— Phyllis Melton Giddings

I always recommend people using fresh herbs to be able to kind of start to get really big pops of flavor for things but think about flavor profiles that you typically really live you really love, you know, so You know, if you're really into Indian food looking for things like turmeric and garam masala, or just Curry powders Curry powders is kind of a funny thing because it just means spice and Indian but you know looking for mustard seeds things like that. But say if you're looking I don't know maybe you're more into maybe Caribbean foods, you can go and look for jerk seasonings and different things like that, you know, a lot of people experiment with different kinds of salts too. So you can do like smoked salts, too. Um, but really kind of thinking about what styles of food that you crave the most like if you were to go to a restaurant what kind of restaurant would you go to and then look up that profile on Google or whatever to say like, okay, what kind of spices are used in Taiwanese food, right and you'll get a pretty good list of things that are out there and then experiment a little bit don't tell your mom Phyllis, but you are now allowed to play with your food. So go in the kitchen experiment a little bit see what works for you. See what doesn't work for you. It's okay if you don't like certain things, but just trying a little bit it's great. Go to a grocery store that has a bulk spice section so you can buy just a little bit of spice instead of a whole big jar of spice. And just experiment with different things to be able to see what works for you. You can you know slice up zucchini and cook, you know, six pieces of zucchini and put a little seasoning on each different one that are different seasonings so you can see which one you like the best.