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

Posted in Short Story on Dec 12, 2025

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✍️ 45 stories

DJ + RJ's 21st and Final Date Night

Submitted to Contest #333

VOICE NOTEDECEMBER 23RD, 2019 - SAN PEDRO, CAThere is a shuffle smothering the microphone. The muffled sound of voices, clinking plates, and shifting of leather dominate the recording. This continues for exactly 37 seconds before there is a change. The leather shifts along with someone’s backside. A conversation can be hard abruptly.“-couldn’t be less happy for her.”“Yum.”“Yum?”“The eggplant.”“Oh. In the salad?”“Yeah.”“They do that here?”“Guess so.”“This burger is absolute shit-town.”“Ah, a lovely place to winter.”“But, like, why have shit-t...

10 likes 2 comments 2
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Empty Plate, Full Stomach

Submitted to Contest #333

Prompt 1: Write a story that includes a recipe, grocery list, or restaurant review. Prompt 2: Start or end your story with an empty plate, empty glass, or something burning. Empty Plate, Full Stomach Since Daddy died two years ago, Momma and I got by on what we had. She would always remind me that our lives wouldn’t be easy. She would quote Jesus saying “… I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothin...

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Sue's Hot and Spicy Week

Submitted to Contest #333

Sue’s Hot and Spicy Week.One sunny morning, Sue was sitting at her dining table in her quiet unit, eating her breakfast. Sue was on a week’s holiday from work and she was wondering what she would do to enjoy the break. She watched Pepper, her pet cat running around the room and climbing up the frame. After 10 minutes Pepper lay down on her cat bed and fell asleep, and Sue looked at him fondly. He had been her companion for a number of years and helped her recover from a very difficult time in her life after suffering abuse at the hands of an...

9 likes 3 comments 3
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Hurger's Burgers

Submitted to Contest #333

Hurger’s Burgers was a new restaurant to the area that had sparked recent controversy. Steph’s coworkers hadn’t gone, nobody she knew had, but they had all noticed it’s review section on Google. “Like babe, this restaurant has endless fake reviews that make no sense. I honestly feel bad for them. These people must have been told to write them to bring their rating down. Listen to this one posted by JaniceCho64. It says: 'We went to this restaurant to try something new. Their menu is mainly burgers and fries, so we thought we’d like it. Boy...

9 likes 1 comment 1
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STUFFED SQUID

Submitted to Contest #333

New home, new country, new Christmas. I was determined to make a good first impression. Christmas Eve dinner should be based on fish dishes, in the Italian tradition. This tradition made it across the water so it was also a tradition among some families in the US. Therefore I was a bit taken aback to discover that this part of Italy, didn't go for fish on Christmas eve. Later, I realized I could have gotten away with smoked herring that is sold in convenient plastic packages without fish bones or skin. In the North, where I happened to be th...

9 likes 4 comments 4
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Recipe for Disaster

Submitted to Contest #333

Recipe for Disaster The first thing I noticed was the smell. Something sharp and bitter burning in the kitchen, curling its way down the hallway and into my chest like a warning I had already ignored too many times. It wasn’t the kind of smell that suggested dinner was ready. It was accusation. Heat without comfort. Evidence without witnesses. I was sitting on the floor with my back against the cabinet, knees drawn in, staring at the blackened coil of the stove as if it were staring back. There was a strange intimacy in watching something e...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Egusi soup and the hunger to begin again

Submitted to Contest #333

The plate had sat empty for a while before Anna finally noticed it.It was on the small kitchen table, white ceramic with a thin crack near the rim, clean except for a faint orange stain that palm oil never seemed to forgive. The apartment was quiet, not the sharp, expectant silence of waiting for something to go wrong, but the softer kind. The kind that settles after a door has closed and stayed closed.She stood there longer than necessary, looking at the plate as though it might explain something to her.Once, emptiness frightened her. It ma...

9 likes 2 comments 2
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Coquito

Submitted to Contest #333

CW: Heavy alcohol use “... Blasted coquito...” I groan as I hold my head. Oh yes, I could already feel the effects of the damned Christmas drink.Despite the effects, abuelita knew how to make a killing coquito.Quite literary.“...owww...” I groaned as I sat up.One quick look around I realize I was at abuelita’s home back in Puerto Rico. Even though I was feeling groggy, I slowly remembered what happened.I arrived from New York back to Puerto Rico to celebrate Christmas with my family. You see, Puerto Rico has the longest Christmas celebration...

