Write a story in the form of a recipe.

Posted in Short Story on Sep 27, 2024

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✍️ 82 stories

“Cooking up a Successful Restaurant: A Recipe for Success” by Jeff Meade

Submitted to Contest #270

Recipe OverviewStart out with dreams. Restaurants are based on this magical ingredient. Restaurants are not created just to sell tasty delicacies, but rather to showcase desires, ambitions, and personal fancy. They are selfish in that way, as only the creator truly understands the artistry they put into their work. So start with a dream. Grab a sheet of paper and sketch out what the kitchen would look like. Then spend countless hours pondering whether the crispy Po’Boy should have jerk seasoning or traditional blackening spice. It’s al...

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“Caramelized Onions” by Ajay Sabs

Submitted to Contest #270

You’re laying on the couch, the TV is on but you’re not really watching anything, and you’re feeling blah. Maybe it’s that summer has come to an end. You’re in the interstitial period that immediately precedes the season that elevates hypothermia and credit card debt to holiday status. Fall has begun, the house feels empty. Leaves have fallen, rain has fallen, and is still falling, and a slurry of leaf paste has formed on the ground outside. You’re stuck inside. You’re tired. The listlessness feels like a yoke tied to your neck, pulling you ...

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“Serves Who?” by Kendall Defoe

Submitted to Contest #270

Note: the following recipe allows for variations and additions, but the list of ingredients and instructions has been collated by experts with many years of experience in this field.*Ingredients:SaltPepperSpinachEggsMilkGarlic Sun-Dried TomatoesBreadMustard (Dijon, perhaps)Extra-Virgin Olive OilCoffeeAlcohol (choice left up to you)*Instructions:1. Realize that you have woken up on the first day after it ended – truly ended – with no food in the house. She was the one who always cooked on weekends because you spen...

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“Recipe for a Cyanide Dream: A Dish of Defiance” by Liv Valen

Submitted to Contest #270

Recipe for a Cyanide Dream: A Dish of DefianceServes: Anyone grasping for breath in a poisoned world.Ingredients:1 cup of clouded dreams: thickened with broken promises. Preferably freshly harvested from the minds of those who seek control.2 tablespoons of toxic ambition: carefully distilled from forgotten ideals3 teaspoons of false hope: deceptively sweetA half gram of cyanide: pure and potent. Measure carefully, it is lethal but quiet1 gallon of contaminated water: drawn from the wells of corruptionA handful of whispers of solidarity: stra...

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“A Not So Simple Cake” by Rani Jayakumar

Submitted to Contest #270

Note: This story contains sensitive content, including loss of life and mention of knives and cutting. 1. First get a bowl. Not the bowl Grandma gave you that time when she called you in the kitchen with her cane in hand, and asked you to get it from under the cabinet, the one you thought was not even a cabinet but just a false panel because no one ever opened it. Not that bowl, which has been superglued again and again until the glue cracks are a new pattern on the blue and white chinoiserie. Blue Willow, she called it before she gave it to...

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“A Recipe for Success at Accounting Solutions Select” by ER Castaneda

Submitted to Contest #270

Welcome to Accounting Solutions Select, a mid-sized company specializing in accounting in this nondescript building in the business park area at the edge of town. Our cubicle space is approximately 80 square feet per person, all cookie-cutter copies of each other with gray walls. If you want to succeed here, I encourage you to follow this recipe for success. First, you need a gallon-sized cup of indifference. Accounting Solutions Select is not asking you to try to find creative solutions to problems, efficiency, or even ways to boost company...

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“Cold Roasted Dragon Heart” by KA James

Submitted to Contest #270

You have just slayed the fire breathing behemoth, the ageless and fearsome dragon that has terrorized the countryside for decades, if not centuries. And while the villagers were initially grateful beyond measure, they have since grown somewhat petulant concerning the huge, pungent pile of rotting dragon flesh that still lies half submerged on the banks of the Crystalline Coast. No one ever worries about what to do with such a carcass when their more immediate concern is if their home will be torched from the skies at any moment. But give it ...

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“How to Un-Kill Your Husband ” by LC Reid

Submitted to Contest #270

Welcome back, my faithful readers! It’s your favourite messy mama here to help all you beautiful babes create magic in the kitchen! It’s been a hot minute since I last updated this space, but it’s been quite the eventful summer. Now I know that a lot of you get frustrated by me droning on and on in these little anecdotes and want to skip right on over to the recipe, but I think they add a personal flair to each recipe. With that being said, let’s play a little catch-up! My daughter turned sixteen in June (I know, I can’t believe i...

