Funny you’d mention about vanilla and basil… after I wrote it, I thought, Yeah, I’m sure someone could make something decent out of all that actually. I remember specifically thinking that. Perhaps they do/can go together… mine certainly didn’t, perhaps because I added everything in roughly equal amounts.

But yes, I like what you said about creating something sour or bitter or poisonous. That’s exactly it. We try to add all this stuff that individually might be fantastic but combined in a certain way is dangerous.

It’s the classic case of trying to be right instead of being righteous. Or trying to be a caring person instead of just caring.

And one of the best ways to transition into serving something pleasant and wonderful is to ask up front what people want. I’ve found that most often people don’t really know what they want or at least can’t put it into words, but simply asking provides a ton of ques to start with.

From there, much of it is trail and error. It seems like God likes to teach that way at times because it forces us to trust Him even when everything doesn’t turn out the way we want.

-Marshall Jones Jr.

I love your first point in “serving suggestions”, especially about adding ingredients. We are always trying to add our own ingredients to help the flavor, but more often than not, any ingredient we come up with on our own turns out to be bitter, sour, or even poisonous.

When experimenting with serving we might learn alot from collecting data and taking measurements up front. Learning directly from other people of their needs and desires would tremendously help to narrow the scope.