Tag: The Cook For Any Price

ONE GOOD TURN LEADS TO another – and also, sometimes, to unforeseen ends.

Prosatio Silban was sick. So sick, in fact, that he couldn’t sit upright on the wide driver’s bench as his galleywagon swayed along the tamped-earth road near … well, he didn’t quite know. All he knew was that his face was hot and sweaty, his senses swimming, his body cold and achy, and that the stark fist of the All-Limiter would be a welcome companion. He was aware, in a dim and distant way, of Onward’s soft coos of encouragement as the pair trundled toward no known destination. If only … he thought, before darkness took him. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Road Taken”

“HOW CAN YOU TELL FROM a single dish whether or not the cook is adept?” a customer once asked Prosatio Silban.

“Simplicity in the complex, and complexity in the simple,” came the cook-errant’s swift reply.

His customer creased her brow. “Say more about that, if you please?” Continue reading “Indicator (A Prosatio Silban Amuse Bouche)”

LIKE ALL PEOPLE ACROSS THE Uulian Commonwell, the Cook For Any Price always looked forward with eager anticipation to Sixth.

For the first five of the Uulian week’s six days, everyone (including beggars and outlanders) tended to their trades, professions, and occupations, only ceasing from such business on the last. This fixed holiday lasted from daybreak to nightfall, and was a time for relaxation or puttering; for self-enrichment or self-indulgence; for serious merriment or frivolous pastimes; for family gatherings or other pleasures, including those of the table.

To Prosatio Silban, Sixth usually meant an unbroken expanse of time wherein he could step away from the stove, hang up his apron, and lose himself in one of the innumerable works of his favorite author, Barbatus the Elder: poet, historian, and raconteur extraordinaire. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Weekly Vacation”

FROM WHERE DO YOU DRINK when your once-abundant spring dries up?

Prosatio Silban sighed, and – for the dozenth or so time – regarded his empty pantry, coldbox, and coin jar. I don’t imagine repeated examination is going to fill these, he thought. I’d better think of something productive, or they’ll not be filled again. How did I come to this? Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Dire Straits”

HERE’S A SIMPLE QUESTION: WHAT is the essence and meaning of “art?”

I have never seen such beautiful food, Prosatio Silban thought. The village of Pastisi had made a name for itself by crafting the most picturesque baked goods in the Uulian Commonwell’s Three Cities and Thousand Villages – and charging a nominal fee just for the privilege of viewing them. Generally, such creations were either plain or adorned with the simplest of icings. Those inside the spotless glass-topped cases, on the other hand, could scarce be described in words.

These villagers’ reputations are well-earned, he thought, and glanced from side to side. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Artful Dodge”

THE SENSE OF SMELL IS an important component for that of taste. But can it stand alone?

“I shall be brief,” said the woman in the jewel-bedecked caftan, smoothing a tailored crease upon one crossed knee. “My enterprise, ‘Sobor’s Scents,’ wishes to develop a line of toiletries based on the Uulian Commonwell’s fine-dining environment. We would be honored and grateful for you to cook a number of dishes, whose aromatic essences we could capture and render into crystal vials. You may not be aware that there’s quite a demand – from the new bride wanting her dinner guests to think she had cooked for them a more sumptuous feast, say, or the aspiring suitor whose courtship could be sweetened by a hint of something savory. You need only name your price, and we shall do the rest.” Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Dueling Perfumers”

NOT ALL AWAKENINGS ARE RUDE – but some may as well be.

Prosatio Silban stretched, yawned, sat up, and contemplated the interior of the curtained sleeping-berth tucked into his galleywagon’s rear. Something is amiss, he thought. But what?

His inquisitive glances took in the bookshelf above his feet, on which perched a dog-eared edition of Barbatus the Elder’s Truth, Life, and Other Comic Futilities; the ceiling-mounted fatberry-oil lamp; the small, diamond-paned window set high in the galleywagon’s aft wall; and the full-length black silk curtain screening him from the rest of the kitchen-cum-vehicle. Nothing seemed out of place.

Then it hit him like an ice-bolt through his chest: What is that wretched stench? Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Tainted Wind”

PROSATIO SILBAN HAD TO LOOK twice before he realized what he was seeing. Why is this Xao woman, he asked himself, dressed as an Uulian?

It was a fair question. The Xao were almost the oldest original residents of the Exilic Lands, whose mythology had prepared them to regard (some would say worship) the late-arrived Uulians as prophesied saviors – who would restore to pristineness their oblivion-shattered realms before sailing back across the Rimless Sea. Although the “saviors” did transform the landscape as foretold, centuries passed without their fulfilling the latter prediction; as a result, some of the indigenes lost faith in their people’s teachings.

Others had found ways to cope. Including, it seemed, by assimilation. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Boundary Crossers”

IT BEGAN, AS DO SO many seriously frivolous matters, with an impassioned tavern-boast.

“Outside of present company, the best cookery in the Uulian Commonwell is found not in epicurean Pormaris but in its provinces,” burly, wise-eyed Apista Thurtok said. “And the best meal is roasted fidget-hen basted in honeywine, made at The Bouncing Wench in Yellow Meadows. And that is the final word.”

“The Soup Demons it isn’t!” rejoined the wiry and emphatic Olto Grex. “It’s One in Silver’s inwards-stew in Crows’ Path.” Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Gourmet Gallivant”

“YOURS IS A NOBLE CALLING,” Prosatio Silban said. “Pray, what is its secret?”

The waiter from the acclaimed restaurant Tide & Time had just finished his breakfast of poached fidget-hen eggs, salt-cod-and-potato hash, and stone-rye toast. He took a last sip of hot yava, swallowed, set down his cup, and smiled. Continue reading “Service (A Prosatio Silban Amuse Bouche)”

“HIS NAME IS FIRENZO OOBAHR,” Firenzo Ebli said. “And he needs to find himself. Please – let it be in your employ.”

Prosatio Silban put on his most polite face. “I am honored that you thought of me, but I am not certain that I am the one to help your son,” he said. “I have always worked alone, and to be frank, there is little room in my galleywagon for more than one cook. I am afraid that we would get in each other’s way – the more so, since he won’t know what he or I am doing.” Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Friend’s Favor”

MUCH HAS BEEN WRITTEN OF the nomadic Xao, one of three peoples descended from the Exilic Lands’ original inhabitants. But of their sundered cousins, the forest-dwelling Xai, few tales have been told – and fewer still are those outsiders who have visited their native home and returned with tales of their own.

As was his longstanding habit when his coin jar became heavy, Prosatio Silban and his dray-beast Onward were taking their ease by meandering through someplace unfamiliar to either of them: in this case, the vast and light-dappled Greenlanes, north of the Uulian Commonwell. From the forest’s flat, leaf-carpeted floor sprouted tall and variegated stands of spirewood, teal cypress, half-moon bay, and many other trees the cook-errant couldn’t identify. Continue reading “Prosatio Silban and the Game Game”