Posts Tagged ‘food’

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Cast of Wonders 488: Little Wonders 32 – the Power of Imagination

Cast of Wonders 488: Little Wonders 32 – the Power of Imagination is a Cast of Wonders original.

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Interview with a Sixth Grade Science Fiction Food Stylist

by B Myers

A full excerpt from Gustatory Semiotics Review (Winter) follows.

It was our privilege to conduct this interview at the Matz residence in Saukinee, casually situated near our subject’s working environment—the Matz kitchen table. Kevin Matz, in his brief tenure as an originator of radical alterities in the foodsphere, has already reworked several well-known genre themes (via found objects, snack items, condiments, and food coloring) into novel tableaux formats. We found the artist a voluble if elliptical subject.

GSR: Kevin, let’s talk about the nearly complete canvas we see before us—Jelly Caravan. This installation, which will remain on exhibit until—.”

Kevin: About 5:30.

GSR: At first glance, this piece seems to represent graphically the terror of distances. Upon a vast expanse of black construction paper we see a tenuous line of objects. What is the significance or purpose of these objects you refer to as jelly galleons?

Kevin: The jelly galleons bring jellies from other star systems. Probably because the flavors come from the starlight. It’s hard to tell. No one understands the language of the jelly galleons. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 460: More Than One Zodiac in High School

Cast of Wonders 460: More Than One Zodiac in High School is a Cast of Wonders original.

Racist slurs, racism, prejudice, bullying, stereotypes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:20 — 40.1MB)

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More Than One Zodiac in High School

by Eliza Chan

“You were supposed to be a boy,” Amy’s mum said, attacking the raw duck with a cleaver. “The fortune teller said it was guaranteed. Aiyah, even then you don’t listen to your parents.” She tossed one half into an oven dish with a dash of salt, star anise, and cloves. Rice wine and soy sauce were massaged into the skin. And all the while, the other half was being surreptitiously dragged off the countertop by Amy’s dragon.

Her mum pushed the huge beast out of the way. “And born in the year of the dragon! Okay for a boy, but for a girl… no husband will want you! Too much fire to bear sons and every meal will be burned.” She clucked, exactly like her chicken spirit: tutting, fussing, and happiest when she had something to worry about. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 431: Little Wonders 27 – Old Ladies

Cast of Wonders 431: Little Wonders 27 – Old Ladies is a Cast of Wonders original.

Grief

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The Soup Witch’s Funeral Dinner

by Nicole LeBoeuf

One morning, late March, Sammy Tailor visited the soup witch. He hadn’t planned to. He was busy wrestling with his father’s crankiest sewing machine when the good smell from the soup witch’s cauldron yanked him out the door by his nose.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 367: The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections (Part 2 of 2)

Originally published on Tor.com (July 2018)

Content Warning: depictions of graphic violence

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 38:09 — 35.4MB)

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Show Notes

Many thanks to associate editor Alexis Goble for the episode photograph!

The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections (continued)

by Tina Connolly

Rose-Pepper Shortbread of Sweetness Lost

She and Danny have been married for three years now. The bakery has picked up, now that they are offering a few unusual items right alongside the daily bread. There is still no baby, but they are happy with their bakery and their work, and they do not mind—too much. Danny bakes and she assists, Danny invents and she assists. But she does not mind that either, for she has found her own calling at the front of the shop, and it is matching people with the right pastry.

There is an art to knowing what people need. Oh, they would all take the flatbread if they could, but do they need it? (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 366: The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections (Part 1 of 2)

Originally published on Tor.com (July 2018)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:38 — 24.9MB)

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Show Notes

Many thanks to associate editor Alexis Goble for the episode photograph!

Benjamin C. Kinney’s Smell, Taste and Emotion #NeuroThursday

The Last Banquet of Temporal Confections

by Tina Connolly

Saffron takes her customary place at the little round table on the dais of the Traitor King. Duke Michal, Regent to the Throne is his official title, but the hand-drawn postered sheets, the words whispered in back alleys all nickname him the same. She smiles warmly at the assembled guests, standing poised and waiting by their chairs, ready for the confections and amuse-bouches that have been a mainstay of the high table for the last year.

