The Worst Case Scenario Cookery Club

by Chrissie Manby

  Hang on.

  Was there any chocolate in there?

  ‘The cake mix. Oh my god, the cake mix!’ Liz said out loud. Without even bothering to dress, she bundled Ted into the car.

  At the Thomas and Thomas Veterinary Surgery, Liz insisted on being seen straight away. There was a queue of kittens and dogs and hamsters and even a goldfish in the waiting room but when Liz mentioned the C-word – chocolate that is – she was quickly hurried through.

  Doctor Evan Thomas, the vet, knew there was no time for niceties. He lifted Ted straight onto the shining metal table.

  ‘Ooof,’ he said as he did so.

  ‘Tell me what he’s eaten,’ Dr Thomas continued.

  Growing redder with every word, Liz described Ted’s diet over the past twenty-four hours, claiming she’d come home from work to discover Ted had raided the fridge. It was sort of true.

  ‘Lunchables – cheese and ham, Pringles – barbecue flavour, a packet of Party Rings …’

  ‘Are those the round biscuits with icing on?’ Dr Thomas asked.

  ‘They are.’

  Dr Thomas made ‘mm-hmm’ sounds as he and his nurse took Ted’s vital signs.

  ‘Spaghetti Bolognese, two portions,’ Liz carried on. ‘Dry roasted peanuts. Eleven pre-cooked sausages. Three slices of processed cheese …’

  ‘Blood pressure?’ asked Dr Thomas.

  ‘Quite low for my age,’ said Liz.

  ‘I was talking to the nurse,’ Dr Thomas said.

  ‘In the region of normal,’ the vet’s assistant, whose name badge declared she was Nurse Van Niekerk, replied on Ted’s behalf.

  ‘Anything else he might have eaten?’ Dr Thomas turned to Liz now.

  ‘A packet of cake mix,’ she admitted. ‘Chocolate, I think.’

  ‘Of course. That’s why you got ahead of Moby the goldfish.’

  Liz started making her excuses. ‘He’s always been such a clever dog. He gets into absolutely everything. Not even those things you put on kitchen cupboards to keep toddlers away from the bleach could stop him. But I’ve never seen him go quite so mad. I certainly didn’t know he could get into the refrigerator. I was completely flabbergasted.’

  ‘It is quite surprising,’ the vet agreed. ‘OK.’ He was listening to Ted’s bowels with a stethoscope. ‘I think what we have here is a classic case of chronic constipation. The combination of foods he ate yesterday afternoon has completely overwhelmed his digestive system and is binding up his bowels. He must be feeling very uncomfortable.’

  Ted wagged his tail weakly in response.

  ‘Is there anything you can do?’ Liz asked. Constipation didn’t sound that bad.

  ‘There is,’ Dr Thomas replied. ‘He’s going to need to be anaesthetised, then we’ll administer a softening enema.’

  ‘What? Anaesthetised?’

  That was serious.

  ‘Yes. There’s no way to do the enema otherwise. Then once we’ve loosened up the blockage and he’s been able to evacuate, he’ll have to go on a drip for rehydration.’

  ‘On a drip?’

  ‘That’s right. Mrs Ted …’

  ‘Actually, it’s Mrs Chandler.’

  ‘Mrs Chandler, I’m going to have to ask you to hold Ted while I perform a quick manual examination. He’s not going to like it.’

  ‘Sorry, Ted,’ Liz whispered, as she took hold of his furry body. ‘I’m so, so, so, so, sorry. I love you, Ted. You’re going to be OK, I promise.’

  ‘Mrs Ted? I need to get to the back end.’

  Liz changed her holding position.

  ‘OK, Ted,’ said Dr Thomas. ‘This is not going to be nice …’

  Nurse Van Niekerk handed Dr Thomas a fresh pair of rubber gloves. Liz could tell Ted was anxious, as well he might be. She held him a little tighter. He wriggled in her arms. His stomach made even louder noises.

  ‘I think something’s happening,’ said Liz, as Ted turned round in her arms so she was once more where Dr Thomas needed to be.

  ‘Stand back,’ said Dr Thomas, who had seen this kind of thing before. Nurse Van Niekerk plastered herself against the surgery wall.

  Liz was a little too slow.

