Bottom's Up! (Barbara Benas)

A story that's 1 part recipe blog, 1 part comic book, with a dash of sardonic humor, a dollop of existential dread, and a pinch of gig economy camaraderie.

Suzette is an over-kneaded and over-proofed pastry chef, running a cooking blog and doing her best to share whatever culinary wisdom she's managed to scrape from the city's top kitchens. Her latest post introduces "interview tiramisu," a dessert so good it'll land her a juicy new job opportunity. Yet as she runs all over town acquiring the very best ingredients, why does she get the creeping feeling that everything's about to go really, really wrong?

Barbara Benas blends forms to create a surrealist recipe blog exploring the pressure of perfection, the anxiety of creation, and what happens when the grind finally wears you down.