Chicago, 1954

Eleanor Blackwood knew something was wrong the moment she bit into the apple pie.

The crust was perfect—golden and flaky, just as Mrs. Winters’ pies always were at the corner bakery—but beneath the sweetness of cinnamon and sugar lurked something acrid and suffocating. It scratched at the back of her throat like fingernails, leaving her gasping. The taste wasn’t spoiled fruit or rancid butter; it was something else entirely. Something that didn’t belong in food at all.

Despair. Pure, undiluted despair.

“Is everything alright, dear?” Mrs. Winters asked, her plump face creased with concern.

Eleanor forced a smile, pushing the plate away. “Just feeling a bit under the weather, that’s all.”

She’d known Mrs. Winters for years. The baker was a fixture of the neighborhood, famous for her pies and warm demeanor. But the woman’s eyes were rimmed red today, her typically immaculate apron spotted with flour handprints where she’d absently wiped her palms.

“If you say so,” Mrs. Winters replied, her voice hollow. As she turned away, Eleanor noticed the small obituary clipping tucked into her pocket. The name “Robert Winters” was just visible at the top.

That evening, Eleanor’s dinner of pot roast tasted of exhaustion—a leaden weight that coated her tongue and made her jaw ache with each bite. Her mother had prepared it after a double shift at the hospital, her nurse’s uniform still creased from a twelve-hour day.

By the third day, Eleanor was certain she wasn’t ill. Something fundamental had changed. Every meal revealed the emotional state of its preparer, as clear as if they’d written it in the recipe. The cook’s feelings had become an unwanted seasoning she couldn’t avoid.

---

It had begun after the accident.

Three weeks earlier, Eleanor had been walking home from her secretarial job at Marshall Field’s when a delivery truck lost control on the icy February street. She remembered the screech of tires, the rush of cold air as she was thrown against the brick wall of Gino’s Restaurant, and then darkness.

She’d awakened in County Hospital with a concussion and a strange metallic taste in her mouth. The doctors found nothing unusual aside from her injuries, which were miraculously minor. But they hadn’t tested for what couldn’t be measured by their instruments.

Now, as she sat across from her date at The Palmer House restaurant, Eleanor watched Charles cut into his steak with meticulous precision. He was the son of her father’s colleague, an up-and-coming accountant with a rigid demeanor that matched his perfectly parted hair.

“The market forecasts are quite promising this quarter,” he droned, not noticing her distraction.

Eleanor nodded absently, dreading the meal before her. The waiter set down her plate—coq au vin, rich and fragrant. With the first bite came boredom, crushing and oppressive. The chef clearly hated his job, each dish another monotonous task in an endless shift.

Charles continued talking, oblivious to her discomfort. “My firm believes property in the suburbs is where the real opportunity lies. A smart woman would recognize the advantage of getting in early.”

Eleanor took a sip of wine, hoping it might wash away the taste. It didn’t. Instead, the sommelier’s irritation prickled her tongue like tiny needles.

“Are you listening, Eleanor?” Charles frowned. “I’m trying to explain something important.”

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “The food is… distracting.”

Charles looked at her plate with disapproval. “If you didn’t want French cuisine, you should have said so earlier. It’s not as if we can simply leave—I made these reservations weeks ago.”

Eleanor excused herself to the powder room, where she stared at her reflection. Dark circles had formed under her eyes from weeks of barely eating. Her collarbones protruded sharply beneath her dress.

She had tried everything—cooking for herself (only to taste her own anxiety), canned foods (factory workers’ resignation), even candy bars (manufactured with mechanical indifference). Nothing provided relief.

When she returned to the table, Charles was buttering a roll with quick, efficient movements.

“My mother has invited you to Sunday dinner,” he said as if their conversation had never paused. “She’s eager to meet the woman I’ve been seeing these past two months.”

The thought of another meal—especially one loaded with the pressure of maternal judgment—made Eleanor’s stomach clench.

“I don’t think I can make it,” she said softly.

Charles set down his knife with a precise click against the china. “This is the third engagement you’ve declined, Eleanor. My mother has specifically planned this dinner.”

“I’m sorry, I just—”

“Is there someone else?” he interrupted, his voice tight. “Because if you’re not serious about our arrangement—”

“There’s no one else,” Eleanor said. How could she explain that she feared his mother’s cooking might reveal family secrets she had no right to know? That every meal had become an unwanted invasion of privacy?

