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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#100: Breaking Bread

One of the most intimate things you can do with someone is sit down to eat together. The idea of friends and foes, families and strangers breaking bread has been a recurring theme in art and literature for a very long time. It’s something that can bring us together against the steepest of odds; to quote Oscar Wilde, “after a good dinner one can forgive anybody, even one's own relations”. But things don’t always end quite so harmoniously — food fights, anyone?

This week, we’re reflecting on the joys (or pains) of eating together or making a meal. Whether the dinner table is a place for communion or conflict for your characters, I look forward to sitting down to a hearty portion of food-themed stories with you. Bon appétit!

This week's prompts

Start or end your story with two characters sitting down for a meal.

Middle School – 264 stories

Write a story where a meal or dinner goes horribly wrong.

Thanksgiving – 201 stories

Write about a group of strangers — or people who know each other, but may as well be strangers — eating together.

Fluff – 152 stories

Write about a character preparing a meal for somebody else.

Fluff – 157 stories

Write a story that involves a secret or magic ingredient.

Halloween – 116 stories

Stories

“Mom’s Dumplings” by Yihong Chen

Submitted to Contest #100

I love dumplings. I have had many dumplings in my life. Different shapes, sizes, fillings, skins, dipping sauces… The good old pork and napa cabbage dumplings with vinegar. The fashionable Shanghai soup dumplings that taste so good they don’t need dipping sauces. The fancy Cantonese “har gow” shrimp dumplings that go well with tea. The unique but delicious vegetable dumplings I had at a Buddhist temple once. Once, I even got a chef to make me a custom giant dumpling that looked like the one fro...

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“THE SECRET HIDDEN IN THE YELLOW” by Mara Masolini

Submitted to Contest #100

THE SECRET HIDDEN IN THE YELLOW The yellow cake stood out on the table, spreading a very light ,barely perceptible scent, yet absolutely irresistible, all pervading. It tasted of vanilla sugar, enhanced by the fragrance of rustled corn, you could also perceive in it the sweet smell, with just a pinch of apple sour, and even that fragrance which seemed of milk mixed with wood bark, of the walnut. In fact apples and nuts were, along with corn flour, the main ingredients of that cake, the Margaret’s YELLOW CAKE. ...

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“Esmeralda's Reign” by Sophia Borer

Submitted to Contest #100

Carrie had trudged through the dark purple forest since the change in leadership in her town, Chester Hill. The sky was a tainted green and the grass was a sharp black. She thought of when Chester Hill was normal; people would go around, weaving cloth, sharing biscuits with new neighbors, and thatched the straw roofs on the cottages. Then Esmeralda became Queen. Esmeralda was a witch. In Chester Hill, the townsfolk believed witches had cloaks and brooms, warts and green skin. They were said to come from far away lands where elves and fairies...

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“Ataraxia - Tales from the mountain's edge” by Maren Koenigs

Submitted to Contest #100

"My boyfriend made me play Skyrim with him this year and I never though a video game could inspire me like this. So, this story is a thanks to the amazing storytellers who brought this deeply thoughtful game and story to life." -Maren Koenigs They say as long as the Northern Lights shine and cover the skies with their shivering curtains of nacreous colours, that you’re never alone. Because there is something else out here in the frozen wilderness that is alive. But we, the people from the North, born and raised among the glaciers, we kno...

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“Eureka” by Calen Cross

Submitted to Contest #100

I had been in my lab for months. My food, sleeping arrangements, clothing even, had been arranged beforehand so that I could dedicate myself to one thing- the study of alchemy. Turning lead into gold had been my original plan, but I found out through study, one can purify oneself and that transformation of oneself was the key to transforming anything else. It started with the gathering. It is important to find the purest, most essential supplies and materials that one can, for purity is of utmost importance. As I studied the ma...

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“Weekend Special ” by Suyan Budhoo

Submitted to Contest #100

Weekend Special We were all left speculating about who would inherit what from grandma’s estate, she had passed away a few days ago from a short illness. Grandma came from humble beginnings and was widowed at the age of 30 with 4 children to support. She never remarried for the fear of “What would happen to her children if she did?” Although grandma didn’t have much money, her husband left her with a restaurant and a moderate insurance policy that would sustain her for a few years, the rest she would have to make up as...

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“The Hexed Golden Apples” by J Valerio

Submitted to Contest #100

“Yes! How sublime the evening is!” a tone of panic slips in my voice that I hope I alone was able to notice. “Eh.. would you mind if I borrow your coat? It’s chilly this evening.” After the doorman placed the wool around my shoulders, I took a peek and rummaged the pockets to gauge if the coast is clear. I ran as fast as I could with desperation written all over my face. With a snap of my fingers, I turned the piece of cloth into wings. I have no idea if I’m exceedingly brave or exceptionally stupid. There’s no turning back now. The thing ab...