  What had gone into Ted’s belly the previous night came out with an explosive vengeance, a fifty-decibel fart and a smell like hell.

  ‘There,’ said Dr Thomas, nodding in satisfaction. ‘He’ll feel much more like himself again now.’

  Liz stepped back from the table and stared in horror at the front of the jumper she’d thrown over her pyjamas.

  ‘Need these?’ asked Nurse Van Niekerk, handing Liz a bundle of the same blue paper towels they used at the dental surgery. The ones that didn’t soak anything up.

  ‘I think that’s the blockage solved. Disaster averted,’ said Dr Thomas.

  It was easy for him to say. He’d been at Ted’s head end.

  ‘We’ll make sure he’s hydrated and he should be right as rain. But you need to work harder to keep Ted away from temptation. He’s been lucky. I don’t suppose the cake mix had real chocolate in it anyway but Ted’s indiscriminate eating is obviously causing him problems beyond this attack of constipation.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Liz asked.

  ‘Do you know how much a dog Ted’s size is supposed to weigh, Mrs Ted? Even when he isn’t stuffed full of Lunchables?’ Dr Thomas said that word with scorn. ‘Ted is roughly fifty per cent heavier than he ought to be for his breed. As you’ve seen, Mrs Ted …’

  ‘Mrs Chandler.’

  ‘Mrs Chandler, we can’t always rely on our animals to have good self-control. When it comes to eating and exercise, you are this little dog’s self-control, his motivation and his conscience.’

  Liz looked at the floor. Right then her own conscience was thoroughly guilty. Ted had nearly had to have an anaesthetic and an enema!

  ‘I can’t stress enough how important it is that you take responsibility. Good pet ownership is every bit as hard as good parenting. And just as social services will step in when a child is in danger, there are rules in place for the protection of domestic animals.’

  Liz pressed her thumbs against her eyes to fend off impending tears.

  ‘Mrs Ted,’ said Dr Thomas in a headmasterly voice, ‘I’m not sure you’ve been listening.’

  ‘I have!’ Liz insisted.

  ‘I am deadly serious. Ted is your responsibility. If you don’t think you can live up to that responsibility, or you fail to show me you can live up to that responsibility, then I will have no choice but to take Ted’s welfare into my own hands.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying that allowing your family pet to overeat in such a dramatic fashion is irresponsible in the extreme. Ted is overweight and under-walked. A dog of his age and breed should not be in such a state.’

  ‘He is a little tubby,’ Liz admitted.

  ‘He is obese. And you have enabled him to get that way, Mrs Ted.’

  ‘Chandler.’

  ‘Mrs Chandler, I would be betraying my professional ethics as a veterinary surgeon if I did not insist you take action at once. I am signing Ted up for a program we run for our patients here. It’s called Waggy Weight Loss.’

  ‘Waggy What?’

  ‘Waggy Weight Loss,’ Dr Thomas explained. ‘It’s a free course, which takes place over six Saturday mornings. A new term starts next week. Nurse Van Niekerk will give you a diet sheet, to which you must adhere with absolute strictness. For the next six Saturdays, you are invited to come to the surgery for a lecture and a weigh-in.

  ‘Whether you come or not is up to you,’ Dr Thomas continued. ‘But if you don’t come and Ted ends up in my surgery again, looking as he did today, then I will not hesitate to call the RSPCA.’

  Liz gasped.

  Dr Thomas nodded.

  Ted burped.

  ‘We’ll see you on Saturday morning.’

  Chapter Seven

  Liz drove back home. She sat outside the house, with Ted still in the back of
the car, contemplating what she would find when she got inside. There was no avoiding it. She had to go back in. Not least because her jumper was covered in doggy diarrhoea and she knew she was stinking the car out.

  Freed from the car, Ted waddled up the garden path ahead of her. He hauled himself up the front step. He was panting all the while. How had she not noticed before how fat Ted was getting? Now that the vet had drawn it to her attention in such a stark way, it was obvious. That dog was not big boned.

  When Ted first came into their lives, she and Ian had been so strict with him. Saskia got into real trouble if she tried to feed Ted titbits at the dinner table. That discipline had gone by-the-by since Ian had gone to live with braless Brittney. While Ian and Saskia were busy eating Brittney’s courgettini on a Saturday night, Liz, home alone, would snuggle up on the sofa with Ted, feeding him a crisp for every one she took for herself. She’d really let him down.

