Good morning John.

So probably in part because I take a medicine to control an autoimmune disease, I got a special kind of COVID that goes away and then it comes back again.

It's a bit of a struggle that has me looking for the bright side of things.

And I did finally lose my sense of smell/taste.

You don't actually lose your taste.

You've got your sour, bitter, sweet, salty, umami. You keep those. But you lose all the complexity of the nose.

You get five tastes, but you get tens of thousands of smells.

It's amazing, and for whatever reason, it's stopped working in me.

This has made me curious, because I like most foods but there's some foods that I literally just, taste like poison to me.

And I wonder if without the smell component of taste, which is a big part of taste, will I still dislike them?

Things I dislike tend to be vinegary, and vinegar is very sour. So my guess is if I eat something vinegary, I'm gonna still hate it.

But you never know! *pops open pickle jar*

I've never enjoyed a pickle, so let's see what happens.

That's very bad.

There's a lot of bitterness! 

I'm sitting here though, and now I kind of want more of it...?

Ooh, no.

I also, like all rational people, don't understand why people have black licorice.

So let's crack that open as well!

It says, "Really delicious!" right on the label.

That's a big hunk.

Oh, absolutely fantastic!

I hate black licorice. This is GREAT!

There's the sweet, of course there's sweet.

And then there's a nice mix of the bitter sour that's doing a great job of complimenting the sweetness.

Wow! That's great!

Oh my gosh, it's really delicious!

If my sense of smell never comes back, I will take everybody's black licorice everything. That's good.

Alright, I'm also not a fan of blue cheese. 

So in order to make sure I'm doing the Lord's work here, let's get a big

like, way more than I would ever eat, even of a normal cheese.

Oooooh! That's good!

Shockingly sweet, very salty.

Wow, that's good.

*Very long yell of appreciation* Blue cheese is great when you can't smell!

I would have never thought it would be sweet.

I'm gonna eat all of that. I'm gonna get some crackers.

My guess is that I'm still not gonna like anchovies just like how I didn't like pickles

because they're basically like pickles but fish instead of cucumbers.

But, you never know!

3, 2, 1...

Oh, god, ugh! *Extremely long yell of disgust*

There's no water in here, oh my god.

I'm a spit machine right now.

That's clearly an ingredient. It's not a thing you eat on it's own.

In that package of anchovies, there's 74% of your daily salt.

That's not, that's not a good food.

Alright, now for the moment of truth. 

There's a lot left in my bag here, but all of it is olives.

We're gonna start off with black olives. I don't know which olives are more olive-y.

Who knows? Maybe they're good without smell.

This is an olive.

Well, it's not vinegary at all, just salty.

That's good. If that's what an olive tasted like, I would eat all of them.

Salty, it's got a little bit of something? Like a, like a richness.

Maybe it's just a fatty flavour. It's quite nice. The salt is a little much.

That's a good experience. I figured I was gonna hate that, honestly.

And to finish this off, I believe designed specifically for people who do not have a sense of taste,

It's blue cheese stuffed green olives.

I'm gonna make a prediction. I'm gonna say these are gonna be too salty.

Why do I keep smelling things? Anyway,

Argh, very salty. 

But, the cheese brings a lot of sweetness and sourness to it, and that's great. That's great!

That's good.

It's a good texture. The cheese is a really nice texture too.

There is something there that I feel like I'm getting in my smell zone that is not olive flavour,

it's like a rich nutty feeling. That's delish.

If you like the flavour of olives, olives would be great but unfortunately for me,

when I can actually taste them, they taste like poison.

John, thanks for hanging out as I search for some bright side and it is this!

I got to eat olives without hating them.

And black licorice too! That was my favourite part.

Because honestly, not a lot of bright sides to this. Almost as if COVID really sucks.

Obviously feeling a bit better now, but main thing from my experience:

rest, lay down, no pressure, convalesce. That's what I've mostly been doing.

John, I'll see you on Tuesday.