Saffron has been Confection Taster all that time, her husband Danny Head Pastry Chef. Their warm smiles have been perfected as the Traitor King’s power grows, inch by inch, as those who object to his grasp fail and fall, as the printers are vanished, as the daughters disappear from their homes. The little prince still sleeps in his nursery—but for how long? That is the question on everyone’s mind in the last year. Not a question uttered, but a question that stays poised on the tongue, and does not fall. (Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 274: Won’t You Please Give One of These Species-Planets a Second Chance?

Originally published in Unidentified Funny Objects 5 (UFO Publishing, 2016)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 41:07 — 39.1MB)

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Show Notes

Theme music is “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available from Promo DJ or his Facebook page.

Won’t You Please Give One of These Species-Planets a Second Chance?

by Nathan Hillstrom

At 2:13pm EST on a slate-grey Tuesday, the Earth was caged.

The barrier appeared line by line, traced into existence by white-hot dots dragging their way through the thermosphere. From the lawn of the United Nations Headquarters, it looked like chicken wire wrought of pure light.

U.N. Secretary-General Ataahua Tan Tan Tamahi was strolling on the lawn as he took his lunch, a welcome break from the impossible demands of his job. He stopped chewing and stared at the sky. “Like chicken wire,” he said, to nobody in particular, before his security detail tackled him and knocked the pita pocket from his hands. After a mumbled consultation, they disentangled him from the protective huddle, brushed the grass off his suit, and whisked him to the U.N.’s basement bunker. The sandwich was left behind.

It quickly became apparent that the cage corrupted all aerial communication and satellite-assisted technologies. Within hours, power surges and brownouts were rolling across the planet.

Reports from the field were of unmitigated panic: Militaries everywhere went on war footing. Governments launched contingency plans and double-checked their lines of succession. Families devolved into tantrums as videos got stuck buffering.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 259: Seer’s Salad

Cast of Wonders 259: Seer’s Salad is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:16 — 22.4MB)

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Show Notes

Theme music is “Appeal to Heavens” by Alexye Nov, available from Promo DJ or his Facebook page.

Seer’s Salad

by Barbara A. Barnett

There would be no snatching my laptop back from Diya. She slapped my hand every time I reached across the café table for it. I had been a keystroke away from deleting the amateur-hour comic panels cluttering up my hard drive–months of wasted effort that Diya was now inexplicably determined to keep reading. Her gaze remained glued to the screen as she shoveled forkfuls of salad from bowl to mouth.

“Tam, these are awesome,” she said, voice pitched at a chirpy, bird-like frequency. “It’s like George Romero meets Dostoyevsky meets Thelma and Louise meets an alien invasion flick.”

I shrugged. As much as I wanted to believe I had enough talent to create a successful webcomic, it was hard to take Diya’s encouragement seriously. I had seen her get equally excited over blueberry pancakes, after all.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 231: The Four Stewpots (Staff Pick 2016)

“The Four Stewpots” is in And Welcome Back, D K Thompson’s first collection.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:42 — 6.3MB)

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Show Notes

Every year in January, Cast of Wonders takes the month off to recharge, plan the year ahead and highlight some of our favourite episodes. A different member of the Cast of Wonders crew will present their favorite story of 2016 each week in January.

We hope you enjoy associate editor Sally Gill’s favorite story from 2016, “The Four Stewpots” by D. K. Thompson, narrated by Tina Connolly. The story originally aired December 25, 2016 as part of Cast of Wonders 225: Little Wonders 9: Comfort Food.

The Little Wonders theme “Neversus” is by Alexye Nov, available at MusicAlley.com.

The Four Stewpots

by D. K. Thompson

Review: The Four Stewpots
by Darcy E. (14 friends, 27 reviews) 1 star out of 5

I’ve been coming to uptown for the past year since getting a new job and moving to Whittier, and somehow had never seen The Four Stewpots before. I’m actually not a stew fan. I like my food fresh. Soup is okay, some days. Stew? Bleh. It’s been sitting for ages – this place actually suggests one pot they have is a thousand years old. Bon Apetit? But my daughter’s first report card had come home from junior high – she’d done exceptionally well – she wants to be an astronaut, a monster make-up artist, a superhero, a cryptozoologist, or a cartographer of parallel universes – whatever she decides to do she’ll be brilliant, and so as a reward, I let her pick. She saw The Four Stewpots as we were driving down the street, right next to Undercity Comics, and demanded we go there. Again, I do not like stew, but I am a supportive and proud mother who wants to encourage my daughter’s academic achievements, and realize that it isn’t always about me. At least, until it’s time to write the Yelp review.

