This soup is brought to you by technology, love, and the letter D.

 Made with love. And edamame. 

If that doesn't cure you, what will?

As happens from time to time, I was struck by an illnes last week, and no amount of anything seemed to be getting it to move. No, this is was not any simple summer cold. Those are awful but go away. This wasn't even my standard "oh, fine, I'll work out more" seasonal cough - that involves no actual working out, save for the fact that a few days into it my lungs usually are sore and it hurts my entire torso to cough. This was something else entirely.

This was a cough that was as bad as the one described, but somehow even worse. This was a fever - a really soaring high fever, at that, up and down and off and on. Chills, of the variety that made me look psychotic in a sweater in Chicago in July, and being dizzy and oh, the endless coughing and oh, the frightening fever. It made me take my first sick day since I started this job over a year a go. And I've been sick, people. I went went blind once (it's a long story) and opened that store on time and stayed there all day. I was on time this time too, but I had been arranging someone to come take my shift before I even made it in.

And as I was working a double, with interns, this was pretty much a huge favor. So I missed a day of work, then I missed two days of work, then I had two days off planned anyway but I spent them dying in my apartment. With my cat and my netflix and, sometimes, my roommate. Who made me this soup.

He was starting to get sick, also. And Kelly was texting me that she wished she were here to make me soup when Matt (also via text, from work) asked me if I wanted soup. She relayed to him a soup recipe and he made some additions or changes and lo! A Ginger Chicken Udon soup was served to me. We watched something on Netflix. I tried not to die.

This soup is delicious. I'm not sure how he did it. I'll have to ask. But it's delicious. It features heavily on the ginger root, all diced and steamed and cooked up with some steamed chicken and veg (including cress!) and a delicious broth. Spicy! Awesome. With lazy fat udon noodles from a packet I'd almost forgotten about in the fridge, comforting and invigorating and soothing.

A rough list of ingredients:

- chicken broth
- chicken, steamed
- edamame
- udon noodles
- bell pepper
- diced ginger root
- garlic
- carrot

It didn't herald the end of my sickness, but it certainly brought an evening of comfort and my fever even dropped down to Not Making Me Contemplate the ER levels, which was really the second major thing I wanted. I even coughed less!

That could be due to many factors. Namely, my super awesome Love You Lots So Don't Die Soup.

YEARS AGO, MORE THAN TWO

but god do i love this picture

Thanks, guys. You've always got my back.

Dentistry and Matt's Mashed Potatoes

This is me and one of my roomates, Matt.
We're in roommate-friend-love with each other.
And while he cooks sometimes, it is his most recent cookery that gets his snap put in here.
Also, this is a picture from months and months ago. Just saying.
We'd look just as happy, though, actually. If not more?

Monday, I had a wisdom tooth removed. It wasn't planned (I thought I was getting a consultation, not an extraction, blargh) and so, I hadn't had a chance to go soft-food shopping, let alone warn my roommates (the cast is currently at three and they are best friends of mine so, you know, we're all winners in this apartment). I'd like to take this moment to give a big shout out to Damen North Dental Clinic* for having the nicest dentist I've ever met in my life and also for clueing me in to Careington discount people because, seriously, I can't imagine having had to pay for this.

*If you live in Chicago and have questions about dentists and want to ask me about Damen North, feel free to ask away. As a non-insured, generally broke person with anxiety - I know a few things about a few doctors. This is one of them.

Anyway.

The consultation ended with my tooth and I being parted from each other and it took a wee bit of time. Still, it couldn't be helped so I sucked it up and said all systems were go and by the time I'd been to Target to get my prescriptions filled (bless them and their as-low-as-four dollar generics) and gotten back home, I was actually crying from pain. This was after I'd been numbed to oblivion and had been treated exceptionally well, it was just really painful because it had been a rough time and, well, my shots had worn off before I'd gotten home to take my pain killer.

This is where my roommates found me crying in my room, a little, wonky on pills and exhausted and waiting for the pain killing part to kick in.

Matt responded to my limitations and went to the store and when he came home he had things for mashed potatoes, baked/stewed/sauced apples, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The latter being more for he and our other boy-roommate (we're evenly divided, here at the halfway house of ill repute) but I was certainly part of it as I'd mentioned it as something I wanted for a day we'd already planned on involving the triology and a billion hours of projector time. (Return of the Martin Luther King Day, anyone?)

Well. For the past three days, I've largely been living off of his garlicky cheesey mashed potatoes. The other boy-roommate made a thick applesauce and I ended up making a thin custardy sauce last night for ultra-baked apples. Also, tonight featured only chocolate all-natural pudding from Jewel, which was the only pudding without any corn products I found tonight and oh, lordy, was I happy to find it.

From what my vicodined self observed, Matt's taters go a little something like this...

Matt's You Poor Broken Thing Potatoes (more or less)
- five poatoes, washed (peeled if you desire)
- butter
- half-and-half
- five cloves of garlic
- shredded Italian cheese
- two triangles of Laughing Cow cheese
- one egg
- garlic salt, pepper, salt

Water in a pot, with garlic salt added. Once boiling, chuck in potatoes and garlic cloves. When the potatoes are mashable drain and mash up with butter and half-and-half, to desired richness/texture. If, say, someone has a tooth taken out and can't chew for shit and are not that into the idea of opening their mouth - blend 'til smooth. Add cheeses and egg and seasoning and mash up more, over heat, until you are sure that no one will be poisoned.

Serve to the infirm. Watch as they enjoy it for the next few days. Feel good.

And that, my darling readers, is what friendship is.