My Relationship Cookbook | Elena Yanez | Fiction & Nonfiction Contest Winner - Spring 2025

The Perfect First Boyfriend

1 Cup Cigarette Ash   

1 Cup Hair Gel                                                               ½ tsp honey

2/3 cup daddy issue                                                      A dash of money, (gifts optional)

160 lbs of Anger

4 cloves of denim

Mix honey and anger together until you get blood in your mouth, check for broken teeth before chopping 4 cloves of denim and add to bowl.

Whisk your life away, making sure to scoop the dash of money from the edge of the bowl to swallow every cent. It will help with the cigarette ash, but the gifts won’t heal your bruises.

Substitute daddy issues for sex addiction to enhance the bitter taste of hot tears and hair gel.

Preheat oven to 365, the bowl will crack if left in any longer.

When the glass shatters off the oven doors, tell the police it was your fault not his. Afterall, he’s only 20.

The next day in your AP English class when your school teacher asks why your eye is black, tell her you fell. Repeat for 3 weeks until he’s out of jail and the black fades to blue fades to yellow fades to nothing.

Enjoy.

                                    Low-Fat Recipe for the Second Boyfriend

4 Cups of cocaine, divide into grams                                     1/3 cup of pennies, scrape

4 Cups of Miller Light, double every Friday                        4 tbs vanilla

½ cup of blue dye (for the eyes)                                             pinch of salt (for the tequila) 

3 sprays of Versace                                                                    200 lbs of motorcycle

Mix pennies and vanilla together to create copper colored kisses, cold and wet behind perfect boyfriend #1’s back. Cry into the Versace scented sweat and list the reasons why you want to drop out of college as he hands you a dollar bill to snort up your sorrows.

In a separate bowl, mix the cocaine and miller light until you can’t remember why you were so sad and try to stop your heart from bursting when you see perfect boyfriend #1’s car pull up to the trap house you will eventually call home after your parents kick you out.

Lick the pinch of salt off the back of your hand before gulping back the shot of tequila to calm your pulse as Second Boyfriend beats the face of the man you loved to a purple colored pulp- this is the closest thing to justice you get.

Combine ingredients and chill. Ride on the back of his motorcycle and forget what day it is riding through hazy July heat. Sweat pooling in your helmet as you beg him to stop so you can snort one more line. Spiral into an addiction that costs you everything. Choke him with every bone in your starved body and kill his baby while he’s at work because you can’t be a mother or a good girlfriend or a good person. Carve pieces of flesh out of your thighs, wrists, stomach. Anywhere that can be hidden by a hoodie. Cheat on him every chance you get. Cut up the coke with a cigarette hanging from your lip like a fucked up Michelle Pfiefer. Confess your love to strangers at bars clacking your red nails against empty glasses of vodka.

Enjoy.

Recipe for your Future Husband

½ tsp of gold (on the ring finger)                                1 tbs lies

4 cups of Mountain Dew                                            Dash of psycho

2 tbs maple syrup (for the eyes)                                  2 kids

¾ cup old man socks

Double my age

Completely ignore the ring and skip to the maple syrup eyes. Drink them in until you choke on his-kindness. Question every ounce of sweetness and substitute with your spice. When he notices your pack of menthols, act like you didn’t know he smoked too. Go to his car for a smoke break on the clock and breathe in the family man with the tree shaped car freshener. Justify your age gap by showing him how mature you are, shut your phone off so boyfriend #2 can’t track it lost somewhere under the seat of your future husband’s car parked in the cemetery. Go back to work with a smudged lipstick smile. He’s back to training you to take over his position as you flirt with positions on him in your head. Have your affair and shove it up your ass because he breaks your heart too, just like the rest of them.

Leave boyfriend #2, call boyfriend #1, tell your future husband you hate him and quit smoking cigarettes for awhile. Stop doing drugs, get clean, get sober, lose 30 lbs, show this man what he’s missing. Ignore the guilt and paint your face making every eyelash pop; a dough in the headlights when his wife shows up to your apartment to tell you he never loved you he never loved you he never loved you.

When he finally contacts you again, put the vodka down and shove the guy off you at the bar racing to the bathroom to email him back. Forgive him three more times. Quit cocaine for good.

By now the divorce is finalized and you have to grow up fast because this man is used to taco nights and uno games and all you’ve got is a mini flat screen tv and a cat. He teaches you how to cook until you memorize the recipes for his favorite food making peach cobbler from scratch.

Let go of the animosity, avoid the past. Lift weights and do yoga. Your old man forever.

Enjoy.

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Elena Yanez is a junior at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. She is set to graduate in 2026 with a B.F.A in Creative Non-Fiction with a minor in English and editing/publishing. She is a librarian specialist for the Omaha Public Library. She has been published in 13th Floor Magazine and Experiences In Femininity 2025.