Newsletter | Prompt

For the Smell of It

Mmm Mondays News & Prompt #10

He awakes with a start; the dream surrounding him like an aura, the fading scent of her cloying perfume still clinging to his skin. As his mind clears, so does the heady aroma, taking his hazy memory of her with it.

Rubbing his eyes, he rises from the crumpled bed and makes his way to the shower, where he turns the water as hot as can be handled. Letting the flow wash over him, he soaks his hair, rivulets dripping down his cheeks and off his brow. He inhales the steam, massages the kinks from his neck, and sighs as sleep fades to the day ahead.

With a pop, he removes the cap of his shower gel, stopping in the tilting of the bottle as a trace of… orange? — no something similar, but not quite the same — rolls over him, hazy visions of pale skin blushing pink, gone before he can draw them to the surface, tugging at his memories.

Shaking it off, he loads his hand with clear gel and massages it into his hair.

The fragrance assaults him as soon as he opens the café door, a small bell alerting the barista of his presence. Not the acidic aroma of freshly blended coffee, but something sweeter, like the crusted top of a flaky pastry. Something dusted with sugar. Glazed, honeyed, and satisfying. A fleeting glimpse of long locks and ruby red lips stirs inside him, settling as the petite blonde behind the counter takes his order..

He’s on his third call, his head already aching. He massages his temple, opposite elbow resting on the arm of his chair. Staring out the window, he lets the caller’s words flow through him, grunting and making polite “uh-huh’s,” as necessary. A knock on the door has him turning his head, his finger already rising to tell his visitor to wait one second. But he stalls as he faces a woman. She seems familiar and she must think so too. With a raised brow, she steps closer.

He hangs up the phone without saying goodbye. His nostrils flare, and her perfume invades his senses. Bergamot, and vanilla sugar. The hairs on his arms raise and a shiver flows down his spine.

The dream washes over him. Calloused hands on lusciously soft skin. Long auburn hair draped over his chest, the ends tickling as it sways rhythmically. The sensation of a warm mouth around his….

Olfactory Sense:

of or relating to the sense of smell.

Research shows that the human brain can remember 50000 distinct scents. Your sense of smell begins at the back or your nose, and to make a very complicated process very short, sends it to your hippocampus and amygdala, where your memory and learning centers are.

From there, smell is responsible for eliciting memories, deciding on desirable foods, and even falling in love.

So we want to know, of all the smells that could ever be smelled…

What makes you say Mmm?

please note: prompts are completely optional, and only serve as ideas to get your juices flowing. Feel free to link to this prompt, should you choose to use it though.

see all our previous prompts here…

No Knead Bread

As a staple food from most of our childhoods, the smell of freshly baked bread gives us fond memories of family, and comfort.

But it takes a long time to make bread from scratch, with much needed attention and kneading. This recipe is no-knead, so you get all the deliciousness of fresh baked bread (just like childhood) with half the work (but double the time). My motto is work smart, not hard.

Start this dough early in the morning and let it rise all day. When the day is done, you’ll have perfect dough to put in the oven. Alternatively, start this recipe before you go to bed, and bake it in the morning.

Ingredients

• 1 pound all purpose flour (approx. 3 cups)
• 2 tsp salt
• ¾ tsp active dry yeast
• 1 ½ cups lukewarm water (approx. 110 C/230 F)

Instructions

• Make dough by combining flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and add water. Stir with a wooden spoon until a wet dough forms.
• Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and set in a warm place to rise 6 to 8 hours.
• Shape dough into a ball by folding it over on itself once or twice. And let rise for another hour, covering with a towel.
• Preheat the oven to 235 degrees C (450 degrees F.) Once warm, place the Dutch oven on a middle rack with a lid. Let warm for 230 minutes.
• Transfer loaf to the Dutch oven using parchment paper as a sling.
• Cover and bake for 30 minutes, remove the lid and bake for 15 minutes more. Internal temp should read 100 C (210 F).
• Remove bread from Dutch oven, cool bread for 15 minutes and slice to desired thickness.
• Enjoy!

note: this recipe doesn’t call for sugar as the sweetener will increase the speed of rising…

The Past Month on Mmm Mondays

I have to start with an apology for my lack of attention and detail to Mmm Mondays. The day after my last newsletter, I awoke with a tight chest and a tickle in my throat. I spent the majority of the month of April horizontal. That sounds delicious, but I was ill and not as one would instead hope, engaged in lascivious activities. Alas, I’m reaching the age where naps feel like a reward, so there is that.

Due to being incapacitated, I have not had a chance to prepare for the Mmm Mondays competition as well as I had hoped, and have decided to POSTPONE it for the time being. The northern hemisphere is waking up from a long winter and many of us will be spending more time outdoors and less in front of our computers (I do hope there’s more than less of you), so the competition will happen in the fall. Likely November (because that’s when many get a writing slump).

Until then, we’ll continue as we have, with the exception of our prompts. I’ve decided to limit them to once a month, in a monthly newsletter instead of weekly leaving more time for delicious ditties. If the Mmm Monday submissions have a huge increase in numbers, we will reassess.

Did you know that smaller publications like Mmm Mondays can get you just as many likes and comments as bigger publications, like this one? The secret to getting noticed isn’t in the publication, it’s in your following. So publish where you want, big or small. Your readers will find you. This tale by May More 💜 Tales: Will you Devour life or Nibble with the Crowd? is a perfect example.

Plus, publishing on smaller publications gives you the opportunity to reach a new group of readers and experiment with new genres. And there’s less chance you’ll have to share the spotlight with someone else. It also helps your fellow writers out, as does clapping and commenting. A great article about participating in your readership can be found here.

A huge shout out to Posy Churchgate - Writes & Edits Fiction, Jacinta Palmer, Evie Dawn, Marie A. Rebelle, and May More 💜 Tales for their contributions this month. You can find them all of their stories here. And an extra-special thanks to May More 💜 Tales for holding up the fort while I was incapacitated. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a May :)

Posy, Jacinta, and Evie have all taken up a challenge to answer this or that questions originally designed by BJ’s This or That-The Gathering Table. This time around was Fantasy, check out the this or that challenge here.

And lastly, a reminder that Mmm Mondays accepts any genre, including recipes, photos inspired posts, and poetry. The only rule is it has to make YOU say Mmm.

What’s coming this week? Hopefully you!

Want to write with us? Check out the guidelines below:

What makes you say Mmm?

On the Mmm Mondays blog we’re on Week 122, with a different recipe every week, a monthly book idea and a growing list of writers guaranteed to make you say Mmm