Cooked up in a SmokeLong workshop with Elisabeth Ingram Wallace, this piece was selected for inclusion in the first issue of Ruby Literary, a feast of foodie flash and creative nonfiction, with authors invited to send in their favourite recipes too. (I didn’t – see confessional author note at the end of the story.)
This publication feels to me like a huge achievement, because Issue One includes work by some of the flash writers I most admire – several of whom I’ve been lucky enough to meet in person.
REGIONAL DELICACIES
Near the Spanish-Portuguese border, there’s a roadside plant that grows wild and smells like fresh semen. It’s our first time away together. Ken wants to show me pine forests and mountain streams, young red wine in pottery jugs, veal grilled on an open fire. He can’t smell the semen-plant but likes that I can. He says, I guess all your senses are heightened right now.