I’m just going to come out and say it. As of last Monday, I’m on a diet. This sounds rather dismal and dreary in the context of a chicken and rice post, and in fact, this morning I was trying to find an angle on this whole diet thing, something to make it more palatable, or just more tolerable. As I sipped my coffee on the way out the door, now black with no cream or sugar, I found my angle.

For years, the true taste of coffee has eluded me, has been hidden behind cream, milk, sugar, sweetener, flavored creamer, half-and-half, splenda, nutra-sweet, and equal. Saccharine was but the curtain that fell between me, the audience, and the coffee, the dancers on stage. Now the curtain has been lifted, that a rich and bold kona blend taste may now freely dance across my taste buds. Where was this wonderful sensation every other time I drank coffee? Why had I not experienced this before?

Simply put, I had layered my coffee with crap for years. And not just coffee. Too often we lose the true taste, the essence of our food, in layers of condiments, add-ons, and sauces. While many sauces and condiments are delicious in their own way, when we smother our food in dressing, we also smother our food’s soul.

So I am now compelled to take a whole foods approach, but with a twist. I, too, have been moved by cassis, and the posts his exquisite description has inspired. The purpose of spice is not to flavor the food. The purpose of spice is to complement and further bring out the original flavor of the food. When all we taste is rosemary, we have ruined our chicken. And so I will be embarking on a journey of moderation, a journey to find the true tastes of foods we all may have taken for granted beneath layers and layers of glop. Now is the time to set those tastes free, to experience them in their unabated glory, to know in them all that they once were and can be again.

As in keeping with my new diet,  I will from time to time write here about these tastes as I uncover them. Peeling back the coverings of high fructose corn syrup and monosodium glutamate, we may yet find the taste of purity.