I have a 94 year old grandmother…She’s the first born of 13 siblings and has outlasted all but one, the youngest. If you asked me what her secret is, I could speculate for five or six paragraphs as to what keeps her going, but for the purpose of this blog, I won’t (maybe some other time).

The reason I bring her up is that as a small child (2-4), she was my caregiver during the day as my mother was at work. Like all kids I would come down with the flu once in a while (unlike kids these days who are in daycare who seem to play tag with the flu). Anyway, yesterday I came down with one, and I hate being sick, so I immediately look for ways to shorten the span of my nasal drip and sneezing through natural methods of course (off the counter cold remedies are all Avoids in my book).

Now my grandmother was not a champion of chicken soup when her little bambinos were sick…

in her book, chicken soup took to long to make. She had another concoction that was very easy to make in no time at all and very effective and tasty to boot. I call it to this day…”Nona’s Pastina” and here’s how you make it.

INGREDIANTS: serves one to two

24 oz of water

2 or 3 cloves of garlic

Large Handful of fresh parsley

I tablespoon of Olive Oil

Sea salt

1 serving of Rice Spaghetti or small spelt noodles or basmati rice (all neutrals)

Pour the water into a medium pot and as it’s heating up to a boil, start chopping up two to

three cloves of garlic into fine pieces (you can crush it as well). Once the water looks like it’s about

to boil, put the garlic in the water along with the olive oil. Let it go for a few minutes. Meanwhile start chopping up some fresh parsley (not dried) and when you have chopped up a nice large handful, place that in the pot as well. Add the sea salt…I usually use a ¼ teaspoon but you can always add less depending on your tastes. Once the whole thing has boiled well for 5 minutes, put it on low heat and start cooking your Spaghetti, spelt noodles or rice(cook as directed). If you use the spaghetti, what I usually do is break it up into 2 inch pieces and then place it into the boiling water. Once this is cooked, usually 7 to 10 minutes, add it to your soup and let it stand for a few minutes before serving. That was pretty easy and fast…right? I hope you like it (I’m sure you will write me with comments).

Now…. the question is why does it work for colds. All I know is that three large bowls of this last night relieved my congestion and put me into a nice cozy stupor which made it easier for me to sleep. This morning, I could breath again and I might have reached for a tissue today maybe a half dozen times…not bad considering it’s the second day of my flu. Well here’s what I found out about the two main ingredients, garlic and parsley…they’re herbs of course…and herbs were the first real medicines.

Parsley…the stuff restaurants usually garnish your plate with…is packed full of Phytochemicals

(too many to name here, all you need to know is they’re all good for you). Nutrients: Calcium, folate, magnesium, manganese, phosphorous, potassium, selenium and zinc (both help to build up immunity), vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, C (contains more vitamin C than oranges by weight). It’s BENEFICIAL

for all blood groups.

Garlic…it so happens that it has pretty much the same nutrients as Parsley, so it has the same immune enhancing qualities (zinc, selenium, vitamin C) as listed above. It also is Beneficial for A’s and AB’s and neutral for the rest. It detoxifies the body and protects against infection by enhancing immune function. Garlic also contains many sulfur compounds, which give it its healing properties.

So there you have it. If the garlic in the recipe has you second-guessing, because you might think it gives you garlic breath after eating it, than that’s your loss. That’s the great thing about garlic…while it’s healing you inside, it’s keeping other people around you away, so you don’t spread whats ailing you. Grandmothers are so wise!