A couple of years ago, I nearly died due to a nasty bout with pneumonia.
When I was in the hospital, my normally long, beautiful tresses of raven-hued Native American hair got all mussed up in a tangled mess of rat king proportions. Unable to comb any of it out, I went in for my first haircut in a year or so. As I slithered into the barber’s chair and began my typical hairstylist rapport, the Vietnamese hairdresser began telling me all her secrets to never getting sick, from rubbing ginger slices on the tongue to kill germs to a special licorice root tea that helps open up the respiratory canals.
But, she told me in a hushed tone as her scissors whittled away lock after lock, that the number one remedy to not only get rid of a cold but to stave future ones off as well was to eat phő and plenty of it. Forget chicken noodle soup. Forget menudo. Forget whatever secret recipe your gran-gran’s got boiling in the stock pot. This trained beautician confided in me that the sure-fire cure-all is phő, at least two extra-large bowls a week, loaded to the brim with sprouts, basil and plenty of those capsaicin-filled peppers.