Chaos Kitchen Creations: Recovery Tea

Tea to get you going! Help me choose the off-brand story to write for my mentor! And learn about the time portal each of us controls!

This week I have been feeling a little off. Not in the major sick or unable to function way but in being simply tired. You know the tired I am talking about - the team up of little aches that creep up on you. This results in the thought that it would be better if your eyes were shut and your head was on a pillow. After all, as my good friend Basant says, “Naps are great. They’re like little time portals that move you forward.”

And man, I just want to jump forward - or maybe backwards just a little bit, to get more time to do more stuff. Yet somehow, naps only jump one forward… So, I think we need to work on our time travel plans. Unidirectional only gets you so far.

Still, I did the good worker thing, and went into work all week. (“Work! Work!” like the orcs say.)

As for writing, I want to try something different. I would love for people to put in the comment a suggestion for a type of story I should try and stretch my muse with or you can just click on the poll. I’ve owed a story to a mentor, but it has to be in a genre I don’t usually write. Oddly, that part is what threw me for a loop. So, I am going to punt it to you.

Recipe for Recovery

After a rough week, I think the best thing to do is to sit down and have a nice cup of tea. In Houston, that doesn’t always work because it is “HOT.” Who wants to drink hot tea when it is 100F outside in the shade? (It was 103F at 6pm when I left the car dealership on Friday. -Tod)

Well, I guess I do. But only because I hide inside with the tea and set the AC to something cold for me… AKA a temperature that makes Tod and the furred ones happy.

Hot Lemonade Tea Recipe

Single serving:

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (bright & zesty)

• 3/4 cup water (hot & pure)

• *Black tea bag or ~1 tablespoon loose black tea (bold & bitter)

  • If caffeine is a no-go as it used to be for me, don’t worry I have alternatives

• 1 to 2 tablespoons honey (sweet & smooth)

Suggested Additives (choose one… not all - that way leads to muddied waters)

• Cinnamon

  • Cinnamon is my go to when I am not really sick but more just want a pick me up with my black tea. (I supply a her a selection of many different cinnamons from around the world. -Tod)

• Lemon grass or Lemon Balm

  • Who needs more LEMON? Me, that’s who. Actually, I like this best when I have a green tea like jasmine or something that tastes a little too floral. The lemongrass and such add a little bitterness.

• Peppermint

  • This is my go to when I am actually sick and what I use for Recovery Tea at night or right before a nap. After all peppermint is just right when you need to sleep.

Not sure I really need a recipe here, but for completeness sake here y’all go.

1. Heat that water & lemon juice! Bring your 3/4 cup and 1/4 to a gentle boil. We have an electric kettle - but don’t put your lemon juice in your electric kettle. But then I let the boiling stop and sit for 30-60 seconds, so I don’t burn the tea. And yet, I prefer the lemon juice to be warmed. Color me crazy I feel like it pulls more out of the tea.

2. Steep your tea: Drop in that black tea bag or loose leaves in an infuser. Include your extra add on during this part. And let it all steep for 3 to 5 minutes. The longer you wait the more bitter it gets, but it also depends on your tea. Most of mine I let seep for the full 5 minutes.

3. Clean it up: Remove the tea bag or infuser otherwise it will get BITTER, it a way that only a few people can stomach. If you are one of them, go you, but I will keep mine to short steeps thank you every much.

4. Sweeten: Add honey. When I have a sore throat, I go full with the 2 tablespoons - I can’t take cough suppressants, they do bad things to me.

5. Drink up Buttercup! And feel better. If not take a nap. Maybe take a nap anyway.

Chaos Tip of the Week

Nap whenever you can, it lets you skip through time like a flat stone dancing over still water.

Critter’s Weekly Question

What is your favorite get well drink or food? Does your cat try to steal it? Does your dog run for cover when you start mixing it? (If the ingredients are in the fridge, the two actual canines come over to see if I’m getting them carrots. -Tod)

Coming October 3rd: Convoy of Chaos!

Finally, an anthology named perfectly for the Chaos Critter writers to participate, straight from Three Raven Publishing https://threeravenspublishing.com and set in Steve Jackson Games’ post-apocalypse Car Wars universe!

Convoy of Chaos is available for pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQ2YKVB1

Despite the grain blight, fuel shortages, and wasteland raiders, supplies still need to get through.

Ride along with the big rig convoys, road crews, and race teams of the wasteland, keeping civilization civilized one delivery at a time.

Convoy of Chaos— where every mile is an unforgiving battlefield, and survival rides shotgun.

Tod has played Car Wars since the zip-loc bag release - before he became a forever GM. He learned his times tables in order to calculate armor for his autodueling needs. Anna, being that experienced RPG player that logically, in-character, and totally innocently breaks the GM and his plans, quickly jumped into and appreciated the deep Car Wars Universe. (It also has cars with big guns and explosions, if that’s more your thing. -Anna)

So, come on out and discover what’s in the little black boxes that are being moved from Houston to Dallas. And why does it seem everyone wants to stop a harmless cargo hauling contract?

Most of the authors are members of the Alpha Mercs “A writing group with an anthology problem.” https://www.alphamercs.com/

Remember, October 3 on Amazon, Convoy of Chaos https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FQ2YKVB1