The House in the Woods

Taste testing and a quiet evening at home

Sang POV

After everyone puts on knee pads, they begin the water fight again. I turn my kindle back on and get lost reading about Sam, Mason and Logan until I feel someone approaching on my left.

"Good afternoon, my name is Tripp, and I work at the cafe. I was wondering whether you and your friends might help us with a project. We are working on some new smoothie recipes and we are looking for volunteers to try them out and tell us whether you think we should add them to the menu," he says with a smile.

I look up at him and say, "What flavors are they?"

Tripp says, "We are trying different fruit combinations and part of the tasting would be for you to drink it and see if you can figure out what we used. I can tell you that there are not nuts in them. There are several kids in the area that have severe nut allergies so we don't have them in the facility. Is anyone in your group allergic to anything?"

Luke is the one who answers Tripp. "No one is allergic to anything. I can go ask the guys if they want to participate."

Tripp smiles. "We would really appreciate it. We recently found out that the little boy in the pool, Paul, has celiac disease and he is lactose intolerant, and his aunt was talking about how hard it can be to find items that he can eat and drink when they are out. We decided that we would try to add some new smoothies to the menu by substituting the ice cream and regular milk with soy milk."

I look at Tripp, wide-eyed. "Wow. I am impressed that the water park would be so responsive with changing their menu items."

Tripp smiles and responds, "The owners are really good about listening to our suggestions, and they allow us the freedom to experiment. We have such a mixture of clientele that we can make temporary changes as necessary. For example, two months ago we had a large conference with executives and families from a Belgian pharmaceutical company. We changed the snack menu and added variations of waffles and French fries with some really great dipping sauces."

I glance up and see that Luke has returned and everyone else is grabbing their towels to dry off.

Luke says, "Everyone is okay with the taste testing idea. Let's go drink some smoothies." He grabs my hand, and we follow Tripp to one of the party rooms.

When everyone is seated, Tripp stands at the head of the table and says, "I have put a piece of paper in front of each of you. As we pass out each drink, can you please give it a score of 1 – 10 based on taste with 1 being 'gross, don't ever make that again' and 10 being 'I want to drink this every day, all day. There will also be a few that you will be given two versions. For those drinks, we need to know your thoughts on the taste difference. One will be made with regular milk and the other is made with soy milk. The objective here is to determine whether there is a dramatic taste difference between the regular and lactose free versions. Paul, you will only receive drinks that are lactose free because we don't want you to get sick from drinking the regular ones."

We spend the next hour drinking various flavors of drinks, and I think they are really good. North asks Tripp if they could use some of the recipes at the diner as long as they gave him credit on the menu.

My favorites are the Purple Monstrosity, which is a combination of bananas, blueberries, orange juice, honey and vanilla, and the Chocolate Strawberry Smoothie made with soy milk. The only one that I rate as a 1 is the Fig smoothie. I love Fig Newton cookies, but the smoothie has a horrible aftertaste. It surprises me that everyone else rated it as one of the better ones.

After the taste testing, Tripp makes us burgers and french fries with some of the Belgian dipping sauces for lunch. We then grab some rafts and do the complete river float, which takes us around the entire conference center.