Make something in which the sense of taste is the essential component.

That was the creative assignment for this day. This one-meeting-after-another workday. This end-of-a-busy-week-must-get-the-family-organized Friday. This beginning-of-a-busy-but-hopefully-fun-filled weekend.

Although I love to create and play with flavors in the kitchen, I was not planning to cook today. I had no interest in visiting the grocery store. I ate granola cereal for breakfast, met a friend for lunch at a restaurant, and nibbled popcorn at a high school football game.

After the game, my husband and I agreed to dinner “out.” As quick and quiet as could be, he made the one tasty thing that was reasonable today: reservations. We tried a new Mexican restaurant near our home, and it was incredible!

But Jim made those reservations. I couldn’t take credit for that creative activity.

At the restaurant, I played with a pile of salt, but didn’t really “make” anything. I began brainstorming rhymes for taste, but just wasn’t feeling a poem about the size of my waist disappearing in haste because anchovy paste is attractive in taste …

Back home, I was ready to read and rest and relax on the couch. But I did have a taste for something.

Chocolate.

So for the first time in my life, I made a chocolate martini. It isn’t pretty. I don’t even own a martini glass. I tried to decorate the inside of a goblet with Hershey’s syrup; the result was an uneven avalanche of chocolate goo, drawing an unsightly brown web in the bowl of my glass. My one-and-a-half-ounce liqueur/vodka mixture filled in a fraction of that chocolate web, leaving me wondering if I should have doubled the recipe.

How would I know if I didn’t taste it? So I did. And while I’ve written this post, I’ve drained the glass.

Suffice it to say, today’s creation was not photogenic. But it was tasty. And now it’s gone.