Cooking for 20 people, I tell you, is not an easy job. Not when you're not a professional cook. Not when you haven't cooked for that many people in almost a year. Yet, this entire long weekend, it seems that's all I've - and my mom and sis-in-law have done!

It started off with the strange bug of cooking breakfast that dug its fangs into me on our Republic Day. I got up in the morning and brushed my teeth and as is normal for me, my stomach started growling. I went down to the kitchen and unimpressed by the various kinds of bread sitting in the bread box and the fridge, I drifted towards the main kitchen looking for something else. AND my eye fell on a box of tofu. I decided to make my speciality. Tofu Dosas. Now, I say my speciality, coz it truly is. I've NEVER heard of tofu dosas anywhere. So, this is at 9 in the AM that I decide to make myself some dosas. While slicing the tofu, I decide to cut the whole block - for everyone, of course. I can't be making me breakfast and leave everyone else, now, can I? So, I cut the tofu and mix the batter. Then I look around to see if there's any coconut chutney by some miracle. Of course there isn't. Now, I can't serve the dosas without any accompaniement, can I? So, I hunt around for some sambhar masala. We live in the age of instant foods, don't we? I open the pack to find it's only powder. No dal, no veggies. Now, what good is sambhar without any veggies? SO, I put some dal in the microwave to soften, and hopefully cook it. I try some parallel processing in the meanwhile and cut the veggies.

Now, I'm a very finicky "eater" and even worse when it comes to cooking. Every dice of the vegetable has to be exactly the same size and shape. So the question of shoving the veggies into the food processor to get chopped "doesn't even take birth" as one of my cousins put it last night (have you NEVER heard of think Hindi, talk English?). There I was, bent over the chopping board, getting everything just right. Got the dal out of the microwave. Not done just right. Damn. I look for the pressure cooker, dump the dal, the veggies and the sambhar masala into it and wait for it to whistle away.

While the steam let out of the cooker, I started preparing the dosas, coz by now everyone was screaming for food. I'd, of course, banished my mum and sis-in-law from the kitchen.

The end result, of course, was yummy put-a-5-star-chef-to-shame tofu dosas with some could-have-been-better sambhar. In 3 hours.

I'm too tired right now to write about yesterday's 20-people dinner. Will do that later.