The Good, The Bad and The Deli
What a week! Jesse came in on Monday and taught me to make a smoked meat gravy with brisket trimmings, spices, onion, garlic, thyme, rosemary and roasted chicken stock. We started serving it on Tuesday with real cheddar cheese curds and the reviews have been amazing. It took us till the end of the week to get those curds to ooey gooey melty perfection but thats to be expected. After all, this whole experience is a work in progress. Of course we ran out earlier today but thats part of our charm. Funny enough the last customer was David, a money manager from New York. If anyone needed the warm gooey comfort of my poutine it was him.
Wednesday was our busiest day ever. In addition to the usual lunch and dinner craziness Sam placed a big take out order for a meeting of his doctor friends. He asked for smoked turkey so I made another batch special. It went great except we forgot the pickles. I could only die. Sam is special to me for reasons that I won’t go into but I will say that he is the holder of a generations old pickle recipe and if there’s one person you don’t want to short-pickle, its him. To his credit he didn’t give me a hard time. He’s a mench and a half.
Once we sent his order we declared an “All Hands on Deck” – 6 of us working for a worthy cause: feeding 60 of David and Lauren’s nearest and dearest. A power deli-couple to be sure, it was her birthday and his farewell party. In the afternoon I got a call from Rebecca in New York asking if I could put two candles in a knish and include a card from her and beau Miller. Could I? It was hilarious as well as delicious. Malcolm Jolley of Gremolata.com fame was there along with the Globe and Mail’s Sasha Chapman so the pressure was on. Lauren assured me that everyone had a wonderful time and wrote the loveliest note. She and I even started making plans to carpool to New York. David is a very lucky man.
Thursday morning I was dead. Deader than dead. In perfect shape to receive Mio Adelman and a full camera crew from CBC TV. We filmed two spots for Living in Toronto: one about the meat and another about my mustard. Its all a blur but Mio said his editor salivated all over the control board. Thankfully Thursday was not so crazy business wise but Friday was Friday which means: have a decent breakfast and get ready to work. Saturday was much the same although it was totally manageable with Megan running the floor and Michael and Ariel handling kitchen duties.
My own role is to jump in wherever needed: taking orders, running food or washing dishes. Mostly I like to connect with customers particularly ones like Avery Platt, four month old son of Aaron and Amy. They came in Saturday before the rush. Adorable? That’s his middle name. Actually its Bernard but I’m willing to bet his first word will be knish. He gurgled something to that effect while chewing on a rubber giraffe, I think, because I tried convincing his folks my knish is so soft you don’t even need teeth and that they should give him some.
After work last night I went to Jesse’s resto (Trevor) to try his beef cheek chevre nachos. Unfortunately Jesse was out with a cold but his nachos were awesome. That was my third visit and I highly reccomend just sitting at the bar and ordering a grazing experience. If Jesse’s there let him know I sent you (I get commission). The man is an incredible chef. Upon leaving I found Richard, my staff member Richard, smooching on the street with his lovely g/f. Rich came in early today so I could come home early and make myself a steak. I’ll go back to help close but this my friends was easily our busiest and best week ever.
Oh and Rob the designer sent me some ideas for a new logo which I loved and you should see new menus in a couple weeks as well as labels on mustard jars.
Thank God I love this as much as I do and that I have such good people helping me. This week should be fun too. I’ll be at Gremolata’s Good Food Hall handing out free samples on Thursday if you’re in the neighborhood of U of T’s Hart House.
