“WHEN IT COMES TO DINING, the quality of the food isn’t the only concern,” Prosatio Silban explained, sliding diced potato into an oil-slick skillet and spreading the cubed tuber evenly with a satisfying hiss. “I have cooked gourmet dinners for…
Tag: The Cook For Any Price
Culinary myths for the mystically inclined (with a few ancillaries).
A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche: Writing
“THOSE MARKS ON YOUR CUTTING board look like words in an ancient language,” observed Prosatio Silban’s customer. “They are, actually,” the cook explained. “The story it tells has been written by me almost every day for all my professional life,…
Introduction: Prosatio Silban and the Golden Moment
You’ve read the preface. Now here’s the introduction. ALTHOUGH NOW A FORMER SACREANT, Prosatio Silban retained a sensitivity to the more spiritual aspects of his daily routine – but since his was the life of a mercenary cook in a…
Words To Bring Back: “Proffer”
– Definition: v. t. To offer for acceptance. – Used in a sentence:To you the reader, I hereby and humbly proffer my Cook For Any Price stories. – Why: It implies a social contract somewhat different from its rhyming synonym;…
Prosatio Silban and the Starving Survivor
A BUOPOTH IS A STRANGE beast: some say it is half-composed of dreams, others prefer not to speculate. But of the little that is known, one thing is certain: no matter what shape the beast takes, its eyes are the…
Prosatio Silban and the Visitor From The Sands
PROSATIO SILBAN WAS NOT KNOWN for nothing as “The Cook For Any Price.” He had long ago foresworn the Sacreanthood and serving people’s souls, for serving their bellies and letting the souls look after themselves. Yet every now and again,…
Across The Rimless Sea: Folk
FOLLOWING ON THE INFORMATION REVEALED in “Who Is This Prosatio Silban, And What Does he Want?” here is a chart listing the Exilic Lands’ inhabitants. It’s meant as a quick reference rather than a last word. Attentive readers will recognize…
Who Is This Prosatio Silban, And What Does He Want?
IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA’S DIABLO VALLEY c. 1978, Dungeons & Dragons was barely known outside the fantasy-and-science-fiction community. I first learned of it around that time via David Hargrave‘s Arduin: a created world not unlike J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, C.S. Lewis’…
Prosatio Silban and the Best Dish In The World
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE Emerald Incessance, that great sprawling grassland east of epicurean Pormaris, Prosatio Silban was searching for the Exilic Lands’ tastiest meal. The Incessance was hundreds of square miles of hummock, tussock, occasional trees and overtowering reeds,…
Prosatio Silban’s Table Tips: Place (A Literary Amuse-Bouche)
SOMEONE ONCE ASKED PROSATIO SILBAN his thoughts on “presentation;” i.e., how a dish should look when it leaves his kitchen. The Cook For Any Price thought for a moment before replying. “I suppose it depends on your notion of what…
Eats: Leisurely Eggs
IN ANOTHER LIFE, THIS DISH is what saved Prosatio Silban‘s buopoth from being the main ingredient in someone else’s meal(1); in this life, it’s what ballasts me at table long enough to read the Sunday morning papers. Leisurely Eggs assumes…
Prosatio Silban and the Mayor of Ixtachet
EVERYONE WANTS TO BE THE Mayor of Ixtachet, at least until they become so — this Prosatio Silban discovered on a chance visit to the edge of the Azure Void which forms the southwest border of the Uulian Commonwell. Ixtachet…