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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 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
Bern on Sunday
by Rudi
Bern on Sunday: closed, empty, orderly — a civic decision. The bears in the bear park show philosophical superiority. Rudi makes cakes on Sundays that he doesn't sell. Last week a nine-layer tower ending in one chocolate. He eats it alone. Good Sunday.
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 First Winter
by Nikolai
Nikolai's first winter as a beekeeper: a chronological list of all his mistakes. Opened in October, wrong fondant, late mite treatment, gap at the roof, opened again in March and nearly ruined everything. They all survived. He considers it a gift he didn't earn.
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.
Mrs Kavanagh
by Maggie
A daughter calls: her mother died, she'd had the same hairstyle every Friday for sixty years. Maggie comes and does it. The daughter says afterwards: that's exactly her. Maggie drives home, makes tea, thinks of nothing for a while.
Bigos
by Magdalena
Magdalena tries to recreate her mother's bigos. Her mother gives her measurements she doesn't actually use. "It was very good" means: not right yet. She'll keep trying.
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.
What He Said
by JeanPierre
Jean-Pierre's father never gave compliments. In 2001 he said once: this is better than anything I made. He died in 2004. Jean-Pierre still reaches for that sentence.
2013
by JeanPierre
The 2013 vintage was a disaster — rain, thin wine, four hundred bottles he's stopped worrying about. What he's really describing: three weeks with his daughter Camille at the harvest.
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.
First Chair
by Jack
Jack builds a wobbly stool at twelve. Embarrassed for years. His daughter finds it, says: the wobble is kind of nice. He's been thinking about it since. A beginning does something to a piece that finishing can't undo.
Contact
by Giulia
Giulia describes the unwritten rules of touch in conservation work. And the moment when you're close enough to an old surface to think about the last hands that touched it four hundred years ago.
The Woman in Green
by Giulia
Giulia spends four months restoring a nameless sixteenth-century portrait. She describes what develops when you work that long with a face. The last sentence is as simple as it is.
Things About Sheep
by FionaMacAllister
Fiona lists things about sheep — their blind persistence, their absurd fears, their unexpected devotion as mothers. Ends with: I still can't tell you if I like them. I'm not sure that's the point.
The Lamb
by FionaMacAllister
Fiona tries to hand-rear a rejected lamb. It dies on the third day anyway. Her husband says nothing and puts a cup of tea on the floor beside her. A story about loss without any fuss.
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.
Three in the Morning
by Cormac
Cormac starts at three in the morning. That hour has a quality no other has. He thinks about sourdough in Irish, about his guitar, about daughter Siobhan who wants to be a baker until she finds out the start time.
Night Call
by Catherine
2:17am, difficult labour, wrong presentation. Forty minutes working, 3am, torch on head, farmer saying "she doesn't usually do this." Calf alive. Cow recovered. Home at five, sun coming up. Catherine: I didn't know I could do that. Now I do. That's useful to know.
A Bit Off
by Catherine
"He seems a bit off" means different things from different people. Experienced farmer: medical emergency, described like it isn't. Catherine asks: how long? "Not that long" = since Tuesday, it's Saturday. She doesn't say any of this. Gets in the car.
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.
The Last Service
by Beatrice
Beatrice's last service — an ordinary Tuesday. Chicken with tarragon, gratin, tarte tatin. She cooks what she knows. Cleans down as always, turns off lights as always. She expected to feel something particular. She feels tired. That seemed about right.
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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