Porridge

Where Have All the People Gone? Lessons from Russia’s Longest War – Roman Cherevko

Introduction February 2014. Just as Russia was invading and annexing Crimea, the world was watching another case of Putin showing off, also in the Black Sea region: the Winter Olympics in Sochi. So far the most expensive Games on the record, they were meant to demonstrate Russia’s opulence and grandeur, and, of course, to highlight…

Love in the Age of Instant Mashed Potatoes – Anne-Laure White

The first potatoes I loved were the dehydrated shreds sold in cereal box-style cartons at Key Foods. My mother gave them some delicacy, stirring in milk, butter, salt. On holidays her mashed potatoes were perfect, and doted on accordingly. They were adjusted hourly for flavour and texture, refrigerated overnight, and reheated slowly on the day….

FLASH FICTION — Beth Morrow

We’re hit with a waft of espresso. The thunder of grinding coffee beans. The high-pitched hiss of steamed milk. Our wish is granted.

Wood for The Trees — Joanna Garbutt

There is something in her hands. Something in a large Pyrex dish. It is hot, very hot. She nearly drops it on the floor but instead the kitchen work top catches it. The dish itself doesn’t smash. It isn’t a big enough drop for that. She looks down at it, trying to work out what it is.

Bessarabian Days – William Fleeson

A Chisinau bus will teach you the city. The Moldovan capital’s network of these vehicles, and its trolleybuses and marshrutkas – the decrepit minivans, unchanged since Soviet days – could take you anywhere, for nearly nothing. Mostly you paid in physical stress. Riders crammed into spaces meant for people half their size; young mothers loaded…

Garden of Weeds – K.P. Taylor

My mother loved her garden: the Lily of the Nile, the roses, the lemon tree, the hydrangea at her bedroom window. Hydrangeas flower blue or pink depending on your soil – hers were always blue. The weeds, however, she did not love. “A weed is just a flower growing in the wrong place,” she would…

COMFORT FOODS // He becomes my child by Sarah Terkaoui

We pass plates of kawage, kibbeh, moutabal
between us around the semi-circle of table.

The Author’s Version of Events – Charley Barnes

A True Crime Story Which Never Happened I [hereafter known as The Author] have been considering truth and fact. Truth, as something malleable. Fact, as something that influences the changing of truths.[1] The Author has considered this in particular detail in relation to True Crime and the ways in which truth is manipulated here (no,…

ONE POEM — Terence Dooley

Limonero Moon I had a sour thought, as if I bitinto a lemon, and the bitter mistsettled on my naked eye like dewor vinaigrette: the red eye weptand suppurated, pitying itself.I was a thought ungrateful, a thought sharpand zestless, pithy: what had given methe pip? The cloudy juice ran down my cheek. As in your…

Porridge

COMFORT FOODS // The Taste of Forgiveness – Sarah Islam

ONE POEM – Morgan Boyer

COMFORT FOODS // Gulyás – Liam Skillen

ONE POEM – Erin Vance

ONE POEM – Alex Stolis

COMFORT FOODS // Overheard at Terasa Obor – Ana Prundaru