I baked bread again after losing my sense of smell

Dear Delyara, After an infection took my sense of smell, cooking became frustrating and grief-filled. I stopped baking because bread without aroma felt like watching a silent film of something I once loved. A friend encouraged me to focus on texture, temperature, and sound instead. I began again slowly. I learned to judge fermentation by touch, crust by color, and doneness by the hollow sound beneath a loaf. Today, I baked sourdough with my granddaughter. She handled the smelling for both of us and kept giving dramatic reports: “Now it smells like socks. Now it smells good. Now it smells like Grandma’s kitchen.” When the loaf came out, I could not smell it. I could feel the crust crack beneath my fingers and hear my granddaughter tear into it before it cooled. I still miss aroma painfully. Baking has not restored that sense. It has returned a hobby by allowing me to stop demanding that pleasure arrive through the same door it used before.