If you are seeing a picture of tom kha gai then it is safe to assume that I feel like crap. 

Sometimes you just don't need a recipe to know what your body craves. This is one of those days, because I have a bad cold. One of those I don't want to do anything at all kind of colds.

I have been battling it for 5 days. It started typically enough with a scratchy throat. By the next day I had a stuffy nose, but no fever. In fact if it weren't for the stuffy nose I would have said I felt just fine. I had just about convinced myself that it was not a cold at all, just a mild allergy flair up.

But, alas sometime in the night these sniffles moved into my chest and sat down with a great heavy thud! My chest is so congested that it actually feels as if a great big bear is sitting on it while sticking a long feather down my throat. Tickling away for his own amusement. The tickle leads to a cough, the cough leads to hack and the hack brings up some of the nastiest stuff you'd ever want to see.

I used to think that the only thing for a cold was hot tea and toast. But I have learned there is another sort of relief and I have come to swear by it. If you live in Los Angeles long enough, you find that you shed your old skin and develop all sorts of new habits. The simple, comforting and spicy Thai soup known as Tom kha gai or Tom kha kai is one of those skins you develop. One of those adopted experiences that become completely your own. So now whenever I have a cold, it's this soup and this soup alone that makes me feel better.

God Bless the thriving Thai community in Los Angeles.

Some of us are great cooks. Some of us express ourselves eloquently in words. Still others among us find our muses behind the camera. Then there are those like Jean Pope who step outside these boundries. These are the artists. My summer series continues with heartfelt adventures lived close to home. It comes from Lemons and Anchovies and reminds us that "A work of art is above all an adventure of the mind- Eugene Ionesco". GREG

Even before the last bell of the school year rings, plans will have been set in motion for a summer full of adventure.  Rock climb in Telluride. Check.  Build sand castles on the beaches of Phuket. Check.  Frolic in Paris.  Check.  Sail in the Caribbean? Why not?  Weeks would fly by, home being just a stopping place to regroup, recharge, refresh the suitcase.  Memories would be made, new ones to be added to them the following year.  But these memories are not mine; these were not my childhood summers.

Our friends' children are the fortunate keepers of these memories.  In contrast, my childhood summers were decidedly more simple.  I spent my first decade in the Philippines.  Partly because I was so young and also because there are no photo albums to prove otherwise, I don't remember very many vacations.  Those long ago, hot, humid days were instead spent free from a Catholic school uniform and chasing damselflies around my grandparents' garden.  The weekends (when my cousins came around) were designated for family time at the pool.  One of my great aunts would glide underwater, hands held over her head.  The goal was to get one of the older kids to spot those hands masquerading as dorsal fins so they could yell "Shark! Shark!" Of course, they would scream in mock fear and the little ones would squeal with delight.