She opened the lid of the sink-side depository into which peelings, vegetable off-cuts and abandoned fruit were placed in the interests of her personal composting crusade. It had been recently emptied and a squadron of disenfranchised fruit flies scrambled and took to the air, wheeling around in search of suitable pay-dirt. A banana skin! They descended. ‘Death by drosophila!’ she thought, a smile creeping sideways onto her mouth and occupying a good two thirds before slipping off as the thought of cooking dinner for six re-surfaced. What was it about husbands that enabled them to forget their wives’ culinary ineptitudes and confidently invite crucial contacts over for haute cuisine?

Well, senior scientist or no, she would have a crack at it. After all, she argued, it seemed evident that even the most erudite and professionally independent seeming FLOTUS got landed with choosing the White House curtains while POTUS was off making presidential mileage on the world stage so no shame eh? She had checked the recipe which was quite clear and involved little more than Chinese spices that she had hand-ground (kudos), honey, caramelised onion (easy peasy) and a dead duck. She opened the book to the method, a familiar structure to the scientist, and began working through it. Chop, fry, mix, rub, stuff with – yep, got that, on a roll here – she turned the page,  ‘Hang in a windy place for three days’.

Spag bol then.

©suzanne conboy-hill 2010

When I wrote this, the Trumps were many years of doing any kind of FLOTUS or POTUSing. I owe the title, therefore, to time travel. Sorry I forgot to warn everyone.