Good Food Walking

I work next to a food factory that must specialize in adding a nose to products. Everyday, there's a different whaff to be had. On my morning walking breaks, I get to experience the chemical thrill of encountering a near-life experience.

Today, it was fake strawberries. Yesterday, quite convincingly, it was coconuts. Sometime last week, it was angel food cake smell. It's possible that they're a small bakery but I don't think so. They'd be done by the time I go for a walk.

I once lived with a chemistry post-doc who spent his life creating molecules that imitated food smells. He was a witty, urbane man who referred to all smells by their molecular name. This wasn't a problem of not knowing the english word. He didn't tend to use the italian word for the associated smell either. I always loved that. He'd say "Feel, this is xxxxx-ester-xxx-ide-o. How do you say in English?"

Part of my walking territory includes a downhill whose sidewalk has a flying buttress of blackberries. Ripe, big and they taste great! But since birds seemed to have abandoned this area, the berries taunt the humans who wander by.

The berries mostly remain on the bushes. The slope is so severe and high that only a couple of feet of berries are accessible. A good 10' by 15' lot of berries are protected by the incline and the formidible prickers. So they sit there, pregnant with promise, while each day, the food factory invites me to experience something that doesn't exist. Sounds like a problem that you enounter in Philosophy 101, doesn't it?