Naturally, this isn't eligible for any contest. It's not even fiction. But after Peggy Gerber's story "Dinner of Love", I couldn't resist it. Sorry. Editorial privilege.
FOOD
It's 1972, and it's a promising early date. Her parents are away from home, and she's cooking that seventies' retro classic, spaghetti bolognese. In the kitchen, she invites me to taste the ragu: we agree it needs a little cayenne. So she goes to shake the little pot... and the entire top comes off, depositing a mound of red powder into our evening meal.
I insist that we scrape what we can off the top, then eat it. It tastes... spicy.
49 years later, we still eat lots of spicy food, but these days I do most of the cooking.
I insist that we scrape what we can off the top, then eat it. It tastes... spicy.
49 years later, we still eat lots of spicy food, but these days I do most of the cooking.
