Sniff Sniff, Cough Cough

And sneeze sneeze sneeze

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Hello Happy Friends!

Your favorite Hometown Tourists have been recently felled by the crud so we’ve been keeping our germs at home and trying not to spread them all over God’s green earth. That’s why we thought we’d share some of our sick day secrets.

We can’t live on [gluten-free] bread alone, so I made some chicken and rice soup sort of like this recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. I did make mine completely from scratch, broth and all, because I feel like you need that good chicken bone stock to cure what ails you. I also loaded the pot up with onions and garlic and celery, which are all anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, and good sources of vitamins, especially C. 

But all that cooking was during a rare burst of energy. Truth be told, we’ve been ordering a good bit of takeout from places with good soups like Saigon Noodle House, The Great Wall (best hot and sour in town!), Masaman Thai Kitchen, and China Moon (best wonton broth!). 

We’ve watched a ton of reruns on TV, especially Modern Family, Friends, The Office, and The Big Bang Theory. But we just haven’t had the headspace for much new content. We did watch Rustin and El Conde, which are great movies, and part of Maestro, which just isn’t. And we’re totally into True Detective: Night Country right now. But sometimes the amount of choices we have is just too overwhelming and it’s easy to sink back into the old familiar shows and drift off to dreamland. 

Aside from some soup, I feel like I’ve been living on Ricola cough drops and Constant Comment tea for about the past week, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. This Vicks Warm Steam Vaporizer has been a Godsend to keep me from coughing all night. I’ve also slathered straight Vicks VapoRub all over my chest and nose too. They say that if you rub Vicks VapoRub on the soles of your feet before bed and put on warm socks, it will cure what ails you. As far as I can tell, though, unless you sleep with your feet by your face, it’s not going to do much except make the insides of your socks greasy. 

There’s also a hot toddy recipe in Chef Steven Satterfield’s cookbook, Root to Leaf: A Southern Chef Cooks Through the Seasons, that’s giving us life right now. It has the basic bourbon, honey, and hot water, but adds orange juice, lemon juice, cloves, and…are you ready for this…Fernet Branca. This is one of my favorite cookbooks and it’s where I learned how to make blackberry shrub for his Black Jack cocktail. The food recipes are great too and the photography is gorgeous. 

As soon as we get back amongst the living, though, we’ll be back out touring around the ‘Ham so you can know what’s cool and what’s not. Until then, here’s to your health!