Charles leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Then what is it? You’ve been acting strangely for weeks. Barely eating, distracted. People are beginning to talk.”

Eleanor’s fingers trembled around her water glass. “I’m just not feeling like myself lately.”

“Perhaps you should see a doctor,” Charles suggested, his concern clinical rather than compassionate. “Women often suffer from nervous conditions. My sister had a spell last year—the doctor prescribed rest and a reduction in stimulating activities.”

Eleanor nodded, knowing no doctor could diagnose what ailed her. What would she say? I can taste the chef’s existential crisis in this sauce?

---

The next morning, Eleanor called in sick to work. Instead of her usual typing and filing, she found herself wandering downtown, eventually stopping before the massive stone façade of the Chicago Public Library.

In the reference section, she scoured medical texts, folklore collections, and even occult volumes hidden in the restricted stacks. She found accounts of synesthesia, where senses crossed and blended, but nothing matched her condition precisely.

As closing time approached, an elderly librarian with a severe bun noticed Eleanor’s desperation.

“You won’t find what you’re looking for in those,” the woman said, eyeing the stack of books. “Not if you’re searching for answers about perception beyond the ordinary.”

Eleanor’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”

The librarian’s eyes narrowed slightly. “I recognize the pattern of your search. The medical texts first, then psychology, then the more… esoteric materials.”

She slipped a folded piece of paper across the desk. “This woman might help. But be careful what you wish to know.”

The address led Eleanor to a narrow brownstone wedged between taller buildings in a part of the city her mother had warned her about. Brass number fixtures spelled out 1127, tarnished with age.

The door opened before she could knock. A woman with silver-streaked black hair regarded her coolly.

“Mrs. Vasquez?” Eleanor asked.

“You’d better come in,” the woman replied, her accent faintly Spanish. “Before you lose your nerve.”

The apartment smelled of unfamiliar spices and candle wax. No electric lights illuminated the space, only the warm glow of dozens of candles. Mrs. Vasquez gestured to a chair at a small table covered in dark cloth.

“You have questions about what happened after your accident,” she stated simply.

Eleanor stiffened. “How did you—”

“Know?” Mrs. Vasquez shrugged. “The same way you know things you shouldn’t. Some doors, once opened, cannot be closed again.”

She produced a cup of tea from a side table and placed it before Eleanor.

“Drink,” she commanded.

Eleanor hesitated, then raised the cup to her lips. The liquid tasted of… nothing. Absolutely nothing. For the first time in weeks, she tasted only the food itself—herbs, slightly bitter, with a floral finish.

“How did you do that?” she gasped.

Mrs. Vasquez smiled faintly. “I prepared it with a clear mind. Years of practice. Something you have not yet mastered.”

“Then I can learn to control this?”

“Perhaps.” The woman’s eyes were dark and unreadable. “Or perhaps you must learn why this gift was given to you.”

Eleanor’s laugh was brittle. “Gift? It’s destroying me. I can barely eat. I know things about people they never intended to share.”

“And yet, knowing is not understanding,” Mrs. Vasquez replied. “You taste their emotions, but you do not see the full picture.”

She reached for Eleanor’s hand, turning it palm up. “Your accident was no accident. You were pushed through a veil few ever approach.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Some are chosen to bear witness,” Mrs. Vasquez said. “To carry the burden of knowledge others cannot.”

Eleanor pulled her hand away. “I never asked for this.”

“We rarely ask for our true purpose.” Mrs. Vasquez rose and moved to a cabinet, returning with a small cloth pouch. “Three pinches in any meal. It will dull the perception temporarily. Use it sparingly—it’s not a solution.”

“Then what is?”

The woman’s expression softened slightly. “That, mija, you must discover for yourself.”

---

The powder worked, but Eleanor used it judiciously, saving it for necessary social functions. Charles was pleased by her apparent recovery, though he noted she still seemed distracted.

One Sunday, she finally agreed to dinner with his parents. The Andersons lived in a pristine colonial in Evanston, all gleaming surfaces and uncomfortable furniture. Mrs. Anderson had prepared a roast that smelled divine.

Eleanor had used the powder in her water before the meal. As the food was served, she braced herself, then took a tentative bite.

The powder had failed.

