With the American Thanksgiving holiday coming up next week, I decided to share a few short stories I’ve enjoyed related to food and cooking. These are all online, to be read for free. Something to be thankful for! Bon appétit!
- The Family Recipe by Alexandra Grunberg. A generations-old cookbook/grimoire brings continuity and experiences changes with each new owner. This is a lovely story of family connections forged in the details of everyday life; just beware that there’s a slightly disturbing twist in the very last line.
- The Witches of Athens by Lara Elena Donnelly. Set in Athens, Ohio, it features two diners, two witches, and two boys in love who need a little help in opening up to each other.
- Cooking with Closed Mouths by Kerry Truong. This is a story of love and dedication in a found family, with a pair of paranormal Korean immigrants trying to recapture home and childhood through food.
- The War of Light and Shadow, in Five Dishes by Siobhan Carroll. Giving new meaning to the old adage that an army travels on its stomach, a captive chef works wonders, changing the course of a war.
- So Much Cooking by Naomi Krietzer. In another story of a found family, a food blogger struggles to feed her husband and six children, none their own, in isolation in a too-small house, with a flu epidemic raging around them. Published in 2015, well before COVID-19, this is a timely story of grit and ordinary, everyday heroism.