Open Workshop: Nov. 23

Leslie had been craving. She’d had this taste on the tip of her tongue, a glimmer of a memory of a perfect flavor — all other flavors paled in comparison. It flooded her thoughts like an obsession; she was compelled to eat something she could not find.

She started with sweet, with chocolates and cakes, muffins, and pies. She ate custard and ice cream and frozen yogurt and sorbet. She ate every flavor: chunky monkey, butter pecan, vanilla, chocolate, neapolitan, roadrunner, maple walnut, pistachio, potato chip. She ate madeleines and profiteroles, beignets, and petit-fours. Every morning for a month she bought and ate whole every kind of donut crafted in the entire god forsaken city.

Her pants started to grow tight, but not as tight as she expected.

When she felt exhausted of sweet, she moved onto salty. A dangerous game of dehydration. She munched her way through all types of snacks, flavored popcorns and chips and pretzels (both soft and hard). She bought a used panini maker at goodwill and went to pressing, all kinds of sandwiches with all kinds of meats and cheeses and breads. Condiments added an extra source of combinations waiting to be tested. She baked whole casseroles for one bite before moving on to the next recipe.

Her savings account grew thin and weary. Unlike her, the city’s homeless population knew what it felt like — satisfaction.

She called every friend and family member, all acquaintances and coworkers and classmates. In a squeal of exasperation, desperation she demanded from them recipes, all of them, every single one. Her newly acquired (but she did not choose this!) aspirations hinged on two important key factors: 1. If she craved the flavor, then the flavor must exist. 2. In order for her to crave the flavor, it must be either something she has eaten previously or a composite group, thereof.

Her crave then became a history, a timeline, a list. All the meals she had ever eaten. All the meals she had ever cooked. All the food her mother had ever made. All the food her friends had every made. All the restaurants she had ever been to. All the restaurants in all the cities she had ever been to. All the foods she had ever bought from the grocery store. All the samples she had ever eaten while buying food from the grocery store. Her endeavor was quaint — a life story in foodstuffs — but her methods were vehement. She barreled. She shoplifted. She ravened. She grabbed, snatched, gulped, ripped, burped, had gas, had diarrhea, threw up.

She nearly lost her job when she had thirty different pizzas different from ten different restaurants during her lunch hour. She definitively lost her job when she missed work for a week while attempting to make five different types of soufflé.

Food is culture and so began the gastro-intestinally debilitating trials of international cuisine.

Prompt: Write a story or a series of stories about satisfaction or the lack of satisfaction.