8 likes 2 comments 2
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How to make Meat Sauce for a Hundred

Submitted to Contest #333

In order to make meat sauce, you must start with a good pot. She needs to be big if she’s going to hold enough to serve a hundred people. A sturdy one with a thick, heavy bottom. This will protect your sauce from ruin in the long run. She doesn’t have to be new. Sometimes the older ones work better. But she has to be prepared properly.First, she must be cleaned and free of anything left over from precious uses, especially if someone has been careless with her and she’s been burned before. Anything left over in her will affect how your sauce ...

8 likes 0 comments 0
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An Honest Review of the Worst Restaurant in the World (My Home)

Submitted to Contest #333

For years I have written reviews with the confidence of someone who believes they know what they’re doing.When I was asked to write one about an intimate restaurant, I reviewed the assignment carefully. The word intimate appeared twice in the email. In bold. I looked for options.None fully met the brief. So I chose the most appropriate one.An Honest Review of the Worst Restaurant in the World (My Home)Location: private residence.The glass is chosen well.The wine is poured slowly. The angle is correct. The pause as well. The waiter has repeat...

8 likes 3 comments 3
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Next

Submitted to Contest #333

“There’s nothing to eat!” my husband shouts, his words muffled by the fridge door as it nearly swallows him.It’s a phrase I hear at least three times a week—at this point, just an incessant noise.He reappears in one piece and slams the fridge door, standing there dumbfounded, a beer gripped in his large, paint-stained hand, his smock streaked with pigment and reeking of turpentine. I shake my head. “Why did I marry an artist?” I roll my eyes, knowing there is plenty of food.I can hear him grumbling as I stomp into the kitchen to see for myse...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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I Remember

Submitted to Contest #333

Jaritza Jaritza and Amaya were running late for school again. This time it wasn’t even her daughter’s fault. Amaya had laid out an entire outfit the night before, shoes and all. Her book bag was packed and she was finishing a piece of toast at the kitchen table before Jatiiza had even changed out of her pajamas. “Mom we are going to be late. Again.” Her daughter looked up from her phone long enough to shoot Jaritza a judgmental frown. “I have a spelling test today. If I miss it Ms. Namor will make me do it at lunchtime.” Jaritza quickly thre...

7 likes 0 comments 0
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Don't Forget the Milk!

Submitted to Contest #333

Don’t Forget the Milk! “And don’t forget the milk.”Why does she think she has to remind me of everything? I’m not a kid anymore, although you’d never know it by the way she treats me. I feel like I’m at work, but not getting paid.She acts like I’ve never been to a store before. I go every week! I live here; I guess I know as much about what we need as she does. I do the cooking, so I know when I’m running out of something I need, but that don’t count I guess. Every time I’m getting ready to go to the market, out comes the list. She c...

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Apple Strudel

Submitted to Contest #333

Outside of the windows, Scod Driktax, watched the view change from a field of stars to blue skies as he shifted the Z56 Cruiser out of propulsion drive and into cruising speed. He activated the spaceship’s stealth mode, so no one on the planet below could see him. Mister Baaxer, Scod’s wealthy and eccentric employer, had sent him on another crazy assignment – go to Earth and acquire an apple strudel recipe. While listening to the Traveling Toota podcast, “Eating Your Way Through the Planetary System,” Mister Baaxer heard a review of the app...

7 likes 2 comments 2
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Overpriced Ingredients, Same Results

Submitted to Contest #333

“An’ don’t g’back heeuh til yuh goddit all. Take yuh sistuh w’chyuh.” Nadine slammed the door and went to doll up more. The autumn air complimented the freedom Valentino earned. Antonia was at his side with her arms crossed, looking slightly down at him. He held the map to his memories closely.“She didn’t lemme change,” small splats of pomodoro base danced on the front of her long sleeve shirt and jeans.“Quit whining,” he focused the cursive stating: butter, parmesan, mozzarella, heavy cream, milk, bay leaf, parsley, sage, olive oil, lasagna...

6 likes 0 comments 0
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