The Sweetness of Berries and Wine by Jo Miles (Future Science Fiction Digest #14, March 2022) opens with Shoshana on Kepler Station, where the quartermaster tells her he can’t supply the strawberries she wants for a Passover dish called charoset (he tells her, “The war in the Celosian System has messed up our supply lines”). Later on, Shoshana discusses the problem with her partner Kindra, who asks why it is important as she is not religious. When Shoshana replies that it is her daughter’s first Passover, and that she wants it to be perfect, Kindra suggests Shoshana call her grandmother on New Jerusalem.
The second part of the story sees grandmother set Shoshanna straight after some teasing (“A disaster! You’d better give up now”), when she reveals that charoset was originally made with apples but they changed the recipe on New Jerusalem when they couldn’t get any. Shoshana learns about resilience and adaptation.
This parable was too cutesy, too saccharine for me.
* (Mediocre). 1,150 words. Story link.