Treading ginger-ly

As I was tossing and turning last night, wondering why the soporific effects of my pumpkin and ginger soup were not having the required effect, I started thinking about my relationship with ginger. Was I doing her a disservice by saying that ginger and I had a bit of a shaky relationship? As you discovered yesterday, I did overuse her it a bit… but before that … about 20 odd years ago … things were fine between us.

A brief aside: “Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels”. (Faith Whittlesey)

Anyway, as I was saying – I was a volunteer teacher in China and that was where I got my first real introduction to ginger. Fragrant slices of ginger in the food, slices of gingery spice giving a zing to fish and vegetables. Hot ginger sticky sweets that stuck to the teeth. My prelude to our love duet.

Our relationship became a close one during the cold, damp months of winter when the temperature sank to nearly zero outside, and with it, the inside temperature could barely struggle up to 10 C.

That was the time when you had to dress warmly before getting into bed, sliding into wringing wet sheets because of the damp, clinging onto numerous hot water bottles for warmth and comfort.

That was the time of colds and snuffles and sneezes; the time everyone made ginger tea. We cut up huge slices of fresh ginger and boiled them up with masses and masses of sliced garlic. After boiling for 15 minutes, we strained the tea water, added a dash of honey and drank the liquid. It was strong, powerful – and brought tears to the eyes and colds to their knees.

How grateful I was to ginger back then!

I urge you to try it out: if nothing else, it should keep the vampires away at this time of year….