Here we are again, staring down the barrel of a new work week. Let's get it started right (write?) with a quick ten-minute sprint. Just a little warm-up for your writing muscles.
Today's prompt comes from Think Written:
Imagine something so sweet it makes your teeth hurt.
Talking about food? This might be my favorite prompt ever. Let's get an idea, let is simmer, and...GO!
The feast began with a small aperitif: Black cherry wine with hints of chocolate and mint. With the first sip, the senses swim in a river of fruit and decadence, followed by a sudden frolic through tingling fields of electric wheat and barley. With the last drams of alcohol clinging to the pewter chalice on the table, you set back and await the first course.
A plate appears before you, barely larger than a saucer, and you smell the dish before your eyes can fully drink it in. A disk of butter, cheddar, and minced apples sits before you, steaming in the candlelight. A gorgeous yin-yang pattern has been carefully crafted atop the savory cookie, using caramelized apple skin and gently-cut white Somerset. Each inhalation brings in a battering bouquet of earthy cheeses and saccharine sweetness. You don't so much as taste the cookie as devour it. The first bite crumbles in your mouth, tumbling over your tongue like loose sand. Hints of cinnamon and animal fat mix together and dance down your throat. As you exhale, the flavor returns to you through your nostrils, somehow stronger and sweeter than before.
You lean back in your chair, dizzy from just the start of this epic meal. Within seconds, your plate has vanished from the table. Moments later, two ovals of ceramic set down with an appreciative thump. Furthest from you is a collected of fried chicken skins sprinkled with salt and bacon crumbles. You can still hear the grease bubbles snapping from a foot away. The smell charges at you, driving you back while at the same time urging you forward. Your fingers ignore the heat and snatch a crispy strip from the dish, rushing the steaming skin into your mouth. It cracks and shatters between your teeth, releasing wave after wave of sensuous flavor that sends your eyes rolling back in your head.
After a blissful sip of water, your hand returns for more savory treats, but the dish is empty. You hardly remember consuming the entire bowl, though your salt-swollen tongue indicates that the deed did occur. You glance down at the second dish, still waiting patiently on the table. A single spoon rests in the oval, elongated to accommodate more of the scrumptious meal within. Atop the pale while utensil is a heaped mound of buttered corn mash in a buttermilk crema. The sweet smell of the vegetable medley sings in your nostrils, teasing the divine portion about to explode on your palate. You scoop the spoon from its holster and place the entire mess in your mouth at once.
Light and color dance before your eyes, performing acts of romance and tragedy for a thousand years. Your brain shudders, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of excess entering you at a single meal. Your heart, oft forgotten in your diet planning, gives a pathetic chortle, indicating both its love of your choices and its regret for their effects.
Glancing around the room, you see the hints of courses to be: Crackling duck that still spits out grease from underneath its burnt skin; Buttery rolls covered in rosemary and salt and pepper; Hammered chicken powdered and breaded and deep fried in oil; and a seemingly endless table of chocolates, berries, and liquors awaiting you for dessert. Your breathing becomes enthusastically labored, and the room swims around you as the extasy of the meal threatens to overtake your senses.
At that moment, the waiter arrives with the next course. It's a simple round bowl containing shredded lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumber. A light dressing of olive oil and basil glistens atop the salad. You frown, sniffing the green dish tenderly, before sliding it back toward the waiter.
"No thank you," you say. "I don't want to ruin my appetite."