29 @StoryADayMay #recipe Dinner For Three

shortstorymonthx240Food day at the blog, so today’s story has food in it. The countdown number today is three, so I had to think of a three thing.

The first thing I thought of was the three blind mice having their tails cut off with a carving knife, but I couldn’t find a recipe for mouse-tail anything. I suppose I could have come up with one, but I couldn’t find a recommendation for the proper wine to serve with it, so I discarded that idea.

Here’s what I ended up with. I’ve attempted to write it in British, which is my second language (my first is American). I hope I haven’t made too many mistakes in translation.

Dinner For Three

by Marian Allen

So me and Mimsy and Flora was having a kind of a cook-out. We was on the long hols and decided to camp in the woods behind the house. Mum didn’t fancy it, because she said some psycho tramp could come do us proper, so we said we’d just like have the afternoon and do a Girl Guides supper and be in before dark.

We dug a bit of a trench and built a fire in it (Mimsy’s dead good at that) and put a tin pot of water over it. When it was nearly on the boil, we dipped some out for tea and started the stew.

Mum had contributed the ingredients. She’s a good old girl, really. We’d cleaned everything and cut it into cubes and bagged it, and bagged a bit of salt and marjoram and that, and carried it out in an insulated bag. Now we took turns putting stuff in.

We pretended it was gross stuff we’d foraged and all, but it was really beef and onions and potatoes, with salt and pepper and marjoram and a bay leaf. We put it in a bit at a time, so the pot didn’t lose the boil.

Then we settled back and did a send-up of this fat bird at school who’d pissed Flora off.

The stew was just beginning to smell like food when these two old blokes staggered out of the woods.

“Cor,” I said, “drunk at their age!”

They looked like they’d been in a fight, too.

One of them sort of pulled the other one along, like they were just taking the woods as a shortcut, but the other one tried to chat us up. Disgusting!

You never know when a drunk is going to turn ugly, though, so we played along a bit, told him he’d see better days and that.

When they were gone, I was like, “I hate to say it, but it looks like Mum was right. Let’s scarper.”

I kicked the dirt back into the fire trench and packed it down. Flora put all our bits and bobs into the carrier, and Mimsy and me put the lid on the pot and used our jackets to hold the handles as we carried it home to finish on the cooker.

We told Mum it was the insects that drove us in. If she’d known she was right and we was wrong, she’d have never let us hear the last of it.

But we never went into those woods again.

~ * ~

MY PROMPT FOR TODAY: 3, Macbeth and the three witches

MA

About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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One thought on “29 @StoryADayMay #recipe Dinner For Three

  1. Jane

    May 29, 2013 at 8:37am

    I’ve encountered many strange things in the woods, but not two drunk bums.
    Good story.

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
  2. Maryann Miller

    May 29, 2013 at 11:15am

    Loved the story and so impressed with your British accent. I can’t even master that on stage, let alone on paper. Good for you.

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      May 29, 2013 at 1:09pm

      It’s easier on the page, if you read enough British mysteries. ~grin~

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply
  3. Morgan Mandel

    May 29, 2013 at 3:52pm

    When we bought our house, I had visions of barbeques and gatherings in the yard, but learned soon enough it was easier to just cook indoors and eat there!

    Morgan Mandel

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      May 29, 2013 at 6:31pm

      I love cooking out, but we eat very little meat these days, and I just can’t spend the time and energy to fire up the grill for an eggplant.

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply
  4. Heidi M. Thomas

    May 29, 2013 at 5:34pm

    Great story, Marian, and congratulations for following through on this challenge! I admire you!

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      May 29, 2013 at 6:32pm

      Thanks, Heidi. It’s been a blast! I never expected to have so much fun with it. šŸ™‚

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply
  5. Kiril Kundurazieff

    May 29, 2013 at 9:11pm

    Great story!

    Now, I’m hungry so am fixing dinner! šŸ˜€

    Nikita has just posted his own Day 29.

    It is called “Doubt”.

    The title of your prompt then inspired Nikita to go ahead and write his Day 30!! šŸ˜€

    His title alone is a play on your prompt.

    Remember the dog, MacBark, mentioned in an earlier chapter?

    Nikita is going to annoy the PC crowd, yet again, so stay tuned. šŸ˜€

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      May 29, 2013 at 9:14pm

      Oh, dear, I’m leading an innocent cat into being annoying! As all cat owners know, cats are NEVER annoying on their own. šŸ˜‰

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  6. Kiril Kundurazieff

    May 29, 2013 at 9:27pm

    LOL!

    Mr. Nikita has history of venturing where few dare to tread. šŸ˜€

    If things had been different and he’d been born a dog he would have still written an essay called “May I Have a Word?” (click on my name to go to the story), but in a manner appropriate for the defense of a DIFFERENT WORD. šŸ˜€

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      May 30, 2013 at 9:11am

      Tell Mr. Nikita I applaud his reclaiming a perfectly good word from the Vulgarians!

      Permalink  ⋅ Reply

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