We had a potluck for the final day of my Appreciative Inquiry course. Some of us had been talking about “cultivating our own gardens” (referring to Voltaire’s Candide), in the sense that it is more important to work on transforming yourself than on trying to change others. In tribute, I decided to make Worms in Dirt, a recipe I discovered during my compost garden days. It uses a lot of pretty disgusting ingredients, including jelly worms, but it sure looks pretty. You can make it in individual cups or in a large “garden pot” as I did. While there were lots of oohs and aahs on the esthetic value, there were mixed reviews on the taste, or rather the idea of tasting worms. One of my professors said, “My mouth says yum, but my mind says yuk.” She paused for a minute, came out of kid land and moved into academia. “Cognitive dissonance!”