Abracadabra Broccoli

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When you live in the countryside, as I do, you ride the feast and famine roller coaster. On grocery days you eat like Henry the Eighth, drumstick in hand, but by day seven you're on the Bobby Sands diet and you can see your toes again.
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It's not easy to supplement the larder as the closest legitimate grocery store to where I live, and by legitimate I mean one that sells winged mini pads and bok choy, is located in Oromocto. I can't just pop out, on a whim, say, when I've got a hankering for a spaghetti squash. Once a week I'd saddle up the horse and make the trek to the Stuporstore, unfailingly filling my cart with six days worth of groceries. Regardless of how much I purchased, we always seemed to run out of food on day seven and I pity anyone who dropped by at dinnertime on condiment Mondays.
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Many years ago, back when the actor playing Harry Potter was a teenager, I managed to use my empty fridge to my advantage. I was cooking supper for my son on what must have been the Monday before fat Tuesday. The cupboards were bare and, if you listened carefully, you could hear the sound of the ketchup trash talking the relish from the dark recesses of my fridge. No one was happy with the culinary state of affairs.
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I don't remember what I made for supper that particular evening, undoubtedly it was served on Melba Toast and somehow involved lemon slices and tea bags. I do remember that there was a belligerent broccoli lurking in the vegetable crisper, so I wrestled its wilted little arms into submission, hacked it to pieces and threw it into a boiling cauldron. I then posed the following, utterly pointless, question to my son:
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"Julian, what would you like for a vegetable for supper?"
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"How about broccoli, dad?"
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Shazam! Within seconds I produced a steaming hot supper for the boy, complete with steaming broccoli. Julian looked at me wide eyed in disbelief...
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"How did you do that, dad?"
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"What?", I queried innocently.
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"How did you know I wanted broccoli?", he asked incredulously.
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Seizing the opportunity, I sat down next to him and in the frankest of dad-to-son tones, I reluctantly told him my little secret.
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"Julian, I didn't want to tell you this....perhaps I shouldn't tell you, but I guess that I have to now...I'm a wizard."
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Julian seemed star struck (my dad is a wizard...cool!).
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To put this in context, you have to understand that these were the heydays of the Harry Potter novels. Julian was young, impressionable and the idea of wand wielding wizards wasn't all that far fetched. I'm sure his big little brain was racing with the possibilities. Dad, can you turn Nathanial Bond into a trout, Chris Welton into a toad and Michael Jackson into a black man?
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I'm a wizard, Julian, not a plastic surgeon.
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After a suitable period of time had elapsed, I believe it was nine years, I confessed to Julian that I wasn't actually a wizard and that the entire broccoli episode was just a happy coincidence. I had to convince him that I wasn't a wizard by mounting a broom and plunging from the roof of my house to the lawn below (note: never have the broom handle pointing up).
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You see, I can't fly a broom. I can't play quidditch.
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It's a good thing that I was able to convince him that I wasn't a wizard. I really wasn't looking forward to turning him into a newt.