I write a humor blog over here at Fathead Follies. It’s not a health and wellness or a cooking site. However it’s flu season at the Fathead household and this past month has been particularly festive if you love misery. For some reason, this time around I’ve been the sickest of the bunch and the resulting delirium has spurred a temporary departure from my usual format. And apparently reality in general, which might explain why in the past week I’ve:
- Earnestly planned a dinner party for myself, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler and Zooey Deschanel without a hint of irony.
- Let Hubs cook a week’s worth of fiberless, vegetable-free meals for the kids without a thought about nutrition, constipation or the impressive stove splatters. Seriously our kitchen looks like a Jackson Pollock painting.
- Gone through a giant bottle of NyQuil in a week…end. Don’t worry I staged an intervention for myself and I’m now NyQuil free, which is for the best. NyQuil isn’t organic. Nor does it contain any whole grains or fruit, despite the appetizing picture of cherries on the bottle. It should be avoided except in emergencies. Much like cheap chocolate.
By the way, it’s my contention that purgatory is gripping the sides of your commode while your four-year old stands in the bathroom doorway playing the theme song from Thomas the Tank Engine on loop like some sort of demented John Cusack in a preschool version of Say Anything.
If only Peter Gabriel had written the Thomas theme song.
Anyway, I decided to make my own homeopathic cold remedy using only the healthiest ingredients. I call it…
A Mojito.
Here are my instructions:
Boil two cups of organic sugar and two cups of water from one of those crazy filtered water stores.
Sure you could use tap water but we Californians don’t feel comfortable unless we’ve paid a premium price for our water and dispensed it from a bottle. Also, I’m fairly sure the raccoons have been poisoning our water supply and the kids really enjoy riding the cart at the water store. If you’re going to spend the evening whacked out on my home remedy, the least you can do is bring them some joy with a water cart ride first.
Boil your premium filtered water and organic sugar for one minute. DO NOT walk away from the stove. Otherwise you’ll lie down, forget you’re boiling something and ruin another pan.
Remove from heat. Be careful not to spill it on yourself. Boiling sugar burns like molten lava and you don’t want to be spotted running out of your house screaming like Richard Pryor after a crack fire.
Sugar and cocaine are remarkably similar at high temperatures.
Pour your simple syrup over the zest of two limes and 1/2 cup of mint leaves. Be sure to use organic limes and mint grown by vegans and sold in a local farmer’s market. You’ll feel better about yourself. Steep for 30 minutes. Strain your simple syrup and chill it in an energy star refrigerator.
Now eat the solids because not only does it taste like the best minty lime candy ever, you’ve just gotten a dose of fiber and prevented scurvy. And we all know that scurvy leads to a peg leg.
Now take some lime wedges and a half cup more mint and muddle them with feeling in the bottom of a pitcher. Add crushed ice, a half cup of lime juice, one cup of your lime/mint simple syrup and a half liter of rum. The rum doesn’t have to be organic because the distillation process kills pesticides…I’m pretty sure.
Note: feel free to use any color rum you like. I firmly believe that a rum should be judged by the content of its character.
Serve your remedy in a glass with more crushed ice, soda water (the extra expensive brand purchased at your local Whole Foods allegedly uses carbonation obtained from the intestinal gas of woodland fairies) and my secret ingredient: Antihistamine.
One glass of this and you’ll forget you’re feeling bad. As an added bonus, the antihistamine will prevent you from leaving a pool of snot on your floor when you face plant on the way to your bathroom.
I’m not sure which is more disturbing: that I had my 4-year-old take this picture or that my linoleum looks that bad.
Author’s note: This was written two weeks ago. I’ve since come down with another flu virus. This cannot be attributed to the Mojitos, however, so drink up.
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Photo Credits:
The Guardian
Answers.com
Conor
Fathead Follies 
Not only is every sentence funny, but you’ve written down your yummy Mojito recipe for me to copy (though when I had it we skipped the antihistamine). It should also generally be noted that everyone’s linoleum looks bad.
You might have a point. I keep hoping that under the right light our linoleum will look better but I haven’t found the right light.
1) I’m totally crashing your dinner party with Tina, Amy and Zooey; I’ll bring the rum for the mojitos. And, of course, 2) feel better soon! No one should have to spend more than one night passed out on the linoleum. Okay, maybe two… But that’s it!
Especially not on the linoleum right in front of the refrigerator–that’s just asking for a head injury.
You are more than welcome at the dinner party with my imaginary friends.
I like that Conor took this picture. It’s innovative and bold to think of treating flu with a signature mojito.
