Call me an armchair general, but I really am enjoying this year's flu. Maybe it has something to do with missing three straight days of work right after Thanksgiving. Maybe I was one of the lucky ones who got to be healthy through the four day weekend of Thanksgiving, then miraculously catch the flu the following Monday morning, and get the flu only where it's bad enough you have to take cold medicine but not so bad you can't enjoy your own suffering. Of course there's been flu food posted within the hallowed halls of slashfood already this season, but I thought I'd present a wrap up of the best folk remedies as A) overheard at the East Village's "Flower Power" herb store while I quietly helped my hottie friend Dana stock up on passionflower last weekend and B) told to me over the phone by garlic advocate Heidi Ferrell, and C) what I already know from years of sickliness.

Of course one of the keys to calling in sick to work if you are a faker from your high school days is that you have to sound a lot worse than you feel, otherwise you might not be able to cancel your scheduled engagements so easily. Thus I don't necessarily want to stop the symptoms of sneezing and coughing up phlegm, rather I want it to be less constant, more violent and loud, like a SWAT team raid. Sudden expectoration is the key. Therefore the good herbal tea to drink will always have ginger in it. It's a heat generator, as is cinnamon and nutmeg, both of which are fine additions to any flu remedy.

The reason ginger's heating ability is so vital is the same reason you get a fever/raised temperature when sick, is that body heat is nature's way of trying to kill intruders, to boil and steam them out of their holes. Imagine your sick body is the walls of a high school being held by masked gunman (the flu virus). The FBI surrounding the building is your immune defense system. The tear gas and high pitched non-lethal weapons are the sneezing and coughing, and the flame throwing tanks are the body temperature raising. Yeah, that's kind of a harsh and extreme example. Maybe the FBI went too far in flame throwing that high school? Don't even get me started on that one. But you get the idea. Well, ginger tea then becomes the equivalent of pulling the fire alarms and running and hiding in a tree laughing while the cultists come running out and are swept up into the helpful hands of the down presser man.

Heidi swears by garlic. This winter we got our flus at the same time (like puppies) but hers was dead after two days thanks to eating a whole, raw sprig of garlic. This is something I, in my infinite gastric antipathy, refuse to do. It's because I like to feel sexy, even when I'm sick as a dog. You just can't feel sexy with garlic reeking out of every pore and orifice, at least I can't. Heidi is 17 and supersexy, she can eat a truckload of garlic and pull it off. Not me. But I do know that it works, because when I was 17 I did it all the time.

The lore of vampires talks about how garlic is a repellant to blood drinkers, and that sprigs of it should be kept around the bed at night. Note that if they actually made Mina Harker or Lucy (from the original Dracula novel by Bram Stoker) eat some garlic before going to bed instead of just hanging it around the bedpost where any hypnotized maid could reach it, Dracula wouldn't have been able to get anywhere near them. Those literal-minded Brits. I suppose if they read that "an apple a day keeps the doctor away" they would figure one just mails apples to their doctor as a bribe.

The way garlic works is as a selective antibiotic; it crawls along the walls of your cells, killing the stuff that shouldn't be there, and leaving the rest alone. It knows which is which, it tastes the difference. The kind of uber-antibiotics that apple-fed doctor prescribes you on the other hand, is like an a-bomb, killing friend and foe alike. That's why you feel weak when you take them and why good doctors are always hesitant to hand out prescriptions unless necessary. A prescribed antibiotic is the medical equivalent of U.S. military involvement in another country. If the army stays in your body/country too long, it becomes hard to keep the peace without them, and even the locals who welcomed the soldiers suddenly get the urge to toss a molotov cocktail or too.

Pretty soon the antibiotics need reinforcements from outside, and your own weakened inner defenses wind up idling around on the sidelines or killed in car bombings. Garlic on the other hand is more like sending in a black op elite commando force that works closely with the established police force already in command, and then vanishes into the night the moment their work is done.

Another herbal weapon in the flu war is an herb called Elderberry. Poison-spiked elderberry wine is what the two nice old aunts killed their homeless visitors with in Arsenic and Old Lace, and that's fitting, because Elderberry works to curb the problem of the flu by preventing flu cells from replicating. Flu cells can't reproduce on their own, they have to steal human DNA out of cells to breed with (like The Clonus Horror), and they do this by cracking open the skin of our cells as if they were safes, via cell-wall dissolving acid (neuraminidase) and spikes (hemagglutinin). The Elderberry basically acts like The Shadow from the old radio shows. Those dastardly flu molecules, desperate to reproduce, are hammering away at the cell walls to gain access to the tools of their cloning operation. Suddenly the Elderberry has stolen their vial of acid and their chiseling spikes. "Whose there?" they should into the darkness, but all they hear is the ghostly laughter of the Elderberry as it vanishes into the night in search of other marauders. Elder is available in teas and at herb stores like Flower Power in the East Village.

Next week, we'll look at other key herbs for flu fighting and feeling good: Lemon Balm, hyssop, coltsfoot, and even… oat straw! Just remember, whatever you make your tea with, add lots of honey and lemon. And watch lots of comedy movies, because laughter produces white blood cells, and so, incidentally, does orgasms.