Peaceful Potions
I grew up with an older brother. We were polar opposites as kids. He was small for his age, and I was tall. He was energetic and rebellious, I was compliant. He would run off in a foreign city, I would quietly pick up the shards of glass he broke on the ground. He was intelligent enough to find his way around that city, and I had no idea where I was. We were a solid pair for our parents. Only slightly insufferable in each other's presence. Our parents developed nicknames for us. They called us the meanie and the screamie due to his inability to stop bothering me out of boredom, and my inability to shut my mouth about it. We never got along.
Some siblings can play together, grow up as friends. They don’t flinch when one goes to hug the other. You know what I think of that? I think their childhoods must have been unbearably boring! Everyone needs that argument, that bloody nose from getting clocked in the face over a video game. You need the movies that neither of you watched growing up because you couldn’t be in the same room for too long. Because without that? Moments like potions never mean as much.
There was one setting where my brother and I might finally be at peace. One activity and one time of day when I remember working with him in a civilized manner; potions. Ian and I could spend an entire day with our fists in the air, but come evening, when our parents thought we had calmed down and gone to bed, we would join forces. Together we would tiptoe down to the kitchen, and form a plan. A plan to create the most delicious beverage we had ever tasted. We would work quietly, often beginning with a milk base and proceeding with disgusting additions such as ketchup and mustard. Once we felt that the drink was complete and enough food had been spilled on the floor soaking our socks, we would drink. We’d grab two identical plastic cups and two identical spoons, then toast to another successful day of witchcraft. Sometimes we even drank the whole thing despite it being toxic waste. My parents often knew what we were up to, but avoided intervening. They knew the occasion was rare and worth the mess.
Some siblings can play together, grow up as friends. They don’t flinch when one goes to hug the other. You know what I think of that? I think their childhoods must have been unbearably boring! Everyone needs that argument, that bloody nose from getting clocked in the face over a video game. You need the movies that neither of you watched growing up because you couldn’t be in the same room for too long. Because without that? Moments like potions never mean as much.
There was one setting where my brother and I might finally be at peace. One activity and one time of day when I remember working with him in a civilized manner; potions. Ian and I could spend an entire day with our fists in the air, but come evening, when our parents thought we had calmed down and gone to bed, we would join forces. Together we would tiptoe down to the kitchen, and form a plan. A plan to create the most delicious beverage we had ever tasted. We would work quietly, often beginning with a milk base and proceeding with disgusting additions such as ketchup and mustard. Once we felt that the drink was complete and enough food had been spilled on the floor soaking our socks, we would drink. We’d grab two identical plastic cups and two identical spoons, then toast to another successful day of witchcraft. Sometimes we even drank the whole thing despite it being toxic waste. My parents often knew what we were up to, but avoided intervening. They knew the occasion was rare and worth the mess.
Ingredients:
- Milk
- Lemon juice
- Apple sauce
- Orange juice pulp from a nearly empty bottle
- Salt
- Nutella
- Ketchup
- Mustard
Instructions:
- Prepare two little plastic cups, one large glass cup, and small dessert spoons. Place one spoon in each little cup, and set aside.
- Pour as much milk as you see fit into the large glass cup.
- Squirt some ketchup into the milk for a pretty pink tint!
- Where there's ketchup, there is mustard, so you better not forget a few drops of ordinary yellow mustard.
- You’ll need some sweetener, so add roughly a spoonful of apple sauce into the mix. It makes for an intriguing texture. Don’t bother stirring yet though, we like to let it sit at the bottom for a while.
- And what goes better with applesauce than chocolate? When we created this recipe, it felt like we were creating a scrumptious candied apple drink. Adding nutella was and still is more than necessary. So throw in a spoonful of nutella, and stir until the milk has visible apple and nutella chunks floating around.
- Now add lots of lemon juice, everyone loves lemonade!
- Don’t forget the orange juice pulp! This recipe is only useful when there is very little to drink in the fridge, so you want the bottom of the orange juice to be dumped in your concoction.
- Sprinkle in some salt with a very fancy french accent, and stir for five minutes.
- Finally, you can pour your potion evenly into the two little cups and begin to drink! The correct way to drink this potion is to use the little spoons you had already placed in the cups, and drink it like soup. Heads up, there might be some gagging! The magic of the potion is that it makes your taste buds feel like they’re being tormented, but really it’s a delicious beverage that you will absolutely never forget!
