What I’ve been eating to combat miserable.

I have been absent, in more ways than just ignoring this blog for a while.

Last friday, I graduated from university and in a stunning coincidence, also turned 25.

A lovely evening party with friends at the pub was dotted with dismal food, but lovely company and an earlier disappointed meant substandard sushi, but more on that later. So, my birthday/graduation was a culinary wasteland (bar my birthday cake, but again, more on that later).

All of a sudden, I’m old. My brain isn’t functioning at work, and my body is breaking down. For the first time in years I feel sick, like my whole self has suddenly dismantled.

So what have I been eating to combat miserable?

Mandarins – tiny juicy sweet mandarins with thin skins that have just come into season. Even if they weren’t full of vitamin C the placebo effect would work just as well, I think. We bought kilo’s of these babies, and their larger, airier cousin variety in freezing Beijing, eating them everywhere, internet cafe’s, buses, hotels, in an attempt to stave off infections.

Pomelo – Read all about it

Dry Soups – I don’t know what else to call this comfort food that has been spilling out of my kitchen recently. They’re chock full of vegetables, garlic, grains and flavour, to keep sickness at bay, but they aren’t pretty or planned. One variety was mushroom and risoni, loosened with chicken stock and studded with peas and spinach, the next was Tomato, chorizo and pearl barley. Eating leftover’s at work I was approached, a co-worker was drawn in by the smell, ‘is that risotto?’ taken aback, it was, sort of, I replied. Whatever, these are the food equivalent of a big warm hug, and so much easier than wet soup to cradle in your blanket covered lap and eat in front of the tv, your throat too sore to talk anymore.

Unfortunately, these homemade cures don’t seem to be working. The miserable is seeping in, matching the soggy, gray weather, today.