Stories on This Week's Writing Prompt
Featured Story
Island Style by Peter Merriman
I started cooking because I was hungry. In fact, I'm still hungry—all the time.
Readers’ Choice
The I Hate to Cook Book
My mother was not much of a cook. She made dinner every night for 30 years (except for the occasional restaurant meal), and [...]
Surprise Tongue
Now I wonder though, might the consumption of that mama cow’s tongue have been the symbolic origin for a daughter’s own [...]
Applesauce Cake
Ironically, [applesauce cake] is sort of the "Holy Roman Empire" of cakes. At least my mother's recipe contained virtually [...]
Masterpiece Dinner
We were looking at a ridiculously expensive cut of meat that we were instructed to stud with truffles, brush with brandy, [...]
The Family Dinner Bites the Dust
These days, the concept of a family dinner has bitten the dust. My grandkids graze rather than sitting down as a family to eat.
We Serve Love In It
Indeed, we are what we eat but I believe it’s not always about what we eat but how our meals come to be. More specifically, [...]
Eating History (Or No one Makes it Like Mom).
My father grew up in a Irish-catholic family of 9, In the city of San Francisco, so his comfort food was usually canned- he [...]
A culinary endurance story
Being from an Italian Family was well…… a culinary journey and a eating endurance contest. I grew up in a what [...]
Cooking for the ‘Ohana by Beverly Gannon
Tuesday was way-overcooked-fish day at my house, a day when I tried my best to go to a friend's house for dinner.
Health Fooders
I think my mom was ahead of her time, a real ‘Granola.’ She didn’t look anything like a hippie, but she [...]
Brenner’s Bakery
I’m still in touch with my best friend whom I’ve known since 1954. Every time we talk or get together, even if [...]
School Day Lunch
There were three possible lunches on school days: regular lunchbox lunch; rainy day lunch; and lunch at home. On regular [...]
Jello Days
Growing up in a small mining town in California’s Mojave Desert, we didn’t have access to a lot of variety when [...]
Oh Oreos!
Once upon a time long, long ago, long before words like gluten, trans fats, cholesterol and diabetes were part of our [...]
Brisket
My mother was insecure in life and insecure in the kitchen. Having me around made her nervous, so I was forbidden to watch. I [...]
The Kitchen Table
Even as a youngster I wasn’t a big fan of formica. But, like so many kitchen tables in the 1960s, our family meals were [...]
What we threw out
I didn’t eat for several years. My mother prepared dishes that were unable to go down my throat, dishes consisting of [...]
Long Lost French Canadian Delights
These were a few of our favorite things: “Gortons” [grotons–ground pork pate] “Tourquee” [...]
Grazing Through the Day
You always see stories and comic strips about teenage boys eating refrigerators. I was a skinny teenage girl, and this is [...]
My mother the gourmet
Setting the menu for potlucks, before anything else, I was asked to bring my mother’s lasagne. Not some vague [...]
food
Food These days a food phenomenon might involve kale and chia seeds. In the mid 50’s our family loaded up the Plymouth [...]
Liver & Onions
My father appreciated every meal my mother prepared for him as if it were the best meal he'd ever eaten.
Spaghetti Racing
My dad, with his finger forever off the pulse of the times. But the chaos of the late 1960s and early 1970s showed up in our [...]
Vanishing Leftovers
She was also raised during the depression and hated waste, particularly food waste.
A Coney Island of the Soul
We cram sweaty into a booth, raising scarcely an eyebrow in rented tuxedos and spaghetti-strap gowns.
Stories from the Previous Prompt
Middle School
We Called It Junior High Back Then
Social hierarchies are quick to develop in junior high, and from day one Diane is Queen Bee. Girls copy her, lobby to be her [...]
All the Single Ladies: Going Back to Middle School in Your Final Years
In so many ways, the senior living experience was a reincarnation of middle school. Men caused major mean girl issues, even [...]
Other Recent Stories
Those were the days….
Fifty cents an hour: That’s what I got for pulling weeds from a brick patio and clay tennis court, which I was also [...]
Prompted By My First Paycheck
What In The Hell Are Taxes!
“Excuse me… there seems to be a mistake on my paycheck. A big mistake.”
Prompted By My First Paycheck
shopping
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