‘You bake them and we use my contacts in community care to get them to people in need – like Meals on Wheels or some shit. I’m sure I could get us funding, there’s this new initiative to support small charities. Oh, oh – ’ Leila shook her fists up and down, getting carried away – ‘and we can employ all the people who just need someone to give them a break – my hopeful utopia!’

‘You want us to do Meals on Wheels?’ Minnie said, looking at her friend as though she’d suggested they set up a business selling badger-themed underwear at car-boot sales.

‘Think about it, it’s not such a mad idea. I think you’ve lost your passion for cooking by catering to the rich and ungrateful for too long. Imagine making the food you love, for people who would actually appreciate it? And how fun would it be to work together every day? We’ll just do one thing really well, and take them to people who can’t get to the shops, or to people living independently who can’t cook any more. “Pies by Post” or “Pie in the Sky”, maybe “Hello, Good-Pie”?’

Minnie paused. ‘OK.’

‘OK?’ asked Leila. She sounded surprised that Minnie had agreed.

‘Yes, let’s do it, but none of those names,’ said Minnie, ‘I’ve already thought of the perfect name.’

2 January 2020

The No Hard Fillings kitchen was on an unremarkable side street in Dalston in east London. It was in the part of town that gentrification had not yet reached, sandwiched between a funeral director’s and a derelict old record store. There was a sign out front that said ‘Tandoori Palace’, crossed out with green spray paint. The building used to house an Indian restaurant and Minnie and Leila didn’t yet have the funds to properly change the signage. The girls felt it was somehow fortuitous, coming back from India with the plan and then finding a failing Indian restaurant offering them the chance to take over their lease.

‘I hope you girls have more luck with the place than we did,’ Mrs Mohan had said sombrely as she helped clear out the drawers and cupboards. ‘Better you have it than another KFC or Piri-Piri Chicken.’

Four years later there was still a picture of the Mohan family pinned to the steel fridge door. The girls had found it after the move and they didn’t have the heart to take down the last vestige of the family’s hard work.