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#333 Bon Appétit!

I've always considered food to be more than just fuel. Something as simple as a bowl of rice, for example, can tell us so much about who we are and what we value. And sometimes, when I take a bite of something delicious — whether it’s a home-cooked dish or a simple burger from my favorite fast food chain — I'm reminded of how we all crave something more than what's on our plates. Comfort, connection, convenience, control… you name it!

This week's contest invites you to let food speak for itself. Perhaps a meal becomes an important turning point, an empty plate says more than words ever could, or your storyline swings from simmering tension to a sweet (or sour) resolution. Whatever you write, make every bite count… and maybe even leave us hungry for more!

🥇 Winner

Peel and Core

Winner of Contest #333 🏆

I always knew it was you.You don’t know how beautiful you are. You think no one would look at you without the kohl on your face, the gold in your hair, the corset cinched around your vanishing center. You thought coming here with a cloak on bent shoulders would make me see a crone, as if your unpainted skin held one single wrinkle. If you walked through the village instead of the wood, men would fight for the right to propose to you. Without any of the trappings and rituals you feel forced to maintain, you would still be the most beautiful t...

100 likes 68 comments 68
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⭐️ Shortlisted

Scorched Rice

Shortlisted for Contest #333 ⭐️

“It’s burnt.”Of course it is. “It’s because you wait too long”, a reply laced with the tone that only a parent could have toward their child. I follow my father’s hands, worn with years of hard work, as they mix my bowl of bibimbap.“You eat like this. Now the rice will be crispy if you don’t wait too long”. Bibimbap — a Korean dish of rice and spicy mixed vegetables — is not only delicious, but occasionally served in a dolsot, or hot stone bowl. If you wait just long enough — but not too long — the rice at the bottom will have the perfect am...

25 likes 19 comments 19
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The Biggest Feast

Shortlisted for Contest #333 ⭐️

When I first met Eleni, we were at a dinner party in Chicago, inside a regal-looking gala space, celebrating the opening of the new play. I was a mere background actor. I didn't even have a name credited to me. In fact, I played several characters. I was a town person, the woman in the village, and a dancer. She was a guest of the director. How she was acquainted with Ivan, I can only imagine. That was never revealed to me. But we met and bonded over the food. Neither one of us an introvert; conversation came easily, without walls.They were...

20 likes 17 comments 17
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This week's prompts

Write a story that includes a recipe, grocery list, menu, or restaurant review.

Short Story – 45 stories

Include the name of a dish, ingredient, or dessert in your story’s title.

Short Story – 49 stories

Start or end your story with an empty plate, empty glass, or something burning.

Dramatic – 53 stories

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

Character – 90 stories

Write about someone who’s hungry — for what, is up to you.

Short Story – 58 stories

Stories

Peel and Core

Winner of Contest #333 🏆

I always knew it was you.You don’t know how beautiful you are. You think no one would look at you without the kohl on your face, the gold in your hair, the corset cinched around your vanishing center. You thought coming here with a cloak on bent shoulders would make me see a crone, as if your unpainted skin held one single wrinkle. If you walked through the village instead of the wood, men would fight for the right to propose to you. Without any of the trappings and rituals you feel forced to maintain, you would still be the most beautiful t...

100 likes 68 comments 68
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Dad's Potato Salad

Submitted to Contest #333

Dad's Potato SaladThe recipe is wrong.I know it's wrong because I'm the one who wrote it down, eleven years ago, standing in the kitchen of the house on Maple Street. The one with the cracked linoleum and the window over the sink that stuck in summer. The one before the apartment, before the complex, before the running, before all of it.I was twenty-eight. He was forty-four. He stood at the counter with his back to me, a cigarette burning in the ashtray by the stove, and I asked him to teach me because I thought we had time. I thought I'd wa...

50 likes 18 comments 18
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Snow Cookies

Submitted to Contest #333

“As the grey skies shed their first snowy tear, these snow cookies come only this time of year.” Charlie looked at his Auntie skeptically as she finished her recitation, hands twisting in the air for dramatic effect. The first snowfall at her cabin had always been quite the event. Since he was little, Auntie always had some mystical trick down her boot, morphing ice crystals onto objects out of thin air, or pulling mysterious greens and red lights out of his ears or belly button. He hung on every moment of magic back then, fascinated by thin...

39 likes 17 comments 17
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Bukubuku Cha, and the General’s Osettai

Submitted to Contest #333

Fujinomiya lane was a dirt uphill road that came straight from coastal route one. It was a pleasant April morning in Shizuoka, and Kajifuchi wasn’t expecting any visitors to his pig farm. However, there was a sleek black sedan beelining towards his property. Instead of waiting around for whoever was to arrive, the weathered farmer continued stewing the giant iron pot full of vegetable peelings, and wheat- donated by the US government; A porridge for his prized swine. Even with the vigorous simmering and repetitive stirring with the over-size...

37 likes 23 comments 23
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Pink Slips

Submitted to Contest #333

An alarm clock sounds and my eyes open. The first light of day leaks through the blinds. Too early. I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. I press my fingers into my eyes, and try to massage the sleep away. There wasn’t much to massage away, I had only been able to cobble together a couple hours. The room is quiet, stagnant. There’s a windowsill overlooking an alley, shedding white latex paint. A couple of curling Tomb Raider and Soul Caliber posters overlook the bed, while soda bottles and notebooks and t-shirts cover the floo...

