It wasn't an unreasonable request, at least not in their eyes. Unusual? Yes. Unreasonable? No.
The twins sat in hungry anticipation, waiting to receive their latest ransom, eh hem, request.
They knew it would take a while to find just the right bowl, as requested. It would take a while to gather the ingredients, even find a large enough pot to cook the soup. They grinned their little spoiled grins and rubbed their pale little hands together.
Soon they would be swimming in a sea of broccoli. They would slurp and swim and slurp some more. The velvety golden liquid cheddar would fill their bellies as they swam and soaked in their latest request.
They wanted a bowl of cheddar broccoli soup so large, the two could wade and glide and float and slide through it's silky soupness, and every once in a while bite some broccoli bobbing by. They loved the cute little tree like veggies.
In fact, Mordella and Mordreama had a love affair with vegetables. They were the exception to the rule. Which rule? Well, to be brutally honest almost all of them but in this case, where most children follow an unwritten code to not like anything green, these two went out of their way to eat nothing but veggies....oh yes, and cheese. They liked cheese..
The other children and most of the adults found their behavior rather strange. And frightening. And off putting. In fact, everyone they came into contact with gave them whatever they wished, just to get away from them.
They did have a rather ghastly appearance; Mordella with her with cloudy corneas. She could see relatively okay but with her pale skin and dark hair, they made those cloudy eyes slightly ghoulish. Her sister, on the other hand, Mordreama, was born double jointed. She amused herself by watching the horrified stares as she twisted and contorted her little body down the street, with Mordella not far behind, of course. They loved and took full advantage of their little anomalies.
There was one more thing...
a slight little strangeness that was a bit unearthly...
they could hide inside of mirrors.
Yes, that's what I said hide inside mirrors. It turned out not to be as much fun as they hoped. There really wasn't much to do on the other side of a mirror. There was nothing there. All one could do was stare back at whomever happened to be looking in at them. It was good for scaring friends and each other but the novelty lost it's charm. It did help them when they wanted something, however.
Silly friends and family. They were scared ****less when dealing with the twins. The priest came over often, praying and exorcising, but since they weren't possessed, nothing ever happened. They were, after all, anomalies and not held captive by demons from the nether world.
They amused themselves while abusing the fear others had of them.
So it was on this day the hungry twins supervised the making of the soup.
It was a soup that would be made thereafter once a year, to celebrate the...
Oh, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself here in our story.....
So, as I was saying the twins watched the cream, poured ever so slowly over the roux, made with flour and butter.
The townsfolk made the creamiest base and slowly added some vegetable stock.
It had to be a very good soup in order to please the little monsters.
They simmered the broccoli until it was bright green and had just a wee little bit of crispness left.
(No one likes mushy broccoli, not even veggie loving twins.)
They then took the soup off the heat and slowly and gently stirred in the just grated cheddar, letting it slowly melt and turning the soup a golden silken pond.
They then filled a deep round hole little by little with the soup. It had been dug very deep and lined and sealed by the those not working on the soup itself.
When a sea of soup replaced an empty hole, the twins jumped greedily in and swam and ate to their hearts content.
They ate and swam and swam and ate.
Their lanky bodies and impish faces grinned with delight.
Eventually all of the soup was gone and at the bottom of the sea lay a mirror...
one the twins had never seen before.
They wondered if this one had anything more than nothing. They quickly jumped to the other side.
Curiosity had gotten the best of them.
As suddenly as they jumped into the mirror, a loud crash sounded.
A great boulder fell from the sky (from a catapult nearby) smashing the mirror.
Silence filled the air.
Then one hand clapped.
Another joined in.
Soon the town celebrated as the twins were no where to be found.
All grabbed some of the misplaced earth, replacing it to the empty soup sea.
All were careful to not look at the bottom of the bowl, just in case.
The soup would then be made on this day every year to celebrate the end of the tyranny, the end of the fear,
the end of Mordella and Mordreama...
From then on, the townsfolk, each and every one, once a year, would gather their own........
1 Large Head Broccoli, chopped, about 3 cups
(including stems, peeled and chopped)
2 Medium Carrots, grated
1/2 Onion, diced
2 Cups Shredded Cheddar
3 Tbsp Butter
3 Tbsp Flour
2 cups Half and Half
3 1/2 cups Chicken Stock
Salt
White Pepper
Red Pepper Flakes
and in their pot soup pots, they would melt butter over medium hear.
They softened their onions and then added an equal amount of flour.
They let the flour taste cook out of the roux for a few minutes.
Very slowly, whisking constantly, they added the half and half.
They carefully and slowly added the stock.
Once all of the stock was in, they added the grated carrots and the chopped broccoli.
A taste and a dash or two of salt, a little white pepper and some red pepper flakes, the soup was ready to simmer.
A cover went over the soup and it simmered ten to fifteen minutes.
The broccoli turned a bright green and had become tender....with just a hint of a crispness that once was there.
Pulling it off of the heat, little by little they stirred and added more cheese.
It was a velvet pool...
and just in case,
no stainless steel pots were ever used.
Once the soup was finished, not one wanted to look in the bottom of the pot to see if more than just their eyes stared back at them.
Yet another year could safely go by...
no unreasonable requests..
no cloudy corneas..
no scaring pedestrians..
no twins...
but some darn good soup.
Perhaps another year was too long to wait before making it again.
(Just as long as there weren't any shiny surfaces.)
One tiny little veggie loving child, feeling he was cheated on his broccoli slowly lifted the pot and peered in. What a strange couple of faces peering back.
And they loved broccoli too!
This was very exciting news indeed!
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