One of my greatest pleasures in life is having good food experiences. I delight in it. I mean the whole shabang — delicious food, great company, excellent service, cool atmosphere. And obviously the yummy food and taste-bud-exciting flavors are the base of a great food experience.

Have you every thought about the fact that we have the capacity to taste with our mouths? God could’ve just made our mouths to be the first step of digestion, crushing the food that we need. Or he could’ve made us like flowers that simply glean our nutrients from our surroundings. Efficient and miraculous, but not very enjoyable.

We are not robots that connect to a battery, nor are we flowers that spread their leaves toward the sun and extend their roots into the ground. We get our energy from food but it doesn’t stop there.

We’ve been gifted with the ability to taste! To relish the flavors of tart lemons and spicy peppers and summer peaches and juicy steaks.

We aren’t even simple animals that eat and prefer one taste over another. We are humans that define tastes and experiment with textures. We are beings that create, combining tastes and textures to make edible works of art. To create food that is meant not only to provide us with the energy we need but that’s also meant to be savored, enjoyed, and delighted in.

I am a tasting creature with the capacity to enjoy — that is no small gift.