37 likes 17 comments 17
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House Red

Submitted to Contest #333

She woke at 5:14 AM. Her body, conditioned by fifteen years of early morning cellar runs, didn't care that her calendar was empty. For a long time, she had tried to fight the habit, but today she just lay there, cataloging the house. The refrigerator’s low-frequency thrum. The way the radiator hissed—a wet, metallic sound. The dull, grinding ache in her left shoulder, a souvenir from a decade of carrying heavy wooden cases up narrow stairs.She stared at the ceiling. Usually, a sommelier’s mind is a riot of sensory input: the sharp citrus of ...

31 likes 9 comments 9
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She Doesn't Do Dishes

Submitted to Contest #333

Targon licked his plate clean, throwing it on top of a pile of dirty plates. Alora came from the kitchen and grabbed the stack. I could hardly believe my eyes. Alora doesn’t do dishes. I slowly breathed in through my nose and exhaled through my mouth, as Drock taught me. I couldn’t allow myself to burst out in anger. The Knock-Woks counted on me to signal them when Targon retired to his room. I continued to spy through the window, wondering how Targon got Alora to serve tables. He had to have some power over her, but what? She’s stronger tha...

30 likes 12 comments 12
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The Regular Guy's Restaurant Review

Submitted to Contest #333

The Regular Guy’s Restaurant Review “You are a sensible man, and you don't let good things that come your way slip by.”-The Inspector General, Nikolai Gogol Letter to the Editor of the Evening Journal:Dear Sir,My wife and I very much enjoy reading Marcel’s Restaurant Review column, but we could never afford to dine at one of the places he writes about. Could you please ask Marcel to write a column about a less pricey dining establishment where the average guy could take his wife, and maybe even his children, out for dinner? There are probabl...

28 likes 6 comments 6
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For the Halibut

Submitted to Contest #333

For the HalibutThe waiter swept away Conrad's empty plate then questioned if I was finished with mine. At this point I was only pushing the remaining halibut around my plate so relinquished my plate, also. Conrad tapped his empty wine glass signally for more but I declined.“Will there be any dessert this evening, Sir?”“I highly doubt it, My Friend. Her mood has definitely soured. Please bring the check, thank you.”“What did you expect, Conrad? We plan this trip annually and now mere days in advance you tell me you can't get away from Global ...

28 likes 22 comments 22
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Zalo

Submitted to Contest #333

The anchovy peered upwards from his continuous feeding on the diatoms and dinoflagellates plankton and gained his fish eyed view. His laterally pointed eyes, did not fix their gaze on a single subject like humans do, which completely alters how he perceived all images in his watery world. In his captured vision that day was the resplendent view of the Golden Gate Bridge which overwhelmed his cone shaped vision, but there was a smaller shape, a much smaller form of a human being looking down from the rocky banks of San Francisco Bay into the ...

27 likes 8 comments 8
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Scorched Rice

Shortlisted for Contest #333 ⭐️

“It’s burnt.”Of course it is. “It’s because you wait too long”, a reply laced with the tone that only a parent could have toward their child. I follow my father’s hands, worn with years of hard work, as they mix my bowl of bibimbap.“You eat like this. Now the rice will be crispy if you don’t wait too long”. Bibimbap — a Korean dish of rice and spicy mixed vegetables — is not only delicious, but occasionally served in a dolsot, or hot stone bowl. If you wait just long enough — but not too long — the rice at the bottom will have the perfect am...

25 likes 19 comments 19
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The Secret Sauce

Submitted to Contest #333

A Saturday evening in Betsy’s backyard for her 31st birthday. She’s covered the tables in red checkered cloth, organized them in an L-shape in the grass, placed colorful wildflowers in empty tomato sauce cans — the yellow Cento label, the red tomatoes, the tablecloth, the white taper candles.Sun sets slowly below the neighboring rooftops, the sky goes twilight, and Italian bistro music plays under the chatter of enough friends to fill a life, and I am one of them. I’m here for you, Betsy, with all our friends, and I’m happy. I’ve been drinki...

23 likes 1 comment 1
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Open Late

Submitted to Contest #333

I didn’t plan to spend most of my evenings in a kebab shop, but life has a way of narrowing your options until you end up somewhere fluorescent, greasy, and open far too late.It’s on the corner of a road no one walks down unless something has gone wrong with their evening, or they’ve made a series of confident decisions that have finally caught up with them.It’s open late, which is important. Things that stay open late are hopeful in a very specific, slightly tragic way. They believe someone will need them. They are usually right.The shop sm...

23 likes 18 comments 18
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Chestnut's Roasting

Submitted to Contest #333

The audience waited in silent anticipation, knowing the lights would come up at any moment, revealing this year’s panel and the beloved host, Chestnut. “Action in five, four, three…” The “two” and “one” were displayed on silent fingers as the director brought the stage to life. The APPLAUSE sign lit up, Chestnut strolled onto center-stage, between all of his guests, and the crowd rose to their feet and went absolutely nuts! “CHEST-NUT, CHEST-NUT, CHEST-NUT!” they screamed, hopelessly enthralled by Chestnut and his immense celebrity status....

22 likes 13 comments 13
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A Glass Ready to Burst

Submitted to Contest #333

TW: Fatal illness and anxietyA clinking sound rang throughout the kitchen, a demanding fork hitting the glass in front of the oldest child. Glassy eyes looked up to the head of the table, where the young girl sat. She was a simple-looking one: blonde hair tied back into a long braid, her cracked lips pursed as she stared down at the worn baby blue dress. Her fingers clenched the fabric as her younger siblings continued to stare, hoping for something she could not give. “Emilia?” the youngest finally said, breaking the silence. “What is it?”...

21 likes 4 comments 4
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