What flooded her mouth wasn’t one emotion but many—seething resentment layered over rigid control, flashes of rage carefully tamped down, and beneath it all, a hollow emptiness that made her chest ache.

Mrs. Anderson smiled tightly. “Is the roast not to your liking, dear?”

Eleanor’s gaze drifted to Charles’s father, noting for the first time the faded bruise near his temple, how he flinched when his wife moved suddenly. She saw Charles’s perfect posture, the way his eyes constantly sought his mother’s approval.

The family performed their roles flawlessly, a tableau of domestic harmony. But the food told a different story.

“Actually,” Eleanor said carefully, “I’m feeling a bit light-headed.”

“Perhaps some fresh air,” Charles suggested, ever practical.

On the porch, Eleanor knew what she had to do.

“I can’t marry you, Charles,” she said quietly.

His face remained composed, but his hands trembled slightly. “We’ve never discussed marriage.”

“But that’s where this is heading, isn’t it? Sunday dinners, meeting the parents.”

Charles straightened his tie. “I thought we understood each other.”

“I think we never did,” Eleanor replied. “And I don’t think you understand yourself, either.”

She left him standing on the porch, confused and slightly relieved, though he wouldn’t admit that even to himself.

---

Weeks later, Eleanor found herself at a small diner near the hospital where her mother worked. She’d been avoiding restaurants, but today she felt drawn to this place.

A waitress with tired eyes set down a bowl of soup Eleanor hadn’t ordered.

“From the cook,” she explained. “Says you look like you need it.”

Eleanor stared at the simple chicken soup, steaming gently. Cautiously, she raised a spoonful to her lips.

Compassion. Genuine concern. A simple desire to nourish.

Her eyes filled with tears as she continued eating. The cook’s emotions were still there, but they didn’t overwhelm her. They complemented the food, enhanced it somehow.

When she finished, a man emerged from the kitchen—middle-aged, with kind eyes and flour-dusted hands.

“Better?” he asked, sliding into the seat across from her.

Eleanor nodded, confused. “How did you know?”

“I recognize hunger that food can’t satisfy,” he said simply. “Seen it before. During the war, some of us came back… different. Sensing things others couldn’t.”

“Does it ever go away?” she whispered.

“No,” he admitted. “But you learn to use it, instead of letting it use you.”

He introduced himself as Frank, a former Army cook who’d served in the Pacific. He offered her a job washing dishes, with staff meals included.

“The food here is honest,” he said. “Nothing fancy, but made with purpose.”

Over the following months, Eleanor graduated from dishwasher to prep cook. Frank taught her to channel her focus into the food, to cook with intention. Sometimes she could still taste the lingering emotions of farmers who had harvested the vegetables or butchers who had prepared the meat, but these became background notes rather than overwhelming symphonies.

“Everyone leaves a trace,” Frank explained one day as they chopped onions side by side. “You just notice more than most.”

“Is that why you hired me?” Eleanor asked. “Because I’m like you?”

Frank smiled enigmatically. “No. Because you needed to learn what I already knew—that sharing food is the oldest communion we have. When we prepare it for others, we put ourselves into it willingly.”

Eleanor finally understood. Her “curse” was simply an amplification of what everyone experienced unconsciously. Food had always carried emotion; she had simply been forced to acknowledge it.

That evening, she invited her mother to the diner. As they shared a meal Eleanor had helped prepare, she felt the threads of connection—between cook and diner, mother and daughter, past and present.

For the first time since the accident, Eleanor truly tasted hope—bright and clean on her tongue, with endless possibilities.

And it was delicious.

Feature Photo by Robin Stickel

---

I Published a Book!

In 2007, the American Film Institute released its definitive list of the 100 greatest American movies of all time — a sweeping celebration of the art of cinema. But do these classics still resonate today? Are they as timeless, powerful, or entertaining as AFI claims?

In this book, I take you film by film through the AFI’s iconic list — from Citizen Kane to The Godfather, from Star Wars to The Graduate. Trying to maintain a refreshingly personal tone, you’ll get film summaries as I share what they meant (or didn’t mean) to me. I’ll challenge the hype, celebrate the underrated, or call out the overrated.

Whether you’re a film buff, a casual moviegoer, or someone looking to deepen your appreciation for American cinema, this book is your ticket to a thoughtful — and sometimes funny — journey through Hollywood history.

Available in Paperback or Kindle