They're coming baaaack ...

After weeks (or possibly months; I'm losing track of time) of everything tasting like beige cardboard, I've started saying things like this:

"Wow, it was a good idea to add a little cumin to the guacamole."

"Did they just throw a KFC spice pack onto this chicken?"

"I love when pork sausage has fennel in it."

Yes, please welcome my brand new baby taste buds to the world.

They're not all the way back yet, though, and sometimes I get fooled. Like the other day when I ordered an iced chai latte at Starbucks, and exclaimed delightedly to The Boy that I could taste sweet things again. He took a sip and winced (this from someone who likes Vietnamese coffee loaded with condensed milk).

"No," he said, "you don't have your sweet buds back yet; this is just an obscenely sweet drink. If you could actually taste it, you'd hate it."

Turns out the iced chai latte has 31 grams of sugar (the recommended daily allowance for women is 25g). A dead elephant would have been able to detect sweetness in that one.

I'm particularly happy that I'm getting my tastes back in summer, when there are so many good things to eat. After a winter of bean and root vegetable soups, and a spring in which I missed out on ramps and fiddleheads and shad roe, it's great to be close to a point where I can enjoy ripe peaches and tart cherries and sweet tomatoes.

The other day, we harvested our strawberries. Okay, it was only one tiny berry; the other 50% of the crop — that is, the only other berry — was nabbed by a bird. But that thumbnail-sized fruit was pretty much the best thing I'd tasted all year.