I went from making bad food to needing an MRI in nothing flat. I know this boggles the mind, but it is true nonetheless. It all began innocently enough. I decided that, in light of this ridiculous cold weather, I would make spaghetti. My mom always made the sauce herself, and passed down that rich tradition to me. I have been making it since I was approximately 3 years old. Okay, fine. I was 12. Point is, I have been making this bad boy a long time. It’s even a meal that I consider guaranteed to win my brother’s grudging appreciation - and I usually have to work hard for that because he tends to prefer the "giving little sister a hard time" approach.
So, there I was, driving home from work on a dark, dreary, and cold day, anticipating the deliciousness of a good homecooked meal. I put it all together, let it simmer a bit, then got out a spoon to taste it. It had a "flat affect," if you will. There was no zip, no pop, and my response was far from delight. So I added all the spices again, with a slightly heavier hand, thinking I had simply just gone too light on them all. No change. Still tasted like watered-down, well, water. The recipe does use 1/2 cup of water, but I have always done it that way and never achieved such a, well, disastrous result. I was just thankful no one else had to eat it. I mean, I ate it, and it was dinner, but that’s about all I could credit it with.
I was loathe to just throw it out, because it was a lot of food, and I had anticipated the delicious meal serving as a substitute for my usual paltry peanut butter sandwich at lunchtime. So I dutifully packed it up for the next day, hoping that the spices would have a chance to redeem themselves overnight. As I ate my lunch the next day, the truth stared me in the face. Time did not heal this wound. I had made, quite possibly, the worst meal I’ve ever cooked. So, when my co-worker friend asked me to go to Starbucks with her for coffee, I jumped on the opportunity to find something with flavor (at this point, I’d like to give a shout-out to my friend who gave me her punch card so that I could get a delicious free tall light pumpkin spice frappuccino; it was such a nice surprising gift and I am thankful!), and enjoyed getting outside my windowless office. On the walk, I mentioned that my spaghetti was awful. That’s right, I randomly brought up the meal I cooked the night before, just to lament its horridity (yes, I realize that’s not a word; no, I don’t care). I truly believe she thought she was comforting me when she said maybe my taste buds were just off.
What she didn’t know is that the last time my taste buds were really off, I ended up getting an MRI. You see, apparently the Good Lord decided that even though I was in the 7th grade, wore braces, and had glasses and bad hair, that wasn’t awkward enough for me. He decided half my face should be paralyzed for five weeks so that I could scare small children when I tried to smile at them. This also involved taping my right eye closed at night because, being paralyzed, my eye couldn’t do the job for itself - for some reason, my mother remembers this fondly. I had a condition known as Bell’s palsy. The first time I realized something was wrong, I was at a junior high basketball game getting a Mountain Dew from the concession stand. I took one drink and spit it out, because it tasted like the Mountain Dew had gone bad. Turns out, the MD was still good - it was that half my tongue could no longer taste correctly. That’s right, folks, half my face meant every part of that half, including the tongue. So, to make sure I had no neurological affliction, I ended up having to lie very still while the MRI machine did its work, with "The Old Rugged Cross" stuck on repeat in my head. For more than an hour. To find out that I had no neurological problems - they don’t know what causes Bell’s Palsy.
Oh, and Bell’s Palsy has a pretty good likelihood of recurrence. Just ask Craig Cannon.
Back to present day. In the split second it took for my friend’s words to register, I diagnosed myself with Bell’s palsy, figuring that my time was up for avoiding the recurrence. In making my diagnosis, I completely ignored the generally swift onset and the fact that I had eaten other food that tasted just fine. But really, sometimes these diagnoses don’t wait for logic. I call my mom and try to play it cool by telling her I think I made bad spaghetti, thinking I’ll drop the real bomb on her when I can get her on the phone. In the meantime, I do my reconnaissance work. I googled Bell’s palsy (even though I already knew I had it, given my taste issue), and confirmed that problems with taste occurred. There were other symptoms--that I didn’t have--but really, I told myself that these things can present in different ways with different people. I’m figuring out how I’m going to find a doctor to see me and refer me to a place to get an MRI the next day, and my brain is working 90 to nothing (kind of like that snake Mom "saw" in the carport one night). I even, I admit it, went into the bathroom to see if I could detect the classic half-droop that I knew was imminent - this mostly involved me making faces at myself in the mirror. It wasn’t there, but I just knew it was only a matter of time.
I finally caught up with my mom later that evening. I led with, "Oh, and now I think I have Bell’s palsy," (you know, so I wouldn’t have to drag out the devastating news) to which she kindly responded by laughing. I’m telling you, nurses do not know how to panic about afflictions that aren’t actually present. So we walked through the spaghetti recipe, and talked about how maybe my Wal-Mart extra lean ground beef might have had excess water in it, but I wasn’t convinced. We talked about the tomato sauce, and Mom asked if I bought the "No salt added" kind. I hadn’t consciously, but I my interest was piqued enough to walk over to my trash can to check.
Moral of the story: low/light sodium is great for soy sauce, bad for spaghetti sauce.
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