Pear Shaped

‘She’s stood there while he chats you up?’ I nod. ‘You’re going to have some fun double dating …’ says Laura.

‘Early days, love. He might meet some sock model in China and never call again.’

My mother phones from California. She lives in an apartment in Newport Beach, OC heartland, with her second husband Lenny, a retired orthodontist and professional doormat.

‘Have you spoken to your brother?’ she asks, saving the pleasantries for another time.

‘Why?’

‘It’s Shellii.’ Or ‘the-scrawny-tramp-who-is-bleeding-your-brother-dry-with-her-spirituality-crystals-and-Lee-Strasberg-acting-classes’.

‘What now?’

‘She’s bloody pregnant.’

‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’ It means you won’t harangue me to have children for at least another two years.

A heavy silence on the other end.

‘Mum, she’s not that bad.’ Shellii’s so much worse than ‘that bad’, but I never agree with my mother on point of principle.

‘Huh. What’s news with you? How’s the flat?’

‘The flat’s fine. I’m fine.’

‘Job going well?’

‘I’m heading up cold puddings.’

‘Good, well eat some. Your grandmother said you’re looking very thin.’ My mother speaks to her ex-mother-in-law twice a year and it seems their sole remaining common ground is my weight.

I am currently slim and mostly toned but by no means ‘thin’. I will never be ‘thin’ – the Kleins are big boned. But since I split up with Nick last summer, I have lost a stone and a half through exercise and taking proper care of myself. For the first time since I was twelve, I’m almost happy with my body, save for a few inches around my bottom.

My mother takes my weight loss as a personal slight. A rejection of body fat is a direct rejection of what unites our family and everything she stands for. Food equals love, too much food equals Jewish love. At weddings, my genetically freakish thin cousin is the subject of whispered snipes about anorexia and suspect parentage. My mother feeds Lenny three large meals and half a cake every day. She will feed that man to an early grave and then overfeed everyone at the shiva (think full on Irish wake, but with egg-mayo sandwiches instead of whiskies).

‘Lenny’s just walked in, I’ve got to start lunch.’

Two weeks later James calls from Beijing airport. ‘Remember me?’

‘Clown school’s out for summer?’

‘You should see what I can do with three chopsticks and a scorpion.’

‘Sounds painful. Anyway, how can I help you?’

‘Tell me when you’re free for some spaghetti.’

My favourite. ‘A week on Wednesday.’

‘Too far away. I want to see you before then.’

Then you should have called me before now. ‘Sorry.’

‘Seriously, what are you doing between now and then?’

‘All sorts. Wednesday week, then?’

‘Okay. I’ll call you nearer the time with a plan. Got to go, they’re calling my flight.’

Is an average brownie better than none at all?

This is not the same as asking if a taste of honey is worse than none at all. When Smokey Robinson sang that, we can assume the ‘honey’ in question was just fine.

No, this question goes to the heart of what separates people like my old boss Maggie Bainbridge from most people on the planet who simply like cake.

When I went for the interview at Fletchers two years ago, I received an email from Maggie a week in advance:

Please bring:

1) A cake you’ve baked from a recipe book

2) A supermarket pudding you rate highly

It was like being asked to cook for Michel Roux Jr. on Masterchef. After agonising for days, I decided to keep it simple and make a Claudia Roden orange and almond cake that my mother makes at Passover. The texture is fantastic -totally squidgy yet light. The flesh and zest of the orange offset the sweetness and give the cake a fragrance that makes you think you’re in a Moroccan souk, rather than a fluorescent lit office block round the corner from the most toxic kebab shop on Oxford Street.

Maggie took a bite and her brow furrowed. My first thought: Christ, I hope she doesn’t have a nut allergy. But then she went over to her immense bookshelf, picked up a volume and slowly nodded.

‘It’s based on the Roden,’ she said. ‘But the depth of flavour you’ve got is superior to the original … there’s a pinch of cinnamon in there, you’ve put in slightly less sugar than ground almonds, and you’ve used blood orange, which is quite clever.’

I realise later that ‘quite clever’, from Maggie Bainbridge is like winning a Michelin star.

‘And what did you buy on the high street?’

Maggie Bainbridge famously invented the molten middle caramel pudding. Many chefs claim to have invented this pudding, but Maggie actually did. So, even though it is my favourite shop-bought pudding, there’s no way I could bring it in – far too creepy. Instead, I found a pudding in Marks and Spencer involving cream cheese, mascarpone, raspberries and dark chocolate that I thought was amazing, and took that in.

She gives me a strange look when I take it out of my bag. Shit. Of course, I should have brought in a Fletchers pudding, utterly stupid of me.

‘Why did you pick this?’ she says, with surprise verging on irritation.

‘You said bring something that you really like … it’s four of my favourite ingredients, the texture is amazing, the sharpness and the creaminess work perfectly together, and the chocolate they’ve used is at least 70% cocoa solids….’

‘Do you know anyone in new product development at M&S?’ she asks, looking concerned.

No, I shake my head. I wish – I’d be going for a job there if I did!

‘Have you tried it?’ I ask. I feel I have upset her but I’m not sure why.

‘Yes.’