thoughtful consumption

For the past couple of days, I’ve been with cold – sneezes, coughing, the works. I’m not sure I had a single cold last year, so I’m out of practice.

If there’s a good part to colds, it’s coming up with new theories of cold-handling while you’re shuffling around all bundled up. A few years ago, I swore by Airborne, the tablet that dissolves in water with lots of herbs to stimulate your immune system.

This year I’m of the mind that stimulating your immune system is like when your boss hires a consultant to help you finish a big project. You don’t need an outsider peddling advice. You need money, manpower, coffee, and pizza. You need tools.

So I decided that my immune system needs only basic tools: fluids, salt, and rest. I’m doing pretty well with the first two.

Fluids are coming almost entirely from lemon verbena tea from Fran. Lemon verbena tea with generous amounts of honey is like a liquid cough drop. Very nice.

Hey, that's a local mug, too, made by Helen Helwig in Carrollton!

Salt comes from ramen noodles. (The extra fluids are a bonus.) Something about hot, salty broth makes me feel better. I dress up regular ramen with a couple of local eggs beaten and then gently stirred in for the last few minutes of simmering.

The results are delicious and fortifying. Of course, if I were awesome, I’d discard the packet and use homemade chicken stock made with local chicken scraps. But I am not awesome and have no stock.

One thing I’m pretty sure of is I caught this cold after consuming entirely too much sugar on Halloween. Lucy sent me home with four iced, sprinkled sugar cookies, and I sat down and ate them all as soon as I got home. First, the rush, then the crash, and a day later, the cold. I don’t think it’s coincidence. Back to good, local produce for me! Or at least only one iced sugar cookie per day.