Cover Photo: culinary tools like whisks, strainers, pots, and pans hanging in a dark kitchen, lit by an ominous light
Photograph by Henry Perks/Unsplash

Pinned

“I didn’t even realize the sun had already set,” I said, turning on a light for Herrick. He awoke with a jerk. “Time to eat.”

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Cook’s Illustrated

And away we go

am

On the morning of the sixth day of home care, I woke up thinking about recipes. I sat on the toilet reading from my phone for nearly an hour, ignoring texts from my mom. In the early afternoon I pushed Herrick from his spot in the living room to sit in the entrance to the kitchen. I scooted around his chair and began to gather ingredients.

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Jean-Luc Bouchard is a writer whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Vox, Wigleaf, Epiphany, PANK, The Paris Review's The Daily, and other publications. He is the winner of Split Lip Magazine’s 2019 flash fiction contest and Epiphany Magazine’s 2016 “Writers Under 30” contest, was included on Wigleaf’s 2018 short fiction longlist, and was a finalist for the 2021 James Hurst Prize for Fiction. He is a contributor to The Onion, and is currently an MFA candidate in fiction at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His work can be found at jeanlucbouchard.com.