That new baby smell.

They smell so good, they should make an air freshener. Now with more baby.

When I was back in the catering world, we measured weights of things in the number of dead babies. A heavy cooler was about 5 babies. The average holding oven (empty, of course)? Maybe 3 babies. The total weight of an outgoing party would be comprised of a couple hundred baby’s worth of cargo. You think that’s wrong? Well, what’s so good about using stones for a unit of weight? Everyone has a basic idea of the size and weight of a baby. But say stone, and it’s so subjective. Here in Ethiopia, the scales measure weight in stones, with kilos if you really really want it, but who doesn’t want to relate their weight to a specific number of amorphic, lifeless objects? At least kilos are just a single-entendre unit of measure. All I’m saying is that until we can properly assimilate everyone’s thinking into the proper size of a “stone,” then we should find a more standardized unit of measure. So dead babies it is. I’m sure it would be the cause of great fun when you get to the check-in counter at the airport, and upon being told your bag is overweight, you say “heck, that can’t be more than 3 dead babies in there.” You’ve just earned yourself a upgraded seat with that kind of suave conversation, my friend.

I should mention that the baby weights were used only amongst the loaders and the cooks at the company, as we were usually barred from any direct contact with the customers. As the underlings of the company, we usually fought over table scraps and were desperately licking the caps of empty liquor bottles, if only to cover the stink that was the clearing station. Much like the term “86” in restaurants, no one knows where the dead baby came from, but it grew to be the Catch-22 of us lowly behind-the-scenes people. Using such gauche terminology, why would we ever be allowed to interact with the “normies,” like the servers and floor captains did?

The first party I catered was in 1993, where, after much pleading, I was allowed to don the white tux shirt and bow tie for a simple cocktail party in Norwich. Reveling in the blatant disregard for the state’s child labor laws, I was given the strict task of replenishing the raw vegetables at the crudite stations, a job I was made for, given my in-depth experience with all things stick vegetable (one good thing that I took away from grade school. I was totally sustainable as well, as the weird kid who sat next to me at lunch would eat the wax bags they served the carrots sticks in, so there was no waste. An eco-friendly closed system in action. And this was the 80’s. Hold on, I need to put that on my resume.)

Why sitting in a northern Ethiopia village has sparked memories of my origins in foodservice is beyond me, but I am thankful to be writing again. It’s probably result of having my life flash before my eyes after spending several hours in a shock-less 4X4 with a scout who was all too eager to show me his Cold War-era grenades that are supposed to make me feel better about trekking in the Simien mountains. If I get out of this with my body intact, I’ll write more.