As I complete my pizza-topping line-up and lay out some spoons and knives, Lacy walks in, in pyjamas, a robe and ugg boots, with her hair towelled semi-dry.

‘It’s dark out,’ she says. It takes me a second to realise she’s explaining her clothing choice. ‘And it’s the weekend. Officially.’

She stretches her arms above her head in a big Y and her pyjama top lifts above her waistband, showing a flash of pale skin. She drops her arms and it vanishes just as quickly.

Cedar is already smearing tomato sauce across his pizza base and scheming to load it with meat and no veges at all. Canadian bacon, pepperoni, reindeer sausage. The idea that encouraging kids to prepare food might make them eat something green is a TV fantasy we have trialled and abandoned several times. Lacy picks up her tray and watches him.

I ask her what she’s going to have and she says, ‘I heard the original pizza was just buffalo mozzarella and basil on the tomato base. The Italian flag. I thought I might do that.’

She glances down the row of ingredients – artichoke hearts, olives, grated cheddar as well as the buffalo mozzarella, mushrooms, red onion, dried oregano and the meats. Cedar folds his final turkey slice and shapes a cheddar mountain on top of it. Lacy would usually step in then, but not tonight. She’s stuck in her ingredient appraisal, gazing blankly at the bottle of pizza sauce.

‘Cee, maybe a bit less of the cheese,’ I tell him. ‘We want it to cook properly, right?’

He looks at me, thinks about debating it, then puts half the cheese back. I pick up my tray and step in next to Lacy, third on the production line.

‘Was basil on our list of things we tried to grow?’ she says, as if it’s an ancient story, though it was only April. Tried and failed. Timing, and close attention, are everything when growing in Alaska.

The basil on the original pizzas Lacy’s heard about would have been fresh, and the nearest fresh basil is no doubt in Anchorage, brought in by air from a long long way away. Twelve ingredients, no basil.

‘Might have to be an Indonesian flag pizza instead, unless you’re prepared to add a few more ingredients.’ It’s a dad joke. It can’t hope to fix a thing.

‘What?’ She frowns, but there’s a hint of a smirk to it too. ‘Indonesia?’

‘A red and white flag. I’m pretty sure they’ve got one. Starting to doubt it now, obviously.’

‘I thought that was Poland.’ She hums some music, conducts with one finger.

My tray clangs against the counter as I set it down and give her an exaggerated palms-up show of bafflement. ‘How can I win this if you’ve got musical back-up?’

Cedar laughs.

‘“Poland is Not Yet Lost”,’ she says, conducting the air with her finger, her tune continuing in silence.

‘Well, neither is Indonesia.’