Monday, December 21, 2009

My two-part cold remedy

Part One: raw garlic. In whatever form and however much you can tolerate, and if your cold is as bad as mine you have probably lost all sense of taste, so that takes care of many issues right there. I had some in a salad this afternoon, and I felt almost instant sinus relief. I had some in my pot roast tonight and I am as decongested as if I had taken one of those commercial cold medicines.

Part Two: Vodka and cranberry juice. However much you are accustomed to drinking. The cranberry juice contains a lot of Vitamin C and other stuff you need, and the vodka takes the edge off the whole cold suffering experience. Okay, I am not sounding very politically correct here, as promoting any use of alcohol, aside from the commercials of major beer distributors, is seen as immoral these days. But humans have a long history with the gift of fermentation, and if it can ease suffering, what can be wrong with that? Why do they put alcohol in NyQuil anyway? Obviously, if you have a bad relationship with the spirits, you should think long and hard about this. But if you're okay with your relationship with alcohol (and I tend to think a lot of us are), having an extra vodka cranberry juice will not hurt anything. You're staying home anyway, right?