Amuse bouche... Vegan pud

Ithink we need to be nicer to Rosie,” Carmel said. “We’re very nice to Rosie,” answered her husband, Sean. “I’m here making a fool of myself for Rosie, who is a grown woman and could be doing this herself.”

“Ah, but you’re doing it, and slagging her about it in equal measure,” said Carmel. “She’s very sensitive.”

Rosie had always been the very sensitive one. Then Rosie was the very sensitive vegetarian one. And now, just before Christmas, for god’s sake, Rosie was the very sensitive vegan one.

Sean was at the kitchen table, with their full complement of cookery books on the table in front of him. There were three piles: those that had Christmas-pudding recipes, those that did not and those that he hadn’t checked yet.

Sean hadn’t found one to suit Rosie’s new needs yet.

For years, Sean had a perfectly good Christmas-pudding recipe. His mother had handwritten it for him the first year that he and Carmel did their own Christmas, and he’d made it every year since.

He’d never had any complaints. And he’d modified it for Rosie already, years ago, by replacing the suet with butter when she went vegetarian.

Sean smiled now to remember when Rosie went vegetarian. All that teenage stropping around and calling him and Carmel murderers, and pretending to puke at the table when he carved the Sunday roast.

Sean hadn’t smiled at the time, obviously. Rosie had been an infuriating teenager, really. The rows had been something else. Sean had never imagined he could look back on those years with affection, but here he was, smiling away at Rosie’s mad sensitivity.

And here he was trying to find a pudding to suit the maddening girl, now a fairly maddening woman.

Sean wondered if Rosie’s kids had gone vegan too. He probably shouldn’t ask her. He guessed from Carmel’s instruction to be nicer, that Rosie had been on, bending her ear about how Sean’s slagging wasn’t funny, and how the subconscious has no sense of humour.

Well it’s lucky I have a sense of humour, thought Sean, or I’d be murdering Rosie for making me mess with my lovely pudding, instead of sitting here trying to find a new one.

Carmel’s phone beeped with a text. “Rosie,” she said, grimacing at Sean, which made them both giggle.

“She’s emailed you a vegan recipe,” Carmel read. “Don’t say anything smart back.”

“I won’t. I promise,” said Sean, hoping that, some day, even sensitive Rosie might look back at this and laugh.