The Man Who Eats Babies for Breakfast

Tom has been eating babies all his life.   He’s tall and robust: so at first glance, you might not be surprised.   It’s his mother who started it.   She’d wake him up throughout his childhood when the baby was about to come out of the oven.   Decades later, he’d do the same for me the morning after I unexpectedly showed up on his doorstep.

Why?   His good friend from college happens to be my hometown bestie.   She and I were in the middle of a summertime mountain sojourn.   We joined the throng of Americans motoring across the fly-over states to the Rocky Mountain paradises in Montana and Wyoming.   After a few beautiful, but smoky days exploring Glacier National Park, Lewis & Clark National Forest, and Whitefish, Montana, we set our sights on Bozeman.   The intention to catch up with her old friend Tom for a few hours turned into a whole evening of curry fries, canyon drives, cribbage games, and late-night huckleberry ice cream sandwiches.

In the morning, Tom pampered us with coffee and set out the real maple syrup — the most complimentary condiment for the baby now baking in the oven.   When I hopped out of the shower and opened the bathroom door, my mouth watered instantly as the wave of cinnamon and butter came wafting in.   My enthusiasm for baby-eating soared.

Colloquially known as Dutch Babies ¹Dutch as a corruption of Deutsche, meaning German*, and Baby supposedly because a Seattle cafe owner’s daughter thought it was cute**, this heavenly breakfast meal is simple to whip up.   I bet you have eggs, flour, milk, butter, vanilla, and cinnamon in your kitchen right now!

I’ve since eaten more babies, but I like the following method  for making a highly edible infant:

Tom’s Dutch Baby Recipe

1. Flip on the oven to 425 °F (220 °C).
2. Grease a 9 x 13 ²the rectangle one, you metric people baking dish with butter.
3. In a bowl, mix together:
   5 eggs
   1.25 c flour
   1.25 c milk
   1 stick of butter
   1 tbsp vanilla
4. Pour it all into the baking dish, sprinkle liberally with cinnamon, and pop it into the pre-heated oven for 19-21 minutes.   Remove when golden and poufy.
5. Wait two minutes.   Or”¦ suffer mouth burns if you wish.
6. Spend the rest of the day enjoying people’s reactions when you tell them you at a baby for breakfast!

During our baby chomping, we regaled Tom and his wife with tales of our trip’s wildlife sightings — bear, deer, elk, and my first wolverine ever!   We then bid Tom and his wife adieu, wishing them luck on their next phase in life — a move to the Pacific Northwest commencing just a few days after our departure.

You’ll recall the friend connecting me to Tom is my hometown best friend.   So, of course we couldn’t pass through Wyoming without stopping in at our childhood mountain playground.   We camped a few nights in the Big Horn Mountains, thankful to escape the smoke of summertime fires that dominated many other parts of the west.   Our hearts soared as we entered our personal paradise.   Our hike up to a watchtower brought waves of bliss as we took in the Shangri-la spread below.

My thoughts flashed back through all the culture-shock moments I’d experience since my unexpectedly eventful return to the U.S.   Things like:

• Landing in Miami, suddenly being surrounded by America’s unique melting pot — English and Spanish predominating.

• Along those lines: Realizing, as I  noticedthat the luggage wrapping machine operator looked like a hog or calf tying cowboy at the rodeo, that “Dolfina Fuentes” (dolphin fountains) was the name of a person and not the contents of a package.

• Watching the 4 a.m. TSA shift change — seeing all the firm, serious, and tired faces of America’s Homeland Security.

• My jaw dropping as I read all the benefits that came with the new free-flight credit cards I’d just opened. Serious, check this stuff out.   Only in America would credit card benefits include this wildness.

• The loss of being surrounded by tea-savvy citizens.  Down the road from the home of two of my favorite people on the planet is a  golf clubhouse restaurant.  When I’m visiting these lovely folks, as I did immediately upon returning to the U.S., I go to the clubhouse to write things for you.   On this particular occasion, when I ordered tea, I forgot that people don’t order tea in America.   None of the serving staff knew what kind of tea they had available.   On successive visits I realized they didn’t know which teas typically take milk and which don’t.   They also didn’t know to leave room for milk.   Despite the infamous Boston tea party, a very large portion of the American demographic simply doesn’t do tea.

Now my surprise about American things has faded back into subconscious expectation. I’ve since house sat my way across the nation and signed up for a semester at an acrobatic and aerial school.   Those stories coming soon! ♣