After the Christmas Dinner

Whenever we host a big family dinner, we cook much more food than the group can consume. There are leftovers for our house and for the batchelor/s at the gathering to take home. It’s best to put them in glass or ceramic containers, not plastic boxers. There’s no such thing as good plastic. They all leach toxins into the food, especially if said food is acidic. We save empty glass jars for that purpose. When refrigerating food we leave at least half an inch for the expansion that occurs as food chills.

Somebody in the group will be coughing. Nobody wants to miss one of the most festive family events of the year, colds or no colds. The solution to that problem was given to us in Crete the sabbatical year when my husband and two sons lived there. Two old gentlemen we encountered while exploring Crete’s hills gave us a bouquet of the wild sage and thyme that grew all around them.

“Drink  cup of sage tea every day and you’ll never catch a cold,” they told us. “If you ever feel like you’re coming down with a cold, just walk up the mountain to the nearest  thyme plant. Eat a few leaves. That will head off the cold.”
All that winter, we followed their advice, and none of us caught a cold. The temperature in December got down to 50 F. and our tile-floored concrete villa had no heating source except the cook stove in the kitchen. We sipped hot café Greco all day, and went to market and bought two space heaters, one for the kitchen where the boys and I hung out and one for the living room where John L. entertained himself playing solitaire. Even with the heaters and hot coffee, we wore jackets in the house. It must have been too cold for germs to survive.

The Cretans never caught colds either. At least we never a sniffle or a cough from any of them. They mostly spent their time in their kitchens, too. But now we’re back in America. In the decades that past, we sort of forgot the Cretan grandfathers’ advice though we passed it on to daughters Suzanna and Jeannie. Suzanna has combined that sage tea with my Magic Potion, and added ginger for digestion. Here is her recipe:
Suzanna Leigh’s Magic Cold Preventer and Remedy

1 cinnamon stick
1 garlic clove, sliced or minced
3 or 4 slices ginger root
1 Tablespoon of fresh sage leaves, slivered, or 1 teaspoon dried crumbled sage
1 cup water that has boiled and been allowed to simmer down

Let the solution cool a little, then transfer it to a glass jar. Put a lid on it. It will keep for a long time without refrigeration, especially if you leave the cinnamon in it.

My own method for making this remedy is to actually simmer cinnamon and cloves, omitting garlic, and using 1 1/2 cups water. Let it simmer until about a third of the water has evaporated and the water is very brown. This becomes a stock that can be added to tea or hot lemonade.