Imaginary Dinner Party Menu COURSE: IKAN KURAU 1. Distaste (Darren Wan) COURSE: DREAM FOODS 2. Lamination (Jill J. Tan) 3. Charred Lemon (Damanpreet Pelia) COURSE: FIG & FIGGED 4. Metamorphosis (Darren Wan) 5. ginger in case of turbulence (Aanchal Saraf) 6. [untitled] (Nurulhuda Arslan) 7. anew (Jill J. Tan) COURSE: FAMILY RECIPES 8. Lessons with Che Nom (Nurulhuda Arslan) 9. yours truly (Irene Hsu) 10. bitterness (Madeleine Han)
Art and Illustrations cooked up by Jill J. Tan
ISSUE 2 - contributors note little stud is a publication of writings and close encounters We grew out of wanting a space to think without the pressure of completion, to allow our attention to meander, and to spout shout sing, grounded in a community of voices This zine was compiled as part of an event little stud hosted at the 2020 Singapore Writers Festival, titled Imaginary Tasting Menu Imaginary Dinner Party was conceived through dreams of food and for the food of our dreams Over the summer, finding ourselves scattered through space, we gathered together at a digital imagined dinner party We each brought a dish we dreamed to make and share And in the fall, we gathered to flash write over several weeks Three of our contributors met in Singapore for writing sessions, at the working space of a nascent urban farm that used to be a school, but now houses silkie chickens and other delightful growing things We brought two ingredients of fig and threadfin, and read and wrote to each other over several weeks Other than our flash writing, our time together also resulted in various attempts at cooking with figs, including a beautiful in prep but disastrous lavender honey ice cream with a fig swirl, and a more successful fig tart Although all of us have ties to threadfin, we haven t yet attempted to cook it Maybe soon Four of us met over Zoom across Turtle Island during a time of unending anti Black violence, xenophobic terror, and a global resurrection of a fascism that never left Flash writing became our space of accountability when surrounded by overlapping crises Together, we typed, edited, and fermented We dissolved and burst into laughter and into one another s words, visions, and hopes for a different world ine littlestud ine tumblr com instagram littlestud ine twitter: littlestud ine email littlestud ine gmail com
We ve started feeding her again, and in response, her face always crumples up tightly as she cautiously moves the drops of liquid around her tongue I ve stopped trying to attach a singular meaning to each sign Sometimes, I think I discern pleasure Other times, it seems to be something more banal like relief, or even an unwelcome reminder of experiences to which she no longer has access But I can only reciprocate the only way I know how, and offer her some simulacrum of taste
dream foods
Lamina i n Jill J. Tan
Feverishly I would dream of food and it would be all texture, all color, and no taste Enter: a needle pushing against soft ello alls Is this the processual probe of an endoscope There s not enough red No the alls are cake dr sponge to hich I am delivering moisture The s ringe t ists ildl more like an unregulated garden hose might than the precise applicator at m disposal I am in danger of e ceeding the bounds of the cake I don t even kno hat shape it is from the inside and one performs radial manoeuvres ver differentl hen orienting ithin a circular square or rectangular base There s no risk of flooding the structure ith such a thin needle but I am so afraid of breaching the crust On the most forceful jab from the center I ake ith a start
On yet another night: It makes ungodl little sense to slice a lotus root hen it has alread been coated in chilli oil and et Nor should I stick m finger through one of the holes for grip reall M hands hold firm on first grasp but slip on the second slice Blood trickles beneath the lotus root on the cutting board it is a different shade of red from the bright orange red of the oil I s irl the slice of lotus root in the mi ture until the reds blend I go to dr fr the lotus and it hisses as it hits the pan I feel the spatter on m face and
FIG
FIGGING INTERLUDE
Fig 3 Disastrous lavender honey ice cream with fig swirl that looked like a frozen lake and proved inedible
Fig 4 Consolation 1: flower milk made with the dregs of lavender and blue pea
Fig 5 Consolation 2: Leftover fig jam on toast
Fig 6 Poached fig tarts
KITCHEN ISLAND DEMONSTRATION (OR, FAMILY RECIPES)
CONTRIBUTORS Nurulhuda Arslan is an educator who dabbles in creative writing She is subscribed to too many cooking channels on YouTube Madeleine Han is a writer and graduate worker based in the Bay Area and New Haven She prefers her baked goods to be herby, and her savory dishes to be a little sweet Irene Hsu is a writer and graduate worker based in the Bay Area New York, and will eat honey out of a jar Damanpreet Pelia he him is a writer, graduate worker, and dreamer of recipes based in New Haven Aanchal Saraf is a creator and a graduate worker at Yale, an institution that stole Quinnipiac, Paugusset, and Wappinger land, polices the Black residents of New Haven, and invests in imperial debt collection without remorse She insists that feeding people and betraying the institution are both love languages Jill J. Tan is a writer, artist, and anthropologist living between Singapore and New Haven, who requested a blindfolded taste test of one inch cubes for her birthday Making the art for this issue was her 2020 comfort food Darren Wan is a writer, graduate worker, and editor of Mynah Magazine He eats everything except oatmeal