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Include a scene in which a character is cooking, drinking, or eating.

Posted in Character on Dec 12, 2025

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✍️ 90 stories

The Gesture

Submitted to Contest #333

The Gesture The station concourse was neither loud nor quiet. Sound moved through it the way air did—present, unnoticed unless something interrupted it. James stopped near a narrow counter set between a newspaper stand and a row of ticket machines. Steam rose from a metal container, faint but steady. He watched the vendor lift a small paper-wrapped item from the heat. The gesture was practiced: a brief pause, a turn of the wrist, the paper folded inward so nothing escaped. James noticed the warmth first, seeping through the thin layers whe...

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There Was Flour Everywhere

Submitted to Contest #333

The grumbling of the world shook the pantry shelves. Sacks of flour and tiny packets of spices tumbled to the floor and mingled their contents. Jars hopped and crashed, spouting shards and foul-smelling jam everywhere. My fingers trembled under the weight of little packets of baking powder, and another growl sent them to the floor. I could not do this. How could anyone? “Psst...” I spun and looked at the large blob of flesh standing beside me. It was a marvellous sight. Put simply, he was a giant moving head with feet g...

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Holding the Temper

Submitted to Contest #333

Bill set the double boiler on the stove and watched the water begin to simmer. Saturday morning, and he was tempering chocolate because his daughter asked him to make truffles for Christmas. She was turning twelve. The dark chocolate went into the bowl. Good couverture chocolate, 54.5% cacao. He stirred as it melted, the solid pieces surrendering to heat, losing their form. Everything that had made it chocolate—the shine, the structure, the snap—gone. His phone buzzed. Another text from Gerald. "Check your voicemail". He wiped some chocolate...

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Loup de Mer and Nothing Soup

Submitted to Contest #333

LOUP DE MER AND NOTHING SOUPNOTE there is nothing sensitive here (bar a couple of mentions of cancer, the before to this story's after). Indeed there is little conflict and no drama. Sorry to anybody who thinks that's boring. But this is about good food and good friends. And I wish everybody here a Happy Christmas. His friends came over on the Balthazar and arrived on the beach just as Johnny was sweeping down the stone forecourt. It was the first time they had seen him in quite a while, Brian and Liz and Karen. They all wore shorts and t-sh...

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Daily bread

Submitted to Contest #333

They would sit around the table content with what they called food before them. They would claim that they are consuming it and its food for their bodies, soul and spirit. It seemed right seeing to as to how they could go for a week without actually eating any solid food or what we all refer to as real food, tangible things you know. How could words ever be food. They are bunch of letters written to form a book, how could that ever be food. Tafadzwa had always thought they were delusional. How could words be sustenance? Food was something ...

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The Cook Who Couldn't

Submitted to Contest #333

“I cannot believe I won the drawing!” Bernadine said excitedly, as she knocked on the door of the large home.Every week, Bernadine watched Mrs. Cook Cooks, the number one cooking show in the country.Mrs. Cook was Melissa Cook, a former paralegal turned overnight culinary sensation specializing in traditional Norwegian food.Bernadine had registered for a drawing when ordering some cookware and won a ticket to a live show and dinner party with Melissa Cook herself.The door was opened by a distinguished butler wearing a white jacket, white glov...

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An Admiral’s Plate

Submitted to Contest #333

The Ranger’s mess doors opened to admit Captain Arthur Landsman, captain of the exploration cruiser Daniel Boone. Ranger—flagship to the Chief of Space Operations of the Earth Space Operations Command—here on a mission with the Earth Planetary Union Deputy Prime Minister to pass judgment on a world’s future. Arthur hesitated before entering. He was a cruiser captain, not a diplomat. Unfortunately, he and his ship were the focus of the visit. What was said in the next day or two might very well seal the fate of that world. His included.Diplom...

