“CONVINCE ME,” SAID THE outlander, “why I or anyone should believe in the Flickering Gods.”
“That is something I cannot do,” Prosatio Silban said, setting before her a bowl of rich vegetable soup. “I myself do not believe in them, either.”
Prosatio Silban and the Tourist Attraction
IT WAS A DAY LIKE many another at Prosatio Silban’s galleywagon, now parked in South Market’s Itinerants’ Quarter: hectic, rushed, and profitable. The beefy cook was scurrying up and down the portable kitchen/domicile’s three wooden steps – up to prepare orders, down to serve them – but for the most part, he enjoyed such moments’ manic velocity.
Busy shifts go by fast, he thought, a smile on his face and four lunches balanced on his outstretched arms. To a point, anyway. I’m glad it’s abating soon – I can’t wait to get off my aching feet!
No sooner had he formed that thought when a buzz-saw voice cut through his customers’ animated rumble: “And here, gentlemen and ladies, we have, by all accounts and with absolutely no doubt, the Commonwell’s finest cook, The Cook For Any Price – Prosatio Silban!”
Word to Bring Back: “Amphitryon”
– Definition: (French) n. person with whom or at whose expense one dines
– Used in a sentence: My father is a well-known and gracious amphitryon.
– Why: Aside from its capitalized Greek origin (Amphitryon was, according to Sophocles, a king of Thebes and companion to Heracles), famed 18th-century gastronome J.A. Brillat-Savarin is wholly enamored of its use in his seminal Physiology of Taste wherein it is synonymous with “host.” (If you’re going to steal, steal from the greats. Especially if they stole it first.)
Prosatio Silban and the Artistic Temperament
WHAT IDOL CAN BEAR CLOSE scrutiny without losing its magik over the spellbound?
Prosatio Silban sliced into his finger, swore silently, laid down his knife, and reached for the roll of self-sticking bandages tucked into his knives-bindle. Here it comes, he thought.
“Master Prosatio!” barked his client. “How many times must I remind you? You are here to work, not spectate!”
“My most sincere apologies,” the cook-errant murmured, not meeting her eyes. “You are correct. It shan’t happen again.”
His accidental wound was just one of numerous small errors leading to pointed reprimands in Prosatio Silban’s direction. To be sure, and also kind, it was not one of his usual engagements – a small gathering of some of epicurean Pormaris’ most noted creatives. And when such an assembly included the cook’s favorite author in all the Uulian Commonwell, the wide-famed and much beloved Barbatus the Elder, what else could one expect?
Grace (A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche)
“HAS ANYONE EVER SENT BACK a meal that you’ve prepared?” the tentative young man asked Prosatio Silban.
“Twice,” was the cook-errant’s reply. “It is not an experience I relished, or wish to repeat.”
“How did it come about?”
Prosatio Silban and the Cryptic Cenotaph
WHAT WOULD LIFE BE WITHOUT the occasional unsolvable riddle?
In epicurean Pormaris’ far-famed restaurant district squats a prominent monument. It is an oblong, boxy affair, wrought of lavender marble, with carved ivory pillars framing each corner and a tasteful capstone covered in gold leaf. The street-facing side bears a simple brass plaque: “To the Unknown Gourmand.”
That is the first mystery.
Once yearly, but according to no otherwise-fixed schedule, an anonymous party deposits beneath the plaque a menu from a different local dining establishment.
And that is the second.
Prosatio Silban and the Merry Misfortunate
WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO become unforgotten?
“As for me,” Prosatio Silban said, raising his glass of white duliac to the Pelvhi’s Chopping-House customers crowded around him, “the most memorable person I ever met was a man who went by the alias of ‘Lucky.’ Let me tell you about our first encounter …”
* * *
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said the limping, ragged man, and bowed deeply. “I don’t suppose you would, but I must ask anyway: Can you help out with a meal a fellow Uulian who’s down on his luck?”