Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week, we have a sinus infection 😭 Read past posts here, and please follow my Instagram, @fivethingsiate.
Maruchan cup noodles, chicken flavor at home
I’m a person who rarely gets sick, which I have now learned is something you should NEVER SAY OUT LOUD. Because, last Thursday, right before a much-needed long weekend, the Universe decided to gift me with a week-long (and still tailing off) sinus infection smack dab in the middle of the Summer. I yearned so badly to breathe out of my nose and smell coffee again. One of the hard things about being sick and completely congested is that food, one of my daily and most frequent sources of joy, loses almost all of its appeal. It’s kind of crazy, but it turns out that I eat mainly because it’s interesting and fun, not because I have a good sense of how to feed myself. Sick Sophie was perfectly content reaching into the back of the cabinet and eating two styrofoam cups of Maruchan instant ramen for dinner. I housed it down with a lot of sriracha, just to see if I could get myself to breathe again. For a split second, I thought I could smell the chilis.
Sinus rating: 2/10. While it did fulfill my need to sip on a hot liquid, this didn’t really decongest me. Also, it was a mistake to eat two of these.
Easiest chicken noodle soup recipe from NYT Cooking
After my failed instant ramen attempt, I was craving soup so badly that I decided to just completely butcher a recipe I knew was good by cooking it with totally different ingredients. Pro Tip: Don’t do that, folks. I briefly became one of those people who leave deranged comments on the recipes, because I substituted ground turkey for chicken in chicken noodle soup and decided that instead of celery I would use green beans. Spoiler alert: It did not taste very good. The recipe as follows, however, is excellent.
Sinus rating: 1/10. Honestly this worked even less well than the ramen.
Nabeyaki Udon from Local Sushi Joint
Choose your local reliable non-fancy take-out spot.
By day three, I learned my lesson: Congested Sophie should stop cooking and leave it to the pros. I ordered a nabeyaki udon from our favorite local sushi shop whose name I forgot. THe udon soup came with a clear broth with a little bit of chicken, fish cakes, and a side of shrimp tempura. It was excellent and so many levels above my poor attempts at cooking, I almost cried from the relief of not eating my own concoctions.
Sinus rating: 7/10. This, combined with hot sauce, really worked for a brief second! Also, the soup was salty without being overly so which I think helped my body process.
Borscht from Veselka
144 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003
By day seven, I was finally able to breathe through my nose a tiny bit. Not entirely, and not even partially, but if I blew my nose and then tried real hard I could smell my coffee in the morning, which was honestly a huge improvement. I was so excited to be able to enjoy my food again that I decided to live large and order borscht. I would not call borscht a good sick day soup because it’s too lumpy, but I love borscht from Veselka so much I had it anyway.
Sinus rating: 5/10. Absolutely delicious but didn’t help or hurt too much.
Matzoh ball soup from Veselka
144 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003
Finally, we reach the Final Boss of Sick Day Soups: Matzoh ball soup. I feel like Matzoh ball soup is the most ultimate sick day food because it is literally a meal of crackers and soup in one bowl, the top two sick day foods. While it’s not spicy, the broth is the perfect electrolyte mix, and matzoh balls are a delightful way to get some carbs in.
Sinus rating: 10/10. This soup restored my will to live. I wish I could have matzoh ball soup on tap in my kitchen.
XO,
Soph
P.S. What’s your favorite sick day soup?