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“Loving Concentration” by Rebecca Hurst

Submitted to Contest #270

Julia Child gets her knickers in a twist about the difference between sautés, stews and fricassées. I myself, who cannot claim to be anything more than a competent cook, shall defer to the mistress of French cuisine. After all, a misplaced apostrophe provokes my conniptions, and she is entitled to feel the same about fricassée. But I must use frying chicken. p.271 is a little greasy after all these years, but I know she is Goldilocks-ey about this. The flesh of a young chicken is too soft and tender, so it dries out ...

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“Recipe for a Life in Love” by Kevin Asla

Submitted to Contest #270

This recipe mirrors the ebb and flow of life, where love and loss are inseparable, and where even the most carefully planned recipe can take unexpected turns. It balances the heat of passion with the coolness of grief, creating a dish that is rich, complex, and innately human. Ingredients: 1 reluctant move to a small townA dash of isolation and brooding1 quaint coffee shop (to avoid the house)1 red-haired barista named Jasmine1 awkward cappuccino order1 year of summer friendship (stirred daily with light conversation)1 heart-wrenching realiz...

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“How To Tank a Job Interview: A Recipe” by Catalina Wichmann

Submitted to Contest #270

How To Tank A Job Interviews: A Recipe Hello readers! I bring you a perfect recipe to tank a job interview, in case you have ever wondered how to make a cake out of that. I created this recipe by myself, as it was not passed on to me by my mother or my grandmother, as none of the women in the previous generations of my family have had to get jobs outside the home. The men have, but as we all know, men do not pass on their Recipe’s for Professional Success and Failure to their daughters, so I had to come up with one with my own spin to it....

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“How To Be Happy” by Luna Lin

Submitted to Contest #270

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘happy’ as: feeling or showing pleasure; pleased. And ‘happiness’ is: the state of feeling or showing pleasure. A relatively simple concept. However, a quick book search on Amazon.com with the word ‘happiness’ returned more than 60,000 results. It is impossible to say with accuracy the number of works published on happiness, but what is most certainly certain is that this one simple emotion has eluded many people. So many of us misunderstand what happiness is. We end up buying so many things, changing so...

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“A Dish of Love, Lies, and Demons” by Lindsay Nicole

Submitted to Contest #270

Ingredients: · 1 young couple (one with intentions of proposing)· 1 remote cabin by a lake (secluded, with a dark history)· 1 diamond engagement ring (hopeful but doomed)· 1 cursed object (hidden in plain sight)· A handful of secrets (deeply buried, but ready to rise)· &...

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“Scroll Down for Recipe” by Kristen Hubers

Submitted to Contest #270

Every time I search for a recipe online, I get someone’s life story without asking for it. It’s like a receptionist just trying to make an appointment for Grandpa Jake and having to endure his entire life summary before he even tells her his name. “I was born in Cocksblood with a gangly father and a mother who only knew how to cook weeds.” Jacob (aka Jake) was always in some kind of military and now he wants to check to see if Viagra is the right choice for him and his new wife at the age of 79 and 50 respectively. Before online food blogs ...

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“Recipe for Dissed Aster” by Judy Shank Cyg

Submitted to Contest #270

Recipe for handling a bully without retaliation. Guaranteed satisfaction. (Warning: ingredients and steps must be followed exactly, no substitutions.) · Prep time – 1 day· Total time – 2 days· Servings – 4 INGREDIENTS Herbs· 2 sprigs monkshood (for protection)· 1 stem (10 petals) dogtooth violet, may be dried (for dream magic)· 4 black alder leaves, 2 tablespoons of crushed bark (for spell)·&nbsp...

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Write a story in the form of a recipe.

Submissions are closed

✍️ 82 stories

“Cooking up a Successful Restaurant: A Recipe for Success” by Jeff Meade

“Caramelized Onions” by Ajay Sabs

“Serves Who?” by Kendall Defoe

“Recipe for a Cyanide Dream: A Dish of Defiance” by Liv Valen

“A Not So Simple Cake” by Rani Jayakumar

“A Recipe for Success at Accounting Solutions Select” by ER Castaneda

“Cold Roasted Dragon Heart” by KA James

“How to Un-Kill Your Husband ” by LC Reid

“Loving Concentration” by Rebecca Hurst

“Recipe for a Life in Love” by Kevin Asla

“How To Tank a Job Interview: A Recipe” by Catalina Wichmann

“How To Be Happy” by Luna Lin

“A Dish of Love, Lies, and Demons” by Lindsay Nicole

“Scroll Down for Recipe” by Kristen Hubers

“Recipe for Dissed Aster” by Judy Shank Cyg

🌟 Similar prompts

Start or end your story with two people discussing an important matter over a meal.

Write a story inspired by the saying “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

Set your story in a kitchen, either early in the day or late at night.

Write a story about someone searching for a missing ingredient, literally or metaphorically.

Contest #270

Enter our weekly contest!

$250

Prize money

341

Contest entries

134

Stories

Win $250 in our short story competition 🏆

Explore more writing prompt ideas: