I don't think it was the standard potion she usually gives you after chores but I've not played this game in a few months since before v0.11 and no idea anymore how it was triggered, sorry.Drinking the potion does nothing for me.
This game is so bugged it's really unfortunate.
You're right though, a chunk of scenes are very difficult and tedious, if not impossible, to trigger. Especially the dev builds, like the last current version on here, are usually rather buggy so your best bet might be waiting for someone to upload v0.12 or the next one, whenever that releases.