Lynn Strong

Wyngraf’s Valentine’s edition is available for pre-order!

Here, have another cozy chai recipe, along with a preview of another character from a related story!

I am both ridiculously excited and, at this particular moment, having a migraine. So I am doing some very low energy squee-ing. 😀

Priye is a brindle catfolk-kitten who shows up in the sequel to Rahat’s story, in which we take a look at moments ranging from “what is the first thing an Imperial prince thinks upon awakening in the House of Jasmines with a cat walking on his face” to “what does a morning in the Catsprowl look (and smell) like” to “how exactly can a soft, round, middle-aged, and very un-parkour-suited accountant of a prince sneak back into his palace life without anything resembling a walk of shame, because it needs to be a walk of joy and discovery instead?”

(Except that was about 15,000 words and counting, which is closing in on twice the short story threshold hahaha whimper. And if I want more stories to be submit-friendly, I need to be a lot closer to the 8,000 word limit!)

So I thought, let’s try someone else’s point of view. And I adore Priye. She’s small and soft and gentle, and also has a lot of very quiet tortitude. She doesn’t like having to use human words because there are so many different human languages and sometimes the words aren’t allowed to go together and whichever set you choose is going to make people think things about you, and how you pronounce them makes people think other things about you, and it’s all Too Much To Cope With.

Purrs are better than words, according to Priye. You know where you stand when someone is purring. You also know where you stand when someone is hissing. Cats are very clear about things like this — no complicated questions of whose words you use in which dialect with which accent. Purring means good, hissing means stop that, yowling air raid noises mean REALLY stop that, all nice and clear.

So I asked her to get her slate from Elder Sister’s classroom and share a chai recipe for brindle kittens with us. She is chocolate brown and ginger orange, and she likes her coloring, so this is what she told me.

Priye’s Brindle Kitten Chocolate Orange Ginger Chai

• Milk
• Chocolate (good)
• Orange
• Ginger
• Chameli-sahib’s chai masala
  • Make warm and soft like kittens.
  • (Need spoons.)

Lynn’s Low Spoons translation

I have a Higher In Spoons edition I’m saving for the 14th, when I hope to be out of migraine land and having more energy for at least Secret Ninja Master Hot Chocolate, if not the entire half-hour production number of Asharan’s chai from the spices onward.

But today the spoon drawer is empty. Food is complicated when you need to balance energy intake and migraine nausea and orthostatic intolerance and post-exertional malaise with a side order of weather-pain. So this is my Priye-approved 90-seconds edition.

• 2 cups your choice of milk, water, or plant-milk, heated whichever way is easiest
• Your favorite hot cocoa mix
  • (I used 4 tsp of Penzeys hot chocolate to make my big mug in a chai blend – if you’re making straight hot chocolate you might want double that again)
• Your favorite chai masala powder
  • (usually my instant go-to is Blue Lotus’ regular, but I went with Blue Lotus’ mandarin – 1/2 tsp, to go with doubling the cocoa and getting orange already in the combo and minimizing the number of times I have to move)
• A few drops of orange blossom water or shreds of orange zest
  • (if your chai masala doesn’t come with orange notes in it)
• Half a meal shake
  • (this time chocolate, other times vanilla, usually Orgain’s vegan one because it’s the only one I’ve found without either artificial sweeteners or erythritol)
  • Use the other half to make another mug in a couple hours
• A few bits of crystallized ginger either to chew or to put in the hot chocolate chai

That lasted me the past 3 hours! About to go make “lunch” with the other half of the meal shake, and see whether Priye is up for more stories or just for more purring in the sunbeam.

I hope you enjoy the low spoons variation, and that I’ll be up for the higher spoons variation on the 14th!