Healthy's Last Stand.

Sunday, after returning to Denver from a turnaround flight to Los Angeles, was the first time I felt it in a year and a half.  Garden Variety Sick.

A battle was launched against this unidentified bug.  Monday, I ate a hearty, nourishing Navajo stew from Julia Blackbird's in Denver for lunch.  It is the chicken soup for those who grew up in the southwest.  I took an epsom salt bath Monday night.  I took an epsom salt bath Tuesday night.  I have pounded Emergen-C and water the whole time and cut down on irritants to the system like coffee.

Yet today, I came home from work early and sick, and after a three-hour mid-day nap, I felt worse.  And so began my final efforts against the bug.

I made a salad.

Here's the key to what I'm calling the Last Stand Salad; the environment has to be in place such that you already have these ingredients in your fridge.  I am lucky to have been moved by something I heard someone say in an interview I was working on last week; "Food is either medicine or poison."  That mantra has stuck with me since writing that piece, so it created a motivation to clean out the fridge of takeout leftovers and replace with living grownup food.  I imagine rabbit heaven to be filled with unattended packages of succulent, ripe fruits and raw nuts lying on beds of tender, leafy greens.  That scenario also currently describes the contents of my fridge.

Last Stand Salad

Ingredients:
Green leaf lettuce
Arugula, mildly anti-inflammatory, like Supreme court justices, vities
Pomegranite, anti-oxidants, nutrients for the soul.  As kids, my sister and I would steal them off Mr. Lane's coveted trees and eat the spoils with our crimson-stained hands. Every meal should have a nutrient for the soul. And, no man should have bushels of unshared pomegranites.
Almonds, good fat, aminos
Avocado, the butter of the vegetable world. Every meal should also have butter, in the world according to me.
Aged cheddar, calcium, tasty
Apple, fiber and vities
Cracked black pepper, because I can still taste even though I can't smell
Squeeze of lemon juice, alkalizing, detoxifying
Whole Foods vinaigrette dressing (I'm sick.  I'm not going to make a dressing on the fly.)

Method:
Chop, toss, eat.

This accidental salad reminds me of another mantra an old friend keeps about making awesome salads: an interesting and tasty salad should contain at least one each a fruit, nut, cheese and vegetable. This, my fruitnutcheeseveg salad, various mantras, and the liter of water sitting bedside is my last and best stand against this bug.  I've done everything but throw up the white flag, but then, sometimes there is even an appropriate time to do that.