paneer ! One of my first trysts with the creamy rich slightly salty, slight sour, classified as cheese item was in a curry that was synonymous with Sunday night dinners. The kitchen in my hostel was closed after tea on Sunday evenings and we all went in tow to a select few restaurants that were in the area. K and I particularly went to a fast food joint and ordered paneer butter masala with butter roti on Sundays when we both were there. It was a ritual and one that I cherish thinking back to this day. It was also one of the first times I wondered how the kitchen staff managed to cook any of the 100+ items from at least 4 different cuisines at a given point. The first few times, we used to get the menu and read through mostly similar but dauntingly large list of curry variations, after some time we skipped that part and went into order right away. The waiters knew this too and all it took was a 'same-aa' from him and a nod (not even a word) from us to get our order in. If someone had told me then that I would take orders for paneer roll someday in future, I would have laughed the idea off or ignored it at best. But this weekend, I did! Wore my apron on and tied my nervousness at the back of it and took orders for about 80 kathi rolls. That we go and set up a food stall was S's idea and my always eager to try the next exciting not-yet-tried thing self signed up for it. I was in charge of making the rotis and with prash's help we thawed and cooked about 85 of them in 2 hours time. A and S were in charge of the filling and they had batches of chicken and paneer marinated and cooked to the patented recipe. The plan was to sell the rolls and a combo of masala coke at a community event for a few hours on Saturday evening. K was super supportive and did her bit for promotions/marketing. Keeping track of orders and rolling up the cooked and ready roti+filling started to get hectic and prash jumped in. What we anticipated to be a 2 person job clearly kept 3 of our hands full. At one point we had a backlog of 12 rolls! A kept up with the heat from the hot plate and dint cut corners even when the line kept growing. When the last orders were done, prash and A had a roll each and we still had ppl come ask if they could order in. At times, we gave too much Coke, at times spilt a little, at times the rotis were too hot to roll, at times the baking paper was not ready to wrap the roll. We had way too much filling for the # of rotis etc, all lessons to learn for another time. For now, we sold out and made profit and had ppl compliment on the food and dint have a single disgruntled customer. S took kids home and we wrapped up after cleaning, had a beer to celebrate the success and called it a day. The planning, shopping, prep cooking, on the day set up and action time, everything was quite an enjoyable and a satisfying activity, nonetheless a lot of hard work, this business of selling food:) Glad to be around friends and family that make such experiences possible!
