The cure

Helen of the fishtastic blog Beyond Salmon has given me the opportunity to share my idea of a cold remedy with y'all. In other words, I have been tagged in another of these memes. It is my pleasure to participate.

When I get sick I like to suck on lozenges. These tend to spoil the mouth for all foods but at least they numb a sore throat. Sometimes I do take tea with honey. Chamomile goes well with honey and it was my remedy of choice as a child, but lately it's not exactly my...cup of tea. Now I prefer what a stickler might call "tea" and I have become a bit maniacal about it. I have nothing against rosehip or lemon peel or mint leaves, I'm just not the least bit interested in mixing them with hot water and drinking the brew.

I don't have a cold remedy, actually. When I get a cold I just wait for it to go away. E tries to get me to take Sudafed or cough medicine and I do sometimes go along with that. But only the drugs with codeine really work for a cough and no matter what any of the other memesters might tell you, there is no cure for a cold. When I get a cold I mainly just suffer.

I do have a good hiccup remedy. I seem to get an awful lot of hiccups and they're really noisy. They sound like Foley work in a bad horror film. Anyhow, you fill a tall glass with water and drink it all down in one gulp with a soupspoon pressed between your upper lip and the rim of the glass. Is that clear? You put the spoon across the rim of the glass as you would rest a paddle across the sides of a canoe and as you sip you hold it in place with your upper lip. E says that drinking the water in a single gulp isn't part of the remedy and she should know as she taught it to me--yet another reason that I am forever in her debt--but I say go for broke and drink it down.

Finally, I have a remedy for the winter blues. It's called a Champagne cocktail but you can make it with any sparkling wine. The Catalan Freixenet (which wins the Prada award for Least Informative Website) that comes in those stylish black bottles is a good value. In addition to Champagne or something like it, you will also need a tall flute, a sugar cube, and some bitters. Drop the sugar cube into the bottom of the glass, shake on the bitters, fill with Champagne, and watch your winter blues float off into the cold, foggy dusk.