  Feeling thoroughly ashamed of herself and lower than she had in a long while – and that was really saying something – Liz had a cheese and onion crisp sandwich for lunch. It was all that was left after Ted’s big feast and she really didn’t feel like going shopping. There was no need anyway. Saskia had texted to say that she wasn’t going to be coming home that night. Georgia’s mum said she could stay over and they were going to eat her home-cooked vegetarian moussaka followed by a fruit salad. Hashtag healthy eating.

  Was everyone getting their five a day apart from Liz and Ted?

  To make matters worse, when Liz finally finished cleaning the kitchen and her jumper was washed and fragrant and drying on the radiator, she sat down with her iPad and a cup of tea only to read that the latest government guidelines recommended everyone eat ten portions of fruit and veg a day. Not five after all. Liz had always counted it as a good day if she managed three. No wonder Saskia was in thrall to Brittney and her courgettini. The thought of ten portions of fruit and veg a day was enough to make Liz turn to Wagon Wheels.

  ‘Ugh,’ she sighed out loud.

  The day didn’t get better. Liz had promised herself she wouldn’t look at Brittney’s Bites that weekend but Liz was also the kind of person who deals with feeling bad – as she did for so many reasons – by beating herself up just a little more. The moment she tapped the letter B into her browser, Brittney’s Bites was there. And milliseconds later, Liz was reading Brittney’s unusual Saturday blog post.

  Which was all about feeding children and young people.

  ‘Dear readers, you often ask me how to adapt my recipes for the younger members of your family. Sometimes children, even teenagers, can be resistant to the idea of healthy eating. They can be very set in their ways, wanting to eat just a handful of different meals. But you owe it to yourself and to them to try to broaden their horizons. The most loving thing you can do for someone is make sure they’re eating properly.’

  Where had Liz heard that before?

  Brittney then went on to describe a case study. ‘Savannah’ aged fifteen, almost sixteen. Full marks for the clever literary disguise. Not. Savannah’s mother was a ‘busy career woman’ who ‘thought’ she didn’t have time to cook from scratch. As a result, her daughter’s diet consisted largely of ready meals and even at such an early age it was showing its effects. Irritability, fatigue and dull skin.

  ‘Dull skin!’ Liz exclaimed. As far as she was concerned, her daughter was radiant.

  Brittney continued.

  ‘When it came to food, Savannah was reluctant to step outside her comfort zone but by carefully listening to her concerns and then describing in a serious but not scary way how we really are what we eat, I was able to persuade her to swap her ready-made spaghetti Bolognese for my home-made gluten-free vegan version. Needless to say, she loved it and now, whenever she’s visiting her dad (my Darling BF!) for the weekend, she asks for the healthy option. To give her anything else would be tantamount to child cruelty.’

  Liz sank her face into her hands. On the back of Dr Thomas’s lecture about overfeeding Ted it was especially hard to stomach.

  Then she scrolled through the comments. So many people seemed to agree with Brittney. A mother’s primary responsibility was to make sure her children ate properly. That ‘career woman’ was a bad parent to ‘Savannah’. What luck her husband had got himself and his daughter (on a part-time basis at least) away from her awful influence.

  ‘What do you think, Ted?’ Liz asked the dog. ‘Am I a bad mother? Was I a bad wife? Am I even a bad dog mother? Am I totally pathetic?’

  Ted pressed his warm wet nose into Liz’s hand. His brown eyes were full of sympathy despite Liz having caused him an unnecessary visit to the vet. He tried to climb onto her lap but his barrel-round tummy made it difficult and she had to hoist him up. There was no doubt he had got very heavy. How could she have let him down so badly?

  ‘I’m going to do something about it,’ Liz promised her furry friend. ‘I’m going to do something about your diet and my diet and Saskia’s diet too.’

  The following morning, instead of her usual Sunday lie-in, Liz got up early to take Ted for a very long walk. Well, long for him. And for her, as it turned out. She wasn’t at the peak of fitness. For that reason they stopped at the gorgeous retro beachfront café in Duckpool Bay on the way home and it was there that Liz spotted a flyer just like the ones her hapless patient Alex Barton had left at the dental surgery.

