The expression "There's no accounting for taste" has a lot of
   wisdom to it, when you take the sarcasm out of it. You can't
   compare one person's taste to another, like you can with
   accounting.* They're all unique. I love cooking as well.*
   Envisioning how it will taste and combining things together to
   try to make it work is a lot of fun, especially when I'm working
   with what's at hand.* I don't usually buy things when I cook.* I
   look around, see what's what, imagine what will taste good
   together and I get started. I also try to make things as healthy
   as possible.* Higher protein, lower fat, lower carbs - not
   eliminating fat or carbs of course but as my body seems to like
   protein best. Oh a related note to forensic cooking; when I look
   at a meal in front of me, for just a moment, I imagine ALL THE
   PEOPLE it took to get it to my table.* I'm eating foods grown in
   other countries, other parts of the world.* There's things that
   would NEVER grow where I am. What I have in front of me, in many
   respects, is an Impossible Meal. Without the trucking industry,
   planes, cargo ships but most importantly, THE PEOPLE at all the
   levels [yes, even management, not just the pickers but
   definitely them - even if it's machines].... I couldn't have the
   meal in front of me. I go to the supermarket, I see impossible
   items on the shelf.* The stuff isn't from here.* That amazes
   me.* The system, flawed as it may be, actually WORKS. So, I try
   to say a quick 'thank you' in my head, just 1/2 a second for the
   hundreds of people all in the chain it took to get from seed to
   table. Gratitude is such an important daily habit.* You realize
   your smallness and yet, all these marvelous things are available
   to you that would be impossible at different points in history.
   At the same time, future peoples will look at us in 2015 as
   primitive. and wonder, "HOW DID THEY MANAGE WITHOUT [x]?* It
   must have been BRUTAL!". Yet we're managing and doing rather
   well; the things we usually complain about are things that are
   far away from our daily experience; stuff in the news usually.*
   Or when something doesn't work, like Wifi.
   [1]#firstworldproblems Somebody challenged me last week that I
   couldn't possibly be agnostic.* I had to either be a believer or
   atheist apparently.* I convinced him otherwise, but it took a
   while, or perhaps I wore him out or he got bored. Doesn't
   matter. At one point, I was talking about gratitude for stuff.
   He said, "So you're telling me that you're grateful for Systems
   that work over Time." Now he was being sarcastic; he still
   seemed to think I was a Christian disguising himself or
   something like that. But in his sarcasm, was something profound;
   he was right.* If I had to find a synonym for God that works for
   me, it would be Systems that work over Time.* Doesn't have to be
   "a guy".* Just... Systems.* I'm grateful they do what they do,
   because I sure didn't make them happen. They're there.* I don't
   really care HOW things got started.* But I'm grateful to be a
   part of it and that it works at all.

References

   Visible links
   1. https://plus.google.com/s/%23firstworldproblems