The right Indian exit

I said goodbye to mother this week with a heavy heart and a full belly.

The boozy Saturday night in before she left, we decided to have a mid-week party. My two Indian girlfriends would bring a dish each, mother would cook two dishes and hubby and his French best mate would eat for England.

Theoretically the easiest dinner party I’ve ever thrown. But this being the Basu household, things quickly unravelled.

Mother’s one kilo of prawns were not the shelled variety. On returning from work, I was handed a stainless steel bowl and strict peeling instructions.

Then one girlfriend arrived sans food. Too drunk on Saturday to remember the dinner party involved pot luck, she hastily made a beeline to buy the ingredients for her speciality anda raita.

While I sampled the other friend’s potato curry (aloo dum), hubby’s Irish, Indian food hating best mate called to say he was locked out and needed somewhere to go.

Before I knew it, he arrived, the group had collectively smashed two glasses, my dining table vase and overcooked the dal.Â

We calmed down as my Russian friend arrived and soon eight people were sitting squashed around a table for four talking food, epilators, love and life and devouring anda raita, aloo dum, lentils cooked with oranges, mustard prawn curry and basmati rice straight out of pots and pans.

My top tips for a perfectly simple dinner party?

• Cook the food beforehand and leave them in their pots
• Reheat the pots and serve the food in them
• Make large portions of a few dishes – it’s always easier to make bigger portions rather than new dishes
• Use fancy ingredients not complicated recipes to impress

I would say get others to cook the food, but that wouldn’t quite work as a regular thing. Very sad to say goodbye to mother, but what an exit…