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breakfast and beginnings

Submitted to Contest #333

(italicized dialogue=speaking in Chinese) They’ve been playing chess for about fifteen minutes before Ishmael realizes Stone’s been gone for too long. Another ten minutes go by, and his inward fretting gives Mei the opening to take two of his pieces. He stands up. “I’ll be back,” he says, and Mei smiles at him knowingly. “And don’t you start moving pieces around.” He checks the downstairs bathroom first and finds Stone sitting at the piano, hunched over and plinking at the keys. Ishmael takes a seat next to him on the bench. Their sleeves b...

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Fully consumed

Submitted to Contest #333

CW: Themes and/or references to murder, implied cannibalism Slowly, the iron-wrought gates of Blackthorne Manor opened, shrieking in pain. Father sat beside me, unmoving and pale as the trunks of the Ghost Gums that lined the path ahead.Despite it only being afternoon, darkness claimed the dead forest. A horrid stench of decay prickled my nose. For a moment, I contemplated begging Father to turn back, away from the thorns and branches that seemed to reach for our throats with their spindly claws. Not that I imagined the undead, rotten-skinn...

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In For a Pound

Submitted to Contest #333

Chiara Wilde knew she had made a mistake the moment the words had left her mouth. “I need time to myself to think about my future,” she said. She had said those words over a year ago and, at the time, had meant them. Deep down, she still felt that way even though seeing the anguish on his face almost proved unbearable. She expected some demand for an explanation which she was ready to give. She had rehearsed it for fear of relenting and staying with him. After seven years together, she knew she could possibly waiver and comfort...

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In The Summertime

Submitted to Contest #333

Furci. To my 9-yr old ear, the name sounded Japanese. But it was a town next to my family’s ancestral hometown of Santa Teresa di Riva, Sicily, near Taormina. Furci, Pronounced Foor Chee. That is where Gioanna Garufi lived with her parents and younger brother Fillipo, who they called Pippo, in a high rise on the 7th floor overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Gioanna would be my little sister Grace and my babysitter that August night in 1971 when our parents went out for the evening with her parents. Gioanna was the 15-year-old chestnut haired ...

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A Touch of Hope and Secondhand Pans

Submitted to Contest #333

Elliot Marsh learned early in life that hunger was teacher; not always kind, but definitely present. He never had it to the level of being a punishment that clawed at the ribs or hollowed out thoughts. He had the quieter type of hunger … the one that lingered just long enough to sharpen curiosity and demanded the ability to cook with little. He was constantly asking himself what he could make with almost nothing in the house. What happens if you become so hungry, you lose the battle with patience over cooking? His apartment was one of a few ...

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Microwaved Leftovers

Submitted to Contest #333

CW: References to ritual sacrifice and implied violence “I’m telling you,” he says, toeing the door shut behind them, “my cousin thinks he can get Kalroth the Ever-Consecrated for us.”She smiles, rolling her eyes as he helps her take off her coat. The fabric slides from her shoulders, heavy with the evening cold. “Yeah, right. As if Kalroth the Ever-Consecrated would ever show up on such short notice.”“You know my cousin.” He leans forward, hooking a thumb into the back of his shoe. The motion almost throws off his balance, and she almost ru...

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Livestream Cooking Chaos

Submitted to Contest #333

By Bonnie Gerstenlauer The stage was set. The ingredients for my grandmother’s special marinara sauce were neatly arranged on the kitchen counter. The pot of water to cook the vermicelli noodles in was sitting on the stove. My first live-streamed cooking class was about to begin. I was just waiting for my friends Lena, Jake, and Mel to arrive. They had kindly offered to help, and since we hadn’t all been together lately, I thought it would be a fun way to spend time. Lena, whom I met in college, is the proud mother of an adorable baby boy. ...

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Civil Twilight

Submitted to Contest #333

Loudly, the door slams shut, shoved by a sudden gust of wind. It had been a long week and Jim was glad to be home. Wearily, he crosses the stained carpet floor of his shabby one-bedroom apartment and sets a handle of bourbon on the kitchen table. A worn mattress, covered by a quilt and two pillows lay on the linoleum next to the dinette set. This December is the coldest he could remember in his twenty-six years. To conserve heat, the bedroom door and windows had been sealed with sheets of clear plastic and duct tape. Tattered remains of the...

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