Nothing fancy
It all started with my mom’s 80th in March. “We’ll keep it small,” she started telling me long before Christmas. “We’ll just do something at your place – just our family. Nothing fancy.”
Okay, I agreed. I’ll cook. We are a family of eight and all of us fit neatly around my dining table. With enough elbow room and space for the two vegans’ extra dishes.
But it wasn’t long afterwards, with the remnants of Christmas Day leftovers still in the fridge, that my mother casually, but not subtly, let slip: “On my birthday, I wonder if I shouldn’t also invite Buks and