  ‘Oh, he’s great,’ said the girl on the counter when she saw Liz pick one up. ‘He worked here for a while last summer. Everything I’ve learned about food, I learned from Alex. He can make anything taste delicious. He cooks really healthy stuff too.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Liz. She took the flyer and put it in her bag before accepting her hot chocolate with squirty cream on the top.

  ‘Do you want marshmallows?’ the girl behind the counter asked.

  Liz nodded. It was a Sunday and the following day she was starting a new regime.

  When she got home, Liz picked up her iPad and settled down with it on the sofa. While Ted snoozed off the exertion of their walk at one end of the cushions, Liz officially signed Ted up to the Waggy Weight Loss group on the Thomas and Thomas Vets page. She was gratified to see from the before and after photos Dr Thomas had posted that her dog was not the largest pooch the WWL team had ever dealt with by a long way. There was a photograph of a spaniel as big as a Shetland pony.

  After that, Liz pulled out the cookery course flyer and fired off an email to Alex Barton, saying that she’d like to join his class if there were any spaces left. She stopped short of asking for a discount in return for ten per cent off Alex’s next scale and polish at Pearly Whites. He probably wouldn’t want that.

  Chapter Eight

  There is nothing worse than setting up a cookery course only to have no one sign up for it. Actually, Alex was learning that wasn’t quite true. There was something far worse than having no takers at all. Having only three, which meant Alex couldn’t just bow out gracefully and pretend he’d never even tried. The course would have to go ahead. And in a teaching kitchen that could have accommodated twenty.

  Ah well. Alex had to make the best of it. He couldn’t make a half-hearted effort just because so few people were going to turn up. They had, all three of them, paid full price for their places and they deserved the full-price treatment. If they were happy, they might tell their friends, and the next course Alex ran might sell out. All the same, it was hard not to be disappointed. Newbay was a town of fifty thousand inhabitants. Were only three of them really interested in food? Were the rest of them already ninja cooks?

  Alex laid out the equipment his three budding chefs would need on the front bench of the room’s four benches, though he was sure that once they actually started cooking they would want to spread out. Beginners always needed lots of elbow room, just as he once had.

  Beside each place, he laid out that day’s course material. He’d decided upon a lesson structure that would allow him to teach a vital culinary skill, then demonstrate
its application in a recipe which the students could take home for their supper. That day’s skill was the correct and proper use of a knife. What held back so many amateur cooks was their chopping technique. Preparation was key in any kitchen and uneven chopping led to uneven cooking.

  Alex checked the three knives he’d chosen for his students to ensure their blades were properly sharp. Scary as they were to look at, he knew that seriously sharp knives were actually far less dangerous than those that were slightly blunt and would slip and skid as a result. Ever tried to cut an onion with a butter knife?

  The class was due to start at six. By ten minutes to, Alex had finished all the setting up. The course price included all the necessary ingredients. He checked his emails, half wanting to find that another five punters had signed up at the last minute, half wanting to find that all three of those who signed up had cancelled. Alex wasn’t a novice to teaching but the teaching he’d done had been in a restaurant kitchen with students who were motivated to get it right. What would this bunch of beginners be like?

  John Barker was the first to arrive. Though he was in his seventies, he had the gait of someone much younger. He was wearing a neat grey coat over a tweed jacket. He had the air of a beloved school teacher, which is exactly what he had been until he retired. History was his subject.

  ‘I hope I’m not late,’ he said, looking around the empty room in what Alex took to be confusion.

  ‘You’re exactly on time,’ said Alex. ‘You’re the first. Take your coat off, wash your hands and pick your seat.’

  Hands duly washed, John went to choose a place on one of the back benches. A surprising move for someone used to being at the front of the class.

  ‘It would be better if you could come forward,’ Alex said. ‘Make the room look full.’

  John made his way to the front.

  ‘I haven’t done any cooking before,’ John warned Alex.

  ‘Then you’ve come to the right place.’

  Next to arrive was a woman. Young. In her late twenties, perhaps. Thirty max. Around Alex’s age. She had a sweet face with kind eyes beneath a rather severe hairstyle – her hair was scraped back into a bun – and she came in at a run saying ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry’, assuming she was holding things up. It was only a minute past six. When she saw just Alex and John in the room, she stopped dead.