Did I even spell that right?  Who cares – read on.  This was a week I will never forget kicked off by BB eating two fressers in one sitting, not once, not twice but three times in five days!  I am in total awe. Then we got our new menu thanks to Bobby Wham.  Oh man, he hit this one out of the park.  Perfect is a word one should use sparingly but in this case… its… well… justified.  Just in time too because Toronto Life’s November issue named us “Toronto’s Best Smoked Meat” (on the efing cover no less).  They also printed a stellar review (p.107) in the same issue.  The result?  In a word: exhaustion. But why limit oneself to just a word?  This is my rantfest so here goes:

I work with the most incredible people in the world.  New kid Adrian and I slaughtered a lunch rush Friday that was our biggest ever until we did it again the following day – 20% bigger.  More impressive perhaps was the way drummer boy Ariel and Tamar the Star handled the floor on Friday and Vegan Megan (yes, it rhymes) did the same on Saturday (still 20% bigger).  I can’t say I was all that surprised when Megs called in sick today. Not only did she kick some serious ass in the dining room, she even brought in smoked tofu and tofurkey samples for the whole class.  I guess we ran the poor girl ragged, either that or the tofurkey didn’t agree with her. Can tofurkey agree with anyone or anything?

Today was challenging.  With both Megan and Jason out sick Ariel stepped up to pick up the slack in the morning but nobody was available to help out this evening.  What’s an exhausted deli boy to do? This one, and I’m looking at you McCain, unties his apron, tucks away his deli hat and picks up an order pad leaving Adrian alone to fend for himself in the kitchen.  Was there a problem?  A hitch? A glitch? A knitch? Not from us (and now I’m looking at Richard but we won’t go there).  

There was even a happy ending in the form of uber-food goddess Bonnie Stern who sent her daughter in to have lunch and bring takeout home for her Thanksgiving preparing self.  Ms. Stern was kind enough to call me and heap praise on my meat, my knish and my Grandmother Molly-inspired borscht.  Bonnie Stern is someone I simply love and respect more than words so to get that call made the sore feet, cut hands and aching back worthwhile.  

Speaking of Thanksgiving… special thanks to Sam and Elias for dropping in. Dave and Susan for bringing the kids.  The Coopers for driving down from Thornhill.  JD for being JD. The very pregnant lady for coming so I could induce labour.  Josh for coming on his birthday. Jesse for bringing his