The key to better tasting food: VACATION!

Vacation, a time for whatever you feel like. Whether its scheduling yourself so you can cram every last ounce of fun, excitement and sightseeing as you can or just "mozying" around, doing nothing. Basically, I like my vacations to be guilt free. Free from guilt even if the sun is shining, the water is perfect and I decide to take a nap! Free from guilt even if I blow our food budget on chips, taboule salad and Tasty Cakes! Its OK. I think everything tastes better on vacation. Maybe because I'm doing what I feel like or I'm out of the usual routine. When we go to the cottage, we like to make a spaghetti dinner. For some reason, it always tastes better there than at home. Now, while we're at the cottage, we're usually biking, walking or swimming. All of which works up a good appetite. So that could have something to do with it. Although, there maybe scientific proof for why things do taste better. I recently heard an interview with a neuroscientist who studies mice and the taste section of their brains. He explained how he had the brains mapped out and had a visual of their brains on a computer monitor to show if the taste section would light up when he gave them certain foods. He explained one day how he placed his coffee mug down, which made a noise. When the mug made a noise the taste section of the brain lit up. So after doing multiple tests, blah, blah, blah he published his findings. He found that taste is connected to sight, sound and smell. So not only is your mouth connected to taste but what your hear, see and smell counts when you taste something. So atmosphere really does matter! That got me thinking, if we surround ourselves with things that are pleasing to us such as decorating, music or lighting our food might in fact taste better to us! We may not fully understand it but if it works, then hey go get yourself a new table cloth or get dressed up for dinner and see what happens!