It is time to write the Yelp review.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 225: Little Wonders 9 – Comfort Food

Cast of Wonders 225: Little Wonders 9 – Comfort Food is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:23 — 24.2MB)

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The Four Stewpots

by D. K. Thompson

Review: The Four Stewpots
by Darcy E. (14 friends, 27 reviews) 1 star out of 5

I’ve been coming to uptown for the past year since getting a new job and moving to Whittier, and somehow had never seen The Four Stewpots before. I’m actually not a stew fan. I like my food fresh. Soup is okay, some days. Stew? Bleh. It’s been sitting for ages – this place actually suggests one pot they have is a thousand years old. Bon Apetit? But my daughter’s first report card had come home from junior high – she’d done exceptionally well – she wants to be an astronaut, a monster make-up artist, a superhero, a cryptozoologist, or a cartographer of parallel universes – whatever she decides to do she’ll be brilliant, and so as a reward, I let her pick. She saw The Four Stewpots as we were driving down the street, right next to Undercity Comics, and demanded we go there. Again, I do not like stew, but I am a supportive and proud mother who wants to encourage my daughter’s academic achievements, and realize that it isn’t always about me. At least, until it’s time to write the Yelp review.

It is time to write the Yelp review.

(Continue Reading…)

Genres:

Cast of Wonders 150: Little Wonders 7 – The Season of Goodwill

Cast of Wonders 150: Little Wonders 7 – The Season of Goodwill is a Cast of Wonders original.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 13:47 — 12.6MB)

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Show Notes

You’re listening to Little Wonders, our thematic flash fiction collections. This week we bring you our final episode for 2014, and lucky number 150 – a pair of stories for the inspired by the Season of Goodwill.

The Secret Ingredient Is

by Emmalia Harrington

Susan stirred the pot of soup, frowning. Hunger was supposed to be the best seasoning, but the jar was empty and there was no time to prepare more. Besides, Great-Aunt would hate it if they served something like that to guests.

Stepping away from the stove, she scanned the shelves yet again. There was salt, garlic, peppercorns, nutmeg, allspice…nothing spoke to her. Rocking back on her heels, she tried to think of what Great-Aunt would do.

The first order of business would be to run to the garden to pull up the biggest, freshest and most colorful vegetables, and see how many eggs she could muster from the quail. Once that was done, Great-Aunt would run to the shopping district to wrangle an excellent price for smoked tea. She would follow this victory by purchasing fish that still smelled of the water, and filling her basket with bread still steaming from the oven.

(Continue Reading…)

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Cast of Wonders 140: Of Pumpkin Soup and Other Demons / The Ghost of Grammy Goneril

Of Pumpkin Soup and Other Demons was originally published in Coping: A Not One of Us Special Publication in 2014.

The Ghost of Grammy Goneril was originally published in Underneath the Juniper Tree in Fall 2013.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:51 — 26.4MB)

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Show Notes

It’s October, everyone. That means it’s time for our annual Halloween special. This year we’ve gone for a theme, presenting a collection of horror stories about endings, both figurative and literal. The dead and the undying. Spirits sea monsters. Apocalypses writ both large and small. Welcome to The End of the World.

Of Pumpkin Soup and Other Demons

by Natalia Theodoridou

The shutters rattled in their hinges as rainy fists banged against the wood. Katina rubbed her knuckles. They made a creaky noise. “Old bones, what did you expect?” she chuckled. “Old bodies are as good as coffins.”

She stirred the pumpkin soup boiling on the stove and tasted her wooden spoon. “Almost ready.”

The wind pounded on the door with all his might and fury. It almost sounded like knocking.

“Are you set on tearing my house down?” she asked him.

Then, another knock. And another.

Katina looked at the door, her left eyebrow raised.

“Is someone there?” she asked.

(Continue Reading…)