Over the years, I’ve shared quite a lot of my cooking online, and the more I did it, the more adventurous I became. Somewhere along the way, I started toying with the idea of taking my hobby one step further and actually sharing it with people in real life.

And then I thought… Why not host a supper club?

It was an idea that both intrigued me and scared the absolute s*** out of me.

Last year, I started going to various supper clubs to see what the experience was like. They ranged from around £50 – £100 per person, and I went to four or five of them, sometimes with a friend and sometimes on my own.

One of the things I really enjoyed was that they felt so different from going to a restaurant. They were much more intimate, and you ended up chatting to people you’d never met before. There was something lovely about sitting around a table with a group of strangers and, by the end of the evening, feeling as though you’d known them for ages.

Of course, being me, I eventually started thinking: I could do this myself.

I entertain all the time anyway, and I do it for free. Perhaps this could become a little side hustle and give me some extra spending money. Single mum life is hard, after all!

But then the doubts started creeping in. What if my family had been lying to me all these years and my food actually wasn’t that great? What if my cooking was basically catfishing everyone What if people turned up, ate the food and thought, “Erm… we paid for this?”

Then there was the question of where I would actually host it.

My house is tiny. It works perfectly well when I’m entertaining family because everyone is happy to eat buffet-style and perch wherever there happens to be a free surface. But ten paying guests? That was a different matter.

I started looking at venues, but very quickly realised that hiring somewhere would make the whole thing incredibly expensive. And while I wanted to do something I loved, it also had to make financial sense. We all know how physically exhausting it is to spend hours cooking – especially at my age!

I also felt slightly strange about charging people. My friends were encouraging me to sell tickets for £60–£65, but I decided to charge £55 for the first one. I knew I had a good menu and that I would be using quality ingredients, but I also knew there would be teething problems. I was learning as I went along, so £55 felt fair.

In the end, I decided to bite the bullet and host it at home.

I put together a Middle Eastern-inspired menu featuring some of my favourite dishes from across the region, with my own little twists here and there.

I decided to keep it small – just ten guests – so everyone could sit comfortably and actually enjoy the evening.

Then I made du’aa, picked a date about two and a half weeks away and announced it on Instagram.

And immediately, I panicked. What if nobody bought a ticket? Maybe I had completely overestimated myself. Maybe I had convinced myself I could do this when, actually, nobody else would be interested.

And then… Every single ticket sold out in less than 24 hours!!!! I honestly couldn’t believe it.

The two and a half weeks leading up to the supper club were… intense.

It was my son’s 11+ exam period, I had work every day, book events to attend, and all the usual demands of being a mum. Somehow, I had to fit an entire supper club into all of that.

I did my grocery shopping in the 40 minutes I had between school drop-off and work. Other bits were squeezed into the 30 minutes left of my “lunch break” when I collected my little one from school.

Then there was the actual cooking. My kitchen is tiny, so figuring out how to prepare everything without completely losing the plot was an experience in itself.

I had to clean the house, prepare the dining area, cook all the food, organise the table and somehow make myself presentable. I had about 20 minutes to get ready!!! For the first time in approximately years, my eyeliner was wonky. That is how you know things were serious.

My cousin came over just before the guests arrived to help me with the hosting, which was a huge relief. And then, just before the main course was served, she suddenly had to rush off.

So there I was, alone with ten guests.

And an entire supper club to run!!!!!

Despite the little hiccups, Alhamdulillah, it was an amazing night. The food turned out exactly how I wanted it to. My guests had a wonderful time. People who had never met before were chatting and laughing together, and the whole evening had the warm, relaxed atmosphere I had hoped for.

And the feedback afterwards was honestly spectacular.

All those hours of planning, shopping, chopping, cooking, cleaning, worrying and second-guessing myself suddenly felt completely worth it.

There is something incredibly special about feeding people. Maybe it’s because food is about so much more than food. It’s hospitality, generosity, culture, conversation. It’s connection.

It’s bringing people around a table and creating a space where, for a few hours, everyone can just relax and enjoy themselves.

Would I do it again? Absolutely.

In fact, I think this might just be the beginning.

I loved every minute of it — even the stressful bits, even the wonky eyeliner, even being left to host ten people on my own!

Most of all, I loved seeing people come together in my home and enjoy something that I had created.

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet, make du’aa and give something a go. You never know where it might lead.

I’m supposedly a writer but right now, I can’t write. 

I’m sitting here with my laptop literally on my lap but I can’t bring myself to open it and type out words that may or may not end up in a book somewhere, some day, one day.

Instead, I doom scroll. I weep. I wonder why and how this past year happened, if things will ever change, if Palestine really will be free. Some day. One day? 

I wonder if there is such a thing as justice. I wonder how humans can be so abhorrent. 

I wonder if happiness really does exist, or is it just a fleeting moment of increased endorphins..a chemical reaction that dies as quickly as it comes.

I wonder if I will ever smile from the heart again.. if it will ever be more than lips contorted upwards in an attempt to project normality? 

Then I feel guilty about wondering, instead of actually doing something.

366 days of genocide that much of the world has ignored. 76 years of misery.

Free Palestine.. inshallah. 

What’s everyone reading this bank holiday weekend? I usually read lighter books during the holidays, but I received Brotherless Night in my goodie bag at The Diverse Bookshelf Pod event and I’d been desperate to get stuck in. So while it’s not my typical August bank holiday read, I’ve not been able to put it down after the most epic opening line: I recently sent a letter to a terrorist I know.

Brotherless Night is a haunting exploration of the Sri Lankan Civil War through the eyes of Sashi, a young Tamil woman who dreams of becoming a doctor in 1980s Jaffna. It brilliantly weaves personal and political turmoil, shedding light on the devastating impacts of a conflict that lasted nearly 26 years. Which, I’m ashamed to admit that I knew very little about before. 

It’s not just a story of war though, but a powerful testament to the endurance of hope amidst unimaginable darkness. Sashi’s journey, marked by loss and resilience, embodies the struggle of a generation caught in the crossfire of history as they are forced to make choices that will change them forever.