"When I'm a Duchess," she thought to herself, she would avoid having pepper in her kitchen because she believed it might cause people to be hot-tempered. She felt pleased to have discovered a new rule, thinking that specific ingredients could influence people's emotions. She considered how vinegar might make people sour, chamomile bitter, and barley-sugar sweet-tempered, wishing others knew this so they wouldn't be so stingy with such things.

In her imagination, she envisioned a kitchen where ingredients directly impacted mood and behavior, reflecting her playful and curious mind. This whimsical idea shows her attempt to understand and control her environment through simple, almost magical, causes and effects, which is characteristic of her curious and inventive thinking in the fantastical world of Alice in Wonderland.