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Cooking, Food & Lifestyle: Short Stories to Read
Cooking, food and lifestyle are about pleasure, memory, and what holds a table together. On Fireside you'll find stories around food by real authors – from recipes with a history to the art of everyday life. Read the latest stories on cooking, food and lifestyle for free.
Latest Cooking, Food & Lifestyle stories
The Recipe
by Rudi
Rudi's grandmother guards her almond cake recipe. He reconstructs it over four years through observation. First prize in Zurich. He tells her. She says: you use too little lemon zest. He still doesn't understand how she knows.
The Tomato of the Year
by NigelA
2019: a Brandywine tomato, 847 grams, weighed three times. Neighbour Derek: not a proper tomato. Nigel: reasonable is not a horticultural standard. He eats half of it alone on the patio in August. Some things should be eaten alone. Derek's tomatoes: blemish-free and completely without flavour. He doesn't say this. He thinks it.
The First One
by Lars
Lars's first boat had a transom two centimetres out of square. He tells the buyer anyway. The buyer's kids have a great time in it. Perfection in the second boat felt different — it closes a door that imperfection keeps open.
Bio
by JeanPierre
Tourists always ask Jean-Pierre if his wine is organic. He explains four generations of pesticide history. They want yes or no. He says: come back in twenty years. They buy a bottle anyway.
Live Wood
by Jack
Live wood versus dead wood. Live wood pushes back — you feel it in your hands before you see it. Dead wood accepts the tool without argument but something is missing in the result. Jack has done this 22 years. He can't tell you what it is. He can show you.
January 2019
by Jack
January 2019: three weeks of minus 23 in Vermont, frozen pipes, garage shut. Jack works in the shop. Wood moves — that's the central fact. A joint tight in January will be loose in August. The piece changed overnight. So did he, slightly. Cold does that.
What They're Looking For
by Eszter
Three examples of how customers describe books they can't name. The third description Eszter finds 70% of the time. The first two: impossible. What she's learned: the impossible ones are about the feeling, not the book. They want to feel that again — sometimes you can help, sometimes you can't. That's the part that can't be learned.
Same Thing
by Cormac
Cormac misses the twenty minutes before a gig when everything is still open. Bread gives him something similar. His theory: both live in the gap between intention and result. His wife says: so controlled failure? He's still thinking about what she meant.
When She Dies
by Bill
240 points where something can fail at three in the morning. The glycol chiller goes most often — 40 minutes to losing a batch. Bill has made that call 8 times. Call, call, manual management. Nothing to decide. While waiting: bad coffee, gauges, listening to the building. A brewery at three sounds like something that's been breathing a long time and intends to keep breathing.
Two Hundred
by Beatrice
Beatrice caters a wedding for 200 in 2011. She's never cooked for more than 60. For two hundred there's no conversation with the food after a point — you've already had it. The bride's mother cries at the quenelles. Beatrice doesn't tell her that's not possible.
Too Simple
by Beatrice
A guest calls Beatrice's food too simple. She brings him the same dish, asks him to eat it more slowly. He comes back two weeks later and says nothing. Her conclusion: simplicity is complexity that has found its right size.
December
by Adriana
Porto in December — high Douro, fado drifting from somewhere, chestnuts on Rua de Santa Catarina. Amália Rodrigues sang this feeling. What to eat: caldo verde, bacalhau com natas, arroz doce in two stages. Adriana looks forward to it every October. That seems like the right relationship with your work.
Comfort vs Impression
by Adriana
Comfort vs. impression: not technique, intention. Best food in houses not restaurants. Her grandmother's salt cod she's tried to recreate for 30 years — now she understands: she's not recreating the dish but the Friday afternoon. Technique transfers. Intention doesn't.
Frequently asked questions
What is Cooking, Food & Lifestyle about?
Food as pleasure, memory and culture – and the art of living everyday life. More than recipes: the stories around the table.
What makes good writing on it?
Sensuousness and a personal voice. It practically has a taste – telling of origins, people and moments, not just ingredients.
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