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“Newlyweds ” by Danny Mart

Submitted to Contest #100

She was, for all manner of speaking, a newly minted wife. Her role seemed so simple at first. The wedding had been a grand thing that offered headaches of cherry blossoms and white frills from the cross altar to the backdrop of the after party. Too-wide porcelain toothed smiles surrounded Dolly from every hampered angle and it left her feeling slightly awkward. She'd never garnered this much attention in her lifetime, being the middle child between two doctors and one other prodigal younger sister meant that not much attention had ever bee...

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“Bitter Almonds” by Tawni Winns

Submitted to Contest #100

My mother taught me that there were only 3 recipes that a woman needed in her arsenal. Lemon herb Engagement chicken to get a man to propose, chocolate layer cake to keep him around, and when you realized he wasn’t the man he presented himself to be almond buttermilk pie to make him leave. When Mother was just sixteen years old she met my father outside a diner. He was a 21-year-old mechanic smoking a cigarette next to his beat-up old truck. They locked eyes and well that was it. They welcomed little me a year later just a few months befor...

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“Belladonna” by Lilith Kerr

Submitted to Contest #100

TW: physical and verbal abuse, infidelity The squirrel was rust-coloured. Like decay. Like blood seeping into wet earth. It’s tiny rodent heart slammed against the confines of its tiny rodent chest. Well aware of impending human-presence, the squirrel took off into the underbrush, tiny muscles pumping, twig-like bones bounding. Like some great beast clawing itself out from the mist, the car’s lights cut through the dusk. The great Jabberwock with blazing yellow eyes. All grinding metal and ageing alloy, it grumbled, brake pad...

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“The academy's secrets” by Michelle Douges

Submitted to Contest #100

My name is Layla and I went to Elodie Academy; a magic school! We didn’t really use magic wands, not yet. By the time being we were in the trainee phase.By which we had to prepare the learner’s room, our immediate supervisors. We had to call it “prepare the learner’s room” when it was just cleaning. We would be severely told off or even punished if we didn‘t do so. In that instance we usually would be punished by the “instructors”.Nevertheless we would call the “learners” as “5th levers” despite the instructors precisely ordering us to call ...

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“Jeweled Berry Dreams” by Kimberly Brown

Submitted to Contest #100

Dawn was walking through the tall grass from the little folks‘ dormitories to the dining area. She was chatting with one of her roommates. They were two-and-a-half months into a six-month magical study retreat given by Jack Moonheart, a powerful wizard. Dawn was a hazel-eyed fairy lady with curly, red hair, freckles and monarch butterfly wings. Her companion was a head taller. She was a fairy as well. She had long, light blonde hair, green eyes, and blue and purple wings. She was very skinny with overlapping front teeth, ...

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“Promise Me, Little Bird” by Katya Z.

Submitted to Contest #100

They broke for camp late, too late, and waking up alive and alone was the greatest surprise that it could have been. Lark crawled free of the tarp first, to start the fire and set the coffee. Aramina stayed under to wrap their mats and stuff their bags. A lovely form of monotony, packing up camp. The meat of it never dared to change.Aramina tossed their bags, then followed them outside. Pine-scent brushed her nose, thick in this ring of evergreens. The ground was soft with their needles. Luck had been with them last night, and the spot they ...

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“Do You Like It?” by Cheriel Ann Pael

Submitted to Contest #100

TW: blood, gore, murder “And they live happily ever after” I close the book I’m reading then I looked at my sister who currently stopping her eyes to close, I chuckled. “ The End.” I whisper when she finally close her eyes and sleep. I slowly get up to her bed and I make sure that her blanket will not fall onto the floor. I come out of her bedroom and carefully close her door not wanting to disturb her sleep. I look at the clock and it’s already nine pm and I have a work at ten pm. I hurriedly fix myself in my bedroom and make ...

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“Dinner Date Dysphoria” by Charie Pinemiss

Submitted to Contest #100

TW: Suicidal Ideation, Suicide AttemptNothing ever goes right.Is this normal?It's normal for me.*****I walked to the door of my house. Nothing even makes sense to me anymore. Why would this attractive white boy even want to have a date with me? At my house? I'm black. Very black. And ugly. And worthless. And nothing. I'm nothing.He's knocking on the door.Just to be nice to me.He just wants to have fun with you.No, he doesn't. Nobody would.Just give him a chance.I needed to open the door or I would seem rude. I didn't want to give this man an...

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$50

Prize money

891

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jul 02, 2021 EST

Won by Rayhan Hidayat 🏆

Title: mie goreng

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

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