For years Teresa ate pasta twice a week, on Tuesdays and Sundays, and it had become, she believed, a necessary part of life. She found refuge in a warm bowl of bucatini or farfalle, even after the most hectic days… Continue Reading
The hallway smelled of cabbage, yet Suzanne remained optimistic. Despite her heavy boots, she bounded up the stairs, clutching the slip of paper Yuri had inscribed with his address. Yuri and Irina had invited her, their first American friend, home.… Continue Reading
After my promotion, the pay cheque didn’t look quite right sat in my account. The rent wasn’t going to make a dent in it, and the same figure would be arriving next month. And the month after. My head felt… Continue Reading
My sister slices the pie, her lips drawn together in a tight purse, the disapproving grimace of a person performing an unfamiliar task. We sit at the dining room table. I look because I can’t stop myself from staring over… Continue Reading
“You not can to eat Chicken a Sea tuna fish in a Friday,” I heard Nona say to my mother in the kitchen. Nona is the Italian word for grandmother. My Nona lived on the other side of our double… Continue Reading
Epiphany: I need lemons. A tumble of lemons, a volcano of fresh explosive citrus, the obese mamas with that extraterrestrial shine, not those dinky rough-hide goblins lurking at the bottom of produce boxes. Fifty will do, I think. No, seventy;… Continue Reading
Nobody could love somebody like her, Amy-Louise thought as she awkwardly squeezed herself into a booth. Daddy had always made that very clear to her, so the taunts of the good ol’ boys in the parking lot outside the diner… Continue Reading
Despite their differences, the two wizards had always agreed that the mushroom soup at Ko’s was a superior dish amid a wasteland of mediocre suburban cuisine. It contained seven distinct species of exotic fungi in a clear, fragrant broth speckled… Continue Reading
The same year rationing finally came to an end in England, Peter spent a small fortune on a big American refrigerator. While his neighbours coveted television sets, he yearned for food that wasn’t as bland and grey as London on… Continue Reading
Mom always told me my blackberry pie tasted like hers. We’d both be bent at the waist, shoulders hunched, sturdily pushing rolling pins through flour-coated dough in the tiny kitchen. Heat would pool at the back of my neck and… Continue Reading