— Wanda Thornton

my suggestion, Wanda, is to start with a recipe, and start with some type of a sweet and spicy sauce that you like based upon experience, maybe from a restaurant, maybe it comes out of a bottle. Look for a recipe that's going to be in line with that. There are many of these, of course, that are coming from different parts of the world, and so the flavor profiles can vary quite a bit. So find a cuisine or, again, that foundational profile that you have enjoyed eating in the past, and then try to replicate that through a recipe that you find in a book or online. And practice that, and taste each ingredient on its own so you understand its role or its function in that particular sauce. And that's going to start to develop your palate and your understanding of that sauce from these different angles, from the angle of each of the ingredients. And that will start to prepare you to make alterations to a favorite recipe, to alter ratios of ingredients, or to make substitutions, to make omissions, and start to make the recipe your own. But I recommend that you start at an established baseline. Right? Which means start with a known sort of flavor profile that you like. Try to replicate that through a recipe that's established online or in a cookbook. Repetition is going to be your friend here in terms of developing your skill and your knowhow. So make that sauce over and over, try it with different foods so your palate starts to understand how it changes in the presence of different ingredients or different food items that you pair it with. And then start to alter it to make it your own. It's a process, but there's also some deep learning that comes with that, and I think some joy in the cooking process as you start to gain control over this aspect of your cooking. Thank you.