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
Paul stared at his wife across the table, noticing for the first time that her sweater was on inside out. Every morning he would lay out her clothes on the bed in a specific order, so she’d know which item… Continue Reading
Several journalists came to interview me after the confrontation with the terrorist in Edinburgh. None of the reports were very clear and some were wildly inaccurate: a young woman from The Sun newspaper, called Serena, said she wanted to compile… Continue Reading
Her father had slapped her twice already. Her face is still red from the blows. Tears run down her cheeks. She is obstinately silent. They sit in the beige Formica kitchen on the first floor of their new, still bare… Continue Reading