Menu

Menu
Prompts
Contests
Stories
Blog
Directory
Contests
Magazine
FAQ

Write about a character preparing a meal for somebody else.

Posted in Fluff on Oct 26, 2022

Submissions are closed

Make sure you don't miss our next contest by creating your free Reedsy account.

Sign in with Google
Sign in with Facebook

Or use an email address:

Why not check out our active contest?

✍️ 155 stories

mie goreng

Winner of Contest #100 🏆

I’d rather be asleep.I’d rather have ignored your request at my door, small and pleading and moist with youth. I’d rather the song of your furtive feet retreating as quickly as they’d come had been a stray breeze in the night, or the cackling melody of mating geckos. I’d rather have curled deeper into the naked mattress that carves brutal shapes into my spine, because sleep is something I don’t get enough of.Yet here I am, groping for a light switch in a kitchen that I spend more time inside than my own head. Slumber clings to my face like a...

369 likes 332 comments 332
Read story

Atropa Belladonna

Submitted to Contest #100

Seventy-two-year-old Mrs. Sharma, or Sharma Aunty as the neighbourhood kids called her, smeared a dollop of chickpea paste over the Colocasia leaves—Elephants Ears or Arbi leaves in common parlance—that she had plucked this morning from her vegetable garden. She then placed five leaves of similar size one on top of the other, each generously smeared with spiced chickpea paste, and began to tightly roll them lengthwise. Once fully rolled, she secured them with toothpicks and cut the roll into thin slices, which she began frying in mustard oil...

121 likes 111 comments 111
Read story

The Life Soup

Submitted to Contest #100

RING, RING, RING.It is the dinner bell, signaling that I go downstairs and cook. Today is an important day. Quickly, I rush to the kitchen from my small bedroom, the creaky floorboards announcing my entrance. The kitchen is empty though, and my flourish is wasted on an invisible audience. Nonetheless, my good mood can’t be lessened.I look around, admiring the kitchen that has been mine ever since I moved out of my parent’s five years ago. Having a tense relationship with them, I moved out as soon as I deemed myself financially and emotionall...

49 likes 27 comments 27
Read story

A meal fit for a King

Submitted to Contest #100

Time and repetition are supposed to make everything easier and more fluid. So after 15 years of being in Lord Verks' services, you would have thought Elliot would have a hang on his choirs and the amount of time needed to complete them. However disappointing it is to hear you would be mistaken. The long to-do list only ever slowed down the loyal minion. Elliot raced from room to room, restoring order to chaos. Lord Verks' people had been staying with them for the past few weeks and had just left. A huge mess in every room. To most, this woul...

48 likes 3 comments 3
Read story

Lying to sleep

Submitted to Contest #100

The daylight begins to fade as the hours get older and the night approaches. The sun has already set in the far horizon stretched above the roads over at the mountainside far off the city. A few clouds awkwardly gaze over the tall skylines. My stomach grumbles and instinctively my hand cradles the starved flesh. It's been eleven hours and thirty three minutes since our last meal.  I shift my weight and Ntombi wakes up rubbing her freckled eyes and sitting up. 'Will we eat?' She asks. No greeting. No how are you. Only concerned about w...

38 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

A Change that Changed Everything that was to be Changed

Submitted to Contest #100

You sit down to eat dinner. Your pet dog by your side and a video-conference with your family ready to take place soon, you feel that this day can never get better. After all, this is one of the last days you spend here in this country. Your business is slow and you decide to go back home.You take a bite of the food, the food that you relish and serve to your customers with pride, or rather, SERVED.Within a minute, you start to mindlessly eat your food and your mind wanders off. It starts to go to your hometown, the place where you started y...

37 likes 56 comments 56
Read story

Birthday Mohinga

Submitted to Contest #100

‘Beep, Beep, Beep,’ I woke up to the sound of an alarm clock on my bed-stand. Its night light glowing brightly in my dark, suffocating room. It was already five in the morning which was one hour before my part-time job. Today was my 21st Birthday. I should be excited about birthday cakes, presents, and parties. But, right now, all I felt was loneliness. No one was by my side to wish me a “Happy Birthday”. I missed my home. The fact that today was my birthday worsen my longing for my sweet home more than any day. Would I be lonely on my next ...

