Mushroom risotto

We'd never catered for vegetarians before. My usual method of cooking for guests is to throw a joint of beef or a chicken in the oven and add the spuds, veg and Yorkshire pud.

I knew all about vegetarians, of course, have seen them on the TV, with their great long lists of things they won't eat. Pete used to swear at them whenever they were on, curse their oddball diet. "Just eat the fuckin' turkey," he'd shout at the screen. I didn't like his use of language, but I had to agree with him.

When we invited Gary's niece, Sheena, and her new man for dinner we'd no idea they'd gone veggie on us. She left it to a few days before to tell us. "It's not a problem is it?" she asked, as if I could admit that it was.

"Of course not, I'll fix something, no problem."

Anyone else I'd have cancelled, but we'd always had a soft spot for Sheena, she was the sweet one in the family, always made time for her auntie and uncle.

Pete looked up some vegetarian recipes online. Most of them made no sense, made up of ingredients I'd never heard of, that I wasn't sure even existed. "Quorn? Are you sure that's not just a misspelling of corn?"

"No point asking me," Pete said, and there wasn't, Pete never steps foot in the kitchen except at Christmas, when he helps with the washing up. He knows how to eat and that's about it, where the food comes from is a mystery to him, there could be some magic device in the kitchen for all he knew.

There was one recipe that looked straightforward enough: mushroom risotto. Basically mushrooms, rice and gravy stock, a few other things. Pete drove to the shop that morning, made sure we had everything we needed.

"I don't understand why they do it," I admitted over lunch, "a meal's not a meal without meat. It's just the bit that goes with the meat, who'd want to eat that all the time."

"Well, I guess some people are allergic to meat. There was a girl in China who turned red if she ate so much as a mouthful."

"But Sheena's not allergic, she always ate meat as a child and she never turned red."

"We can ask her when she gets here."

"Ask her? We can't ask her, what if she's offended?"

"Why'd she' be offended?"

"Oh Pete, you know what they're like, they take offence at any little thing. Vegetarians!"

"This is Sheena we're talking about dear, she won't mind us asking."

We said nothing more, afternoon telly was about to start. Pete was asleep by the time it was time for me to start cooking.

I looked again at the recipe as I got the ingredients. I had such a shock I almost had a heart attack.

"What's up," asked Peter, worried, following me into the kitchen.

"The ingredients are all wrong. You've got Portobello mushrooms."

"That's mushrooms ain't it?"

"It doesn't say anything about Portobello. Look at them, they're huge."

"They're nice they are, Tom had some on his barbie last summer. You can just cut them up, they'll be fine."

"And the rice. I've read the recipe again, it says you've gotta have a special risotto rice."

"Ah, they always say that sort of thing, so they can charge you for having twenty types of rice in the cupboard. Rice is rice."

"And the vegetable stock."

"What about it?"

"It says vegetable stock, we only have chicken stock, they're vegetarians."

"It's only gravy powder, you can just use the chicken, they'll never know the difference."

I thought about it, but then they were vegetarians, not had meat for years apparently, they'd easily taste the difference. I decided to improvise, I couldn't use gravy so I used the only powder I had the same colour, coco. I added some marmite for flavour, vegetarians love marmite.

They arrived ten minutes early, as if they wanted to show me up for running late. Pete answered the door, he was still in his gardening trousers, looked a complete mess.

"We've brought wine," Sheena announced, handing me a bottle of white Australian. Australian, was she trying to poison us? "Thank you so much," I said, as convincingly as I could.

Peter switched off the TV and started entertaining our guests. Oh God, he'd say something offensive, I knew it. It just made me rush even more. I sliced and fried the mushrooms with the rice as the recipe said, but it didn't smell right. I tried a taste of it, but words can't describe how bad it was. "Oh, well," I thought, "maybe they're used to it, being vegetarian."

"Dinner is served," Pete announced joyously. It was the last joy there was going to be for some time. I could see them all trying to eat the meal, even though it disgusted them. I couldn't help but break down in tears. It tasted absolutely disgusting, chocolate and marmite mushroom with rice.

"There, there, hon, it's fine."

"I'm sorry, I just can't cook veggie food. Why don't you eat meat like normal people?"

"Honey!"

"Well, all their special meals, I was raised to bring meat to the table. If you couldn't afford meat you were poor."

"We should go," said Sheena, "maybe we can all go out for a meal some time, save you the trouble."

"Yeah," her boyfriend agreed, "we shouldn't have put you out."

Pete showed them to the door, I was in no state to get up.

"Well, that went well," Pete said when he got back. "Must have them around again soon."

"I'm sorry, I can't cope with these new-fangled ideas. Vegetarian!"

We sat there in silence for a while, until Pete turned the telly on, then sat there a bit longer until Pete realised he was hungry.

"We've still not eaten."

"I could do a steak, if it's not too late."

"It's never too late for steak. I'll do a salad to go with it."

It's the one thing Pete can do in the kitchen; salad. Not even he can get that wrong.

Soon the room was full with the smell of frying steak and accompanying chips. Now that's what I call a meal.