HAD IT NOT BEEN FOR a layman’s questioning, Prosatio Silban might never have learned of the Hidden God. “What’s with all the filled fare?” he overheard someone say, on a day when the beefy cook was browsing cosmopolitan Soharis’ thronged…
Category: Food
Reflections in a rib eye.
Grammar (A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche)
“WHO MAKES UP THE RULES for which goes with what?” asked m’Lady Phytan Gorrista’s eldest son. “Eating meat with a fork, soup with a large spoon, or drinking yava from a ceramic mug? What about combining oil of olives with…
A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche: Meals
“WHAT MAKES A MEAL A meal?” asked one of Prosatio Silban‘s customers over a plate of pan-seared fidget-hen breast, green beans and blue rice. “Many have attempted to define that term,” answered the Cook For Any Price, wiping his hands…
How to Cook Anything, in Four Easy Steps
1. PREPARE INGREDIENTS. 2. Combine them. 3. Adjust temperature as necessary. 4. Serve. (To paraphrase the sage Hillel, “The rest is dishwashing. Now go dry.”)
A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche: Room
“DOESN’T IT MAKE YOU CLAUSTROPHOBIC to cook in such confinement?” asked a visitor to Prosatio Silban’s close-quartered galleywagon. “Less than you would think,” the beefy cook answered over the chop-chop-chop of mincing lizard-breast. “I actually find that it makes me…
A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche: Utensils
“ALMOST AS MUCH THOUGHT AND effort goes into the choosing of eating implements as for the selection of food for which they are meant,” said Prosatio Silban, reaching for the sea salt container next to his fatberry-oil stove. “Silver, gold,…
Prosatio Silban and the Twice-Cooked Eggs
(Two-and-a-half printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) ONE OF THE NICER THINGS about traveling in a buopoth-drawn galleywagon down a smooth dirt road is the slow pleasure of the unfolding scenery. Prosatio…
Passing Notes (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Ten-and-a-half printed pages; the longest Prosatio Silban tale so far, and though it’s the third I’ve written, it’s actually the first one in narrative order. If you’re new to these, here are the (much shorter) preface and introduction. Enjoy.) IT…
Why I Love: My Dad
IT’S HIS CONTAGIOUS JOIE DE vivre. It’s his insistence that I watched Sgt. Bilko, Jack Benny and Ernie Kovacs reruns with him when I was a kid. It’s the skiing memories. (It’s also the memories of the Plymouth, New Hampshire…
5 Thoughts: Lessons Learned by an Autodidactic Home Cook
1. THE SMALLER THE KITCHEN, THE greater the discipline. And the organization. 2. Thrift rules. In other words, there are no such things as “leftovers” — only the beginnings of future meals. (Thank you, Tamar Adler, for this bit of…
Cook’s Honor (A Prosatio Silban Tale)
(Three-and-a-quarter printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) THE FIRST CLUE PROSATIO SILBAN had to the midnight intruder was the sound of someone rifling through his galleywagon pantry. The second was the paring-knife…
Prosatio Silban and the Last Meal
(Three printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) ASIDE FROM BUOPOTHS, NO ONE knows exactly what a fatberry-cake tastes like. But measuring by how many the quaint lumbering beasts eat, the greasy maroon…