"Jean B." wrote:
>
>This Thanksgiving was a challenge because I have a lingering cold
>and almost NO sense of taste and smell. Eeeek! This is obviously
>not a good time to try new things, but I did think that these
>problems would be gone by the time I set about to cook.
>
>I guess the first issue was this. I decided to try the make-ahead
>gravy. So, I roasted some wings and then proceeded to make the
>stock. Well, I smelled NO turkey smell as the wings were
>roasting, and the bit that I could smell of the stock just smelled
>odd. I had to ask my daughter to sniff things, and she (who hates
>turkey and tried to avoid it) said she guessed it smelled like
>turkey. I then realized that I couldn't exactly tinker this or
>anything else to perfection! Bah!
>
>That led me to buy backups at Whole Foods--and I had little
>confidence that these things tasted good "as is" either. I had to
>have my guest taste and season things!!!!! Sigh. This experience
>was an interesting challenge at the very least!

An experinced cook doesn't really need to taste. Right now I'm in the
midst of fighting a bronchial infection that attacked me right after
getting my yearly flu shot three weeks ago and am on a heavy dose of
Augmentin because the first course was Cipro that didn't cut it, the
Augmentin is working... there's really nothing to taste while
seasoning a raw turkey. Just remember when cooking for others to go
very light on the salt and hot pepper... people can easily add their
own but they can't remove those.