What does Cole mean or begin to understand when he says, "if i like the cake, maybe the ingredients are okay too." How does this shape his life moving forward?

Garvey used cake as a metaphor. He laid out salt, flour, eggs, baking soda, a bottle of water, sugar, butter, and molasses. He had cole taste them. They tasted bad individually yet together the ingredients baked a cake. He tries to make the point that they taste bad on their own but good together. He wants Cole to be a part of something instead of alone. Cole finally considers that there maybe more to his life than what he had considered before.