The gathering we did not really ..........(I can't find words)

There was a 'gathering' at my grandmother's house yesterday.

For some reason that nobody can fathom, someone in the family had chosen to have her engagement ceremony at our matriarch house instead of her family's very large house.

Well, if you ask me, I'd say, it was to save on cost as it's the holidays and the rest of the family are here. So, free labour. It so happened that we have more males in the family. Imagine the money that can be saved from having to pay caterers to do the works. Oh, btw, the cooks are our close relatives too, from my mother's side.

The 'throne' where she got her ring.


The 'floweries'.


The pot pourri which they didn't perfume.......surprisingly.
(Truth is we were not bothered to make the 'pandan leaves' pot pourri for her)

Enough about the ceremony. I want to talk about the food.

I thought I had seen 'decadence' at all the hotels I went to during Ramadhan. I never thought that I would see abundance of food like that now that the Ramadhan is over.

The ones I faced when I went to the kitchen to help out


The trays and trays of food for the guests


So, what were in the trays?
Asam pedas, Javanese beef ungkep, Percik grilled chickens, stir-fried veges, Javanese 'sambal goreng' which is a dish of savoury hot and rich tofu and tempeh combo with chillies and certain parts of cows.....he....he....


The Javanese 'ungkep' beef


32 chickens in the giant pot!
I can't believe it myself.

Would I want something like this for my ceremony someday (though highly unlikely to happen)? Hmm....maybe not. Most of the family members were NOT smiling. They were tired. It's the holidays and we wanted to chill out. Not working our asses off for some 'ceremonies'.

In the end, I was grateful for just one thing. My auntie's Tako. She makes the best Takos in the world. So, any family gathering would normally mean I get to devour these lovelies. Yumm! Yumm!