At a family Christmas brunch my brother had done his absolute best preparing a vegan dessert for the family. He made a bright-green mung bean cake. I couldn’t help it… it just… looked like Play-doh to me. It kinda smelled like Play-doh, too. Don’t know about the flavor. But yeah, the whole texture and shape of it…

Now I’ve always given my brother a hard time about his veganism. Lately I have been cool with his dietary choices. Respected them. But there he came to the table, beaming with pride at his creation, and my four-year-old daughter innocently asked… “Papa, what is that?” and I just blurted out… “It’s Play-doh, baby!”

So, my daughter, quite enthusiastically, started rolling a snake out of her dessert. She also offered our youngest some “clay to play with” , which she did, equally enthusiastically. Soon my father and mother and all of us joined in on the fun, using my brother’s dessert as a toy. We made snakes out of it, lions, snails… the whole family was just doing arts and crafts with my brother’s dessert. He wasn’t too amused and it kinda ruined our brunches’ vegan addition entirely. Feel a little guilty over how much fun I had making fun of my brother’s vegan cake.