep for at least an hour before the main cooking starts.
Things initially were going as planned but it became bad when it began raining heavily. The rain destroyed all our plans and had to make use of the host kitchen gas to fry the meat and chicken, while the pot of tomatoes and pepper mixed was left outside in the rain since it was first the fire wood method. I really regret not taking enough pictures to back up these experiences.
Honestly, everything that happened from last night entering this morning was all a new experience for me. We were to prepare and wrap up 800 packs of food which were supposed to be delivered by 11am today, and not even the meat or the stew was ready. My friend went home last night to prepare her own food she normally sells on sundays, now imagine the state of my confusion and helplessness.
At the end, I fried the meat and chicken to go to sleep, oh yes! It was already at the point of “I can't kill myself oo” The sleep wasn't an enjoyable one since my mind naturally was preoccuopied in finding solution.
At last, I updated my friend who at her end, brought her two sided gas cooker which became the solution to all our problems. For the pepper, the rain tampered badly with it. Oh man! Indeed I should have snapped a picture of it🤦 We were able to drain out the excess water with the use of a loosed cotton material.
Although we weren't able to meet up by 11, we were able to complete cooking and wraps before 12:30pm.
I'm just so thankful to God that despite all odds, everything ended just fine.
We prepared our party jollof, by first pouring in the Oil into the dried pot according to the quantity of the rice the pot would carry, before adding in the Onions followed by the refined Tin cup tomatoes after a while we added the Fresh tomatoes & pepper mix then the seasonings, meat and chicken stock came last before the rice was added and while it was almost ready, i then spread in sweet corn and a few vegetables to beautify..haha😅
My negligence in not creating a full gallery from these events is my only regret and just had to do with the little I could gather from the finishing touch. Aside from these reasons, I am happy and fulfilled that the whole stress and work was worth it at the very end.
▶️ 3Speak