Rosie sniffed. “I was distracted, that’s all. And it wasn’t as bad as that year you used a new method to cook the turkey and it was raw inside. I was glad to be vegetarian.”
Jenny’s mother glanced up from the sandwiches she was making. “I remember that year. Chaos. There was much screaming coming from the kitchen. We didn’t eat lunch until five o’clock.”
“That was awful, I admit it. And I learned a lesson there. If something works, don’t change it.” Jenny put a clean bowl on the table and removed flour and sugar from the shelves. “You’ll need mixed spice, ground ginger and cinnamon, Hayley. You’ll find them in the tiny jars in the cupboard near the fridge.”
Hayley gave up arguing and hunted for the jars. “You have hundreds of jars.”
“I like to cook. They’re in alphabetical order.”
“In my flat they’re just crammed into a cupboard in total disarray and half of them have gone out of date,” Rosie said. “I aspire to have a kitchen like my mother’s. Maybe one day, when I finally concede to being a grown-up. Mince pies are done. I’m moving on to mini quiches.”
Hayley brought the spice jars back to the table.
“Great. Now we need to find the recipe.” Jenny rooted around in the drawer and found the recipe she’d scribbled out years before. She didn’t need to look at it, but she wanted Hayley to have a sense of ownership. “This recipe is easy to follow. I’ve been making these for years. The children love them and they make great gifts.”
“Gifts?”
“Yes. Sometimes we put them in jars with a pretty label and give them to friends.” She put the digital scales next to Hayley. “First weigh your dry ingredients. That’s right.” She hovered over Hayley’s shoulder, offering tips and encouragement, as she had when her own children were young.
“This is scary,” Hayley said as she measured spices and added them to the bowl. “You only get once chance to get it right. In my job, if I make a mistake, I can just delete it and start again.”
“You do the same with baking,” Rosie said. “I once threw away an entire batch of cupcakes because I reached a really good part of my book, lost track of time and burned the lot. It happens.”
Hayley laughed and then turned back to the bowl in front of her.
She studied the menu carefully, running her finger along the writing and then she measured and sifted and mixed, asking Jenny questions as she did.
She’s never done this, Jenny thought.She’s never cooked with family.
And suddenly she realised how hard this must be for her. How alien.
A lump of emotion formed in her chest and she cleared her throat.
“That’s it. Now bring it all together in a ball and we’re going to put it in the fridge to chill.”
“The fridge?”
“It makes it easier to work with. While it’s chilling, we can choose our shapes.” She grabbed the tin where she kept the cookie cutters.
“Stars and snowmen,” Rosie said, returning her attention to the quiches she’d been making. She sliced through a piece of smoked salmon. “No sense in breaking with tradition.”
Hayley picked them out. “How about a Christmas tree?”
“Good idea.”
Less than an hour later three trays of cookies were in the oven and Hayley was flushed with satisfaction.
“How long do we cook them for? Having made it this far, I don’t want to burn them.”
“We’ll set a timer so we don’t forget about them and check them after ten minutes. This is where we reward ourselves with a drink. Coffee? Or I could make a festive hot chocolate with a touch of cream and cinnamon?”
“Go for it,” Rosie said. “Hayley needs a crash course in comfort food. And we can run off the calories on the beach later.”
Jenny whipped up four hot chocolates and put them on the table.
In an attempt to create a festive atmosphere, she’d lit a couple of orange-and-clove-scented candles and turned on the fairy lights that she’d persuaded Martin to string around the room the day before. She’d stopped short of having a Christmas tree in the kitchen, but she’d filled a large earthenware jug with holly, eucalyptus and pine and placed it at the end of the kitchen island.
Hayley seemed enchanted. She kept glancing around her as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.