32 likes 20 comments 20
Read story

Dimah

Submitted to Contest #100

The swiftly rising grey vapour from the burning wok started to release a burning smell of fried green vegetables and spices covering the warm air of the windowless kitchen. The chirring exhaust fan chugged in the smoke making Era choke on her breath causing her to feel a tingling up her nose just before she loudly sneezed, " Achoo! "Before she could wipe her nose, she felt a painful twinge in the lower-part of her belly and the familiar feeling of bleeding down there. " Oh no! No! No! No! " she muttered faintly as she ran towards her room ab...

30 likes 11 comments 11
Read story

Food for Thought.

Submitted to Contest #100

I knew it was a bad idea the moment the words left my mouth.In my head it seemed like a good idea, it wasn’t until after I mentioned to Luka that we should celebrate Thanksgiving together that I realized the mistake. What mistake is that you’re probably wondering. After all, it’s completely normal for people who have been in a two year relationship to spend Thanksgiving together. You're right, it is. What I failed to realize was Luka wanting to do everything from scratch. “Why do we have to cook though?’ I clung to the mattress as Luka ...

25 likes 1 comment 1
Read story

Eye the Beholder

Submitted to Contest #100

The sun barely hung above the neighboring house. The light shafts lite the side of your face, glinting off the knife in your hand. You repeatedly slashed it clearly through the scallions. The chittering chopping was the only sound in the whole house.   A toot of a horn makes you jump, zagging your cut. Outside the window you're standing in front of, Kelly, your normal mail person, was waving from the sidewalk. Even yards away, you can see sweet potato stains on her blue uniform shorts from her newly walking 10-month-old. Between he...

24 likes 0 comments 0
Read story

What's In A Neighbour

Submitted to Contest #100

As I slave over my hot stove in the suppressible heat, I feel happy. Yes, it's stinking hot outside, and my husband never cooks, but I like helping my elderly neighbour. Which is why I'm sweating while cooking in the house instead of swimming at the beach. You see, my neighbour, Kate Milford, is very old and can't do much anymore. She doesn't have anyone to help her in the house because she can't afford it, so I make her meals and clean her little bungalow when needed. She insists on paying me, but I do it out of the kindness of my heart. ...

24 likes 5 comments 5
Read story

Dinner for Two?

Submitted to Contest #100

“Morning dear, you are up early. Your coffee is cold, let me make you a fresh one.” She flitted across the kitchen and clicked on the kettle. One mug, two spoons of instant coffee, grabbing a carton of milk from the fridge, slopping a dash plus a splash into his favourite mug, the way he likes it. The kettle popped. A quick stir, and served in front of him the earlier cold mug hit the bubbly water in the sink. “Toast?” she asked. “Peanut butter or Marmite, or would you like both? I’ll do that, you enjoyed it last time.” She placed a knife an...

24 likes 4 comments 4
Read story

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Submitted to Contest #100

Nora is already planning to make a special meal for when her mother comes to visit. Her mother hasn’t been to her daughter’s new house in Maine and they seem to have trouble visiting each other lately. Nora feels guilty, because she thinks about her mother a lot and knows they should spend more time together. She’s just so busy with her job. Her new job, working in an art gallery with a view of Casco Bay.Maybe she hasn't been busy, she's been selfish. She knew she wanted to make her mother proud of her. That hadn't always been easy.She ...

24 likes 6 comments 6
Read story

Table for Two

Submitted to Contest #100

Our eldest lad wasn’t there for our first anniversary, although he made his presence felt. I struggled with the extra weight in the summer’s heat and boy could he kick. Walter carried the picnic basket, blanket, pillows and anything he could think of to make me feel more comfortable. The contractions started before we finished our adventure and we had to dash to the General. That was thirty years ago; our pearl anniversary is proving to be an entirely different celebration.#“Morning, Mrs Williams,” says Mr Bennett. “How’s your old man doing?...

23 likes 5 comments 5
Read story

how to cook adobo

Submitted to Contest #100

My cooking is a lousy business. My mother makes it worse.No one is born a great cook. One learns by doing. So I don't understand why mother expected me to know already what to do in the kitchen.My kitchen is as tidy as the ones in the Ikea showroom. In lovely green and an environmentally conscious themed kitchen. For weeks, the pans have not touched anything but thin air, and the most useful thing in this place is the microwave.And then mother calls me and shatters my completely perfect circle of life. She's coming.So here I am, in the middl...

22 likes 9 comments 9
Read story

🌟 Similar prompts

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

Middle School – 263 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 a story that involves a secret or magic ingredient.

Halloween – 115 stories

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months. Learn more →

How to Write a Novel