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…
Tag: The Cook For Any Price
Culinary myths for the mystically inclined (with a few ancillaries).
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,…
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…
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…
Prosatio Silban and the Saved Labor
WHAT DOES ONE DO WHEN a beloved tool breaks down in mid-use? With a series of staccato clunks, Prosatio Silban’s rosewood grinding-pot ground to a loud halt. He shook it, slapped it, frowned at it, then set it on his…
Prosatio Silban and the Sequential Narrative
SOME PEOPLE WILL GO TO any lengths for a good story. Prosatio Silban fetched down his scrapbook form the shelf in his sleeping berth, opened it to the middle, and whistled. Fourteen lovingly steamed and pasted labels, he thought with…
Salute (A Prosatio Silban Amuse-Bouche)
“WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE TOAST?” asked the friendly inebriate supporting himself on the bar at Pelvhi’s Chopping-House. “I have several,” replied Prosatio Silban with some delicacy, given the circumstance. “There is stone-rye with blackberry preserves, or sourdough with yak-butter, or…
Prosatio Silban and the Ambitious Intern
ONE OF THE BEST WAYS to learn what you know is to teach it to someone else – and sometimes, to yourself. Prosatio Silban swore under his breath and pondered what to do next. His latest intern convinced him that…
Prosatio Silban and the First Principle
IN EVERY PROFESSIONAL’S LIFE, THERE comes a point where they must choose between correctness and accommodation. Prosatio Silban heaved a deep sigh, one of many such that morning. The primary concern of every cook is to make the customers happy,…
Prosatio Silban and the Good Death
“SO ANSWER ME THIS QUESTION: what exactly is a ‘good death?’” That compelling query hung in the smoky air inside Pelvhi’s Chopping-House while the conversationalists – Prosatio Silban; Primea Ultar, private chef to a wealthy Pormaris wine-merchant; the famed waiter…
Next (A Prosatio Silban Amuse Bouche)
“I’VE BEEN MEANING TO ASK you – what exactly is the Pure City of the Uulian afterlife?” The question was posed to Prosatio Silban one day by an old friend hailing from the distant Pastori-lands. As the query was both…