Who drank the hot chocolate?
by Andrea Mulder-Slater
After she had spent several hours at the horse barn on a frosty December evening, I offered to make my daughter a hot chocolate to warm her up.
Because she has food allergies, making a drink like this for my kiddo is a bit more complicated than simply pouring boiling water over a packet of Carnation instant mix.
Instead, there’s a process which involves harvesting raw cocoa, sifting purified icing sugar and slow cooking organic milk all while burning sage and standing on one foot.
Ok, well that’s not actually true.
But, I do keep my daughter safe by mixing the right amounts of allergen-free sugar with allergen-free cocoa and allergen-free milk and bringing all of it to a boil in a pot on the stove.
My point here is, once I’ve made a cup of hot chocolate, I need a nap. And a bag of chips.
Measuring ingredients is exhausting. Plus, I like chips.
So I made the drink and poured it into a mug so my beautiful girl could let it cool and sip it with a stainless steel straw, because she’s not quite sure how hot chocolate works.
I blame myself.
While I cleaned up the sink, my mini me asked me where the mug was.
I motioned toward the other side of the room and said, “It’s right there, on the table, where I set it.”
Except, it wasn’t.
We both scanned the kitchen counter, the kitchen table and the kitchen floor.
Nothing.
We were baffled. We don’t have a dog or a cat and the goats hadn’t been inside the house for more than a week and even if they had snuck in, they are more partial to houseplants than sweet treats and this is something you would know if you had pet goats.
As I started to wonder whether or not I had actually made a hot chocolate, or had just thought about it, I spotted the cup, sitting on the bookshelf near the hallway, which was nowhere near where I had left it.
My daughter and I walked over to it and were completely shocked by what we saw.
The mug was empty.
“Did you drink it?” I asked.
“No,” she exclaimed, “I didn’t even get the straw out yet.”
Since she and I were the only ones around, the list of suspects quickly narrowed to one.
I ran my tongue across my teeth, expecting to taste the saltiness of a crispy potato chip, but instead there were the distinct flavours of cocoa, icing sugar and milk.
Apparently, I made it, I drank it, and then I forgot about it, which makes me wonder what else I’ve been consuming and forgetting. So in other words, if your London Fog goes missing at the coffee shop, I’m sorry.
No, really.
(Yes, I made another hot chocolate for my daughter, which I may or may not have also ingested. I really have no idea.)
After she had spent several hours at the horse barn on a frosty December evening, I offered to make my daughter a hot chocolate to warm her up.
Because she has food allergies, making a drink like this for my kiddo is a bit more complicated than simply pouring boiling water over a packet of Carnation instant mix.
Instead, there’s a process which involves harvesting raw cocoa, sifting purified icing sugar and slow cooking organic milk all while burning sage and standing on one foot.
Ok, well that’s not actually true.
But, I do keep my daughter safe by mixing the right amounts of allergen-free sugar with allergen-free cocoa and allergen-free milk and bringing all of it to a boil in a pot on the stove.
My point here is, once I’ve made a cup of hot chocolate, I need a nap. And a bag of chips.
Measuring ingredients is exhausting. Plus, I like chips.
So I made the drink and poured it into a mug so my beautiful girl could let it cool and sip it with a stainless steel straw, because she’s not quite sure how hot chocolate works.
I blame myself.
While I cleaned up the sink, my mini me asked me where the mug was.
I motioned toward the other side of the room and said, “It’s right there, on the table, where I set it.”
Except, it wasn’t.
We both scanned the kitchen counter, the kitchen table and the kitchen floor.
Nothing.
We were baffled. We don’t have a dog or a cat and the goats hadn’t been inside the house for more than a week and even if they had snuck in, they are more partial to houseplants than sweet treats and this is something you would know if you had pet goats.
As I started to wonder whether or not I had actually made a hot chocolate, or had just thought about it, I spotted the cup, sitting on the bookshelf near the hallway, which was nowhere near where I had left it.
My daughter and I walked over to it and were completely shocked by what we saw.
The mug was empty.
“Did you drink it?” I asked.
“No,” she exclaimed, “I didn’t even get the straw out yet.”
Since she and I were the only ones around, the list of suspects quickly narrowed to one.
I ran my tongue across my teeth, expecting to taste the saltiness of a crispy potato chip, but instead there were the distinct flavours of cocoa, icing sugar and milk.
Apparently, I made it, I drank it, and then I forgot about it, which makes me wonder what else I’ve been consuming and forgetting. So in other words, if your London Fog goes missing at the coffee shop, I’m sorry.
No, really.
(Yes, I made another hot chocolate for my daughter, which I may or may not have also ingested. I really have no idea.)