My major accomplishment today was to finish drinking an 8 oz. cup of tea. It took me about an hour, slowly sipping and wishing I didn’t have to. With each sip I held my nose so as not to taste this earthy brew of twigs, barks and spices.
I’d been having a hard time waking in the morning, getting out of bed and enthusiastically taking on the day. And once up I had been dragging my butt, barely able to get through the day without taking naps. So my brother invited me to join him on one of his weekly sojourns to Chinatown, to an herbal shop where he sits on a folding chair in the back of the shop, sticks out his tongue, leans over the table and hands his wrist to the 80 something year old doctor, who then determines what concoction of herbs and barks would make the difference in my brother’s well-being. I took my brother up on his offer, took the subway downtown to Canal Street, the Chinatown of New York City, and after having the most delicious, nurturing bowl of hot noodle soup with vegetables at a local Chinese restaurant, we walked over to the herb shop, avoiding all the luscious looking baked goods in the windows on the way. 15 minutes after sticking out my tongue and extending my wrist across the table, the doctor scribbled out a multi-columned prescription made up of mystifying characters and handed it to the herbalist. I watched as she meticulously laid out, one large piece of white butcher paper for each day of the week, and proceeded to pile up strange, fascinating and beautiful dried pieces of bark, seeds, pods, spices, a witch’s brew, all to be steeped and boiled for an hour and a half on a low flame, and then gobbled down before bedtime. On the first night of preparing this brew, I looked into the pot, barely able to approach it, “Bubble, bubble, broil and trouble,” yes, the trouble had begun as my mother approached the kitchen yelling, “What the hell are you cooking in there? Get that out of my kitchen, you’ll have to find another place to make whatever that crazy doctor told you to do. I can’t take it.” Frankly, neither could I but I had to. And so upstairs my boiling pot and I went, to my brother’s who’d been brewing his own prescribed concoction for a couple of weeks, pleading with him to let me use his stove. He had grown used to the aromas by then, felt so much better himself, and wanting to make sure I’d drink the infusion, offered to be my cook for the next six nights, officially becoming my partner in healing!
Just in case you're in town and not feeling up to par:
EWA Trading Co. Inc.
80 Mulberry Street
New York, NY 10013
www.ewatrading.com
212-964-2017
Just in case you're in town and not feeling up to par:
EWA Trading Co. Inc.
80 Mulberry Street
New York, NY 10013
www.ewatrading.com
212-964-2017
