“Why don’t you give Julia’s cooking a try,” my mom intervenes. “She’s put so much effort into preparing this lovely dinner for all of us.” She gives me a long, now-be-good-and-eat-your-disgusting-cold-soup stare.

I sit back down, resigned, and do my best to force a few more spoonfuls of this cold poultice down my throat. Cold soup in December! This is a madhouse.

Unfortunately, the main course—tofu steak—doesn’t prove any tastier or more filling. The only saving grace is the salad side. Not really much you can do wrong with a salad, even if Dad isn’t allowed to use his favorite ranch dressing as it has dairy in it, which is supposedly even worse than meat. Cow Milk & Co are guilty of containing lactose—we don’t possess the enzymes to digest it—as well as casein, a dreadful animal protein capable of causing cancer, respiratory problems, inflammation, bloating, headaches…

Makes me wonder if at the agency we should put side-effect warnings at the end of our food commercials like we do with pharmaceuticals.

As for me, I’m happy I’m allowed to use olive oil to dress the salad, even if the salt gets rationed down—it’s bad for blood pressure.

The cherry on the cake of the most horrible dinner ever is the dessert: an oatmeal pudding made with maca root powder, so dense it has the consistency of glue. Of course, not a pinch of sugar in it.

I really try to finish mine, but I can’t; each tiny spoonful I ingest makes me want to gag more than the previous one. Diego, definitely a much better sport, manages to finish all his pudding, and even has the poker face to compliment Julia, gaining an appreciative nod from my mom.

And so, after an hour and a half of suffering, we’re all allowed to retire for the night and go lick our wounds in private. I don’t know if this is a behavior typical of herbivorous or carnivorous species, but right now, I’m only hoping I can find a cereal bar hidden at the bottom of my bag.

Thirteen

Pizza Gate

Later, in my room, Diego and I are lying on opposite sides of the bed, wrapped in utter misery. Mr. Darcy, who wasn’t forced to eat a vegan cat dinner, is curled up at our feet, much more contented. Barely half an hour since we left the dinner table and I’m already famished. So much so that my stomach grumbles loudly, prompting Diego to turn toward me.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Yeah, you?”

“Starving. Does your mom have any of that mac and cheese left?”

“Even if she did, we can’t go downstairs and heat it up in the evil microwave. If Julia found out, she’d throw the tantrum of the century.”

“Right now, I’d gladly eat it cold.”