Conor and I had a good ole time taking turns having our pictures taken “passed out” on the kitchen floor. I’m a wonderful mother.
You seem to have been having horrible luck in the virus department this winter. So sorry to hear you’re sick yet again. Come next year, you ought to have the immune system of a Greek God, and if not, then you’ve been horribly cheated! Hope you get better soon.
Next year at least the kids will be in the same school so we should only have one source for viruses…at least that is my theory. That might be just the Mojito talking.
Who wouldnt want a dinner party with Zooey Deschanel, real or imaginary! And it is true…my leno is just as bad…if not worse! LOVELY 70’s redo in our house. Sparkle counters and all….count yourself lucky sister…except for the whole sick AGAIN thing! Ugh…
I remember the sparkle counters well. Oh the 70s, such a marvelously tacky time for kitchen decor. At least I don’t have a mustard colored refrigerator.
*I* have the mustard colored master bath *AND* an avocado guest bath. (And it’s not the succulent avocado at the peak of ripeness, but instead the darker hue just before it turns brown and then black.) Once flooring is restored to the dining room and kitchen, the bathrooms are next.
As usual, thanks for the laughs.
Well in the meantime if Boogie Nights makes a sequel they can film in your house!
While this post did make me laugh — I’m hoping you recuperate soon.
Thank you! I’m working on it.
Uhg! Rough winter, health wise. We had that last year and this year we’ve been golden. That means NEXT winter you should plan the most awesome trip around the world EVER! 🙂 Be well soon!!!
That’s my theory too!. However next year I’m going to wrap the kids in Clorox wipes anyway…organic Clorox wipes.
Hey… even this crazy hippie recognizes the beauty of a good bleaching now and then. Tonight my daughter sat in Ash Wednesday church, in the row in front of me, with all her little girl friends. The girls on either side of her coughed through the whole service. I dipped her in Lysol when we got home!
Amen! I try not to overdo it with antibacterial stuff, but sometimes I get desperate and a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do.
Favorite line amidst a bevy of favorite one-liners:
“However it’s flu season at the Fathead household and this past month has been particularly festive if you love misery.”
OMG that was seriously the funniest thing I’ve read in awhile and I pride myself on wasting a lot of time reading humor.
I hope round #2 isn’t as bad as your first bout, otherwise your next post will be written from a safe place with white walls and a bed pan.
xoxo
I think this round has been downgraded to a head cold. I’m fairly sure I’ll survive. In fact tomorrow my drippy nose and I get to make sundaes for a class full of 3rd graders so things are looking up.
Oh good. Mucus will add a creamy texture to the chocolate syrup. Yum! =p
They did ask for marshmallow creme, so there you go.
You, my dearest, are a completely delightful nutball. You have no idea how boring my life would be without your fantasy (yes, that was auto correct, and I rolled with it) wit! I could give you my homeopathic remedy, but It’s not nearly as tasty as yours. It does involve tequila, cayenne, honey, lemon and tea. And if you make it back to the couch quick enough, you don’t face plant! Feel better soon! Smooches. (you only get a smooch, cuz I’m too far away to get your cooties). What can I say, I work in a hospital.
I don’t know, your remedy sounds worth trying. In fact I’m pretty sure that if I had enough of it I really would be writing some fantasy wit. Why don’t you come down here and give me a professional nasal lavage and mammogram?
Mammogram, I can do! But I refuse to have anything to do with your nasal passages, unless you need CPR! And as for coming down there…..I’m working on it. Have patience.
What’s patience?
The mojito is an interesting twist on the remedy. My old standby is a hot whiskey (http://kitchenslattern.com/2011/10/04/what-ails-you-nothing-a-little-hot-whiskey-won’t-cure/), though perhaps that’s more of a cold climate cure. The mojito could be perfect for that pesky summer cold, so thanks for sharing.
Actually, it’s been cold here so the hot whiskey would be a good move. With flu remedies like this I’m going to have a hell of a winter.
Oh my word, the flu was never so hilarious, especially for me reading about it while I don’t have the flu! That sentence might need a little work, but you get the idea. I hope you are finally feeling better. Sweet Geezus, you are in the running for the most miserable winter ever, and this is coming from the girl that had her leg cut up and put back together.
When they give me a drain for my sinuses I might be in the running…come to think of it, that might be just what I need. We’ve had worse, believe it or not, so I can’t whine too loud.
A NyQuil mojito is the cure for what ails ya.
And, as my father would have said, it’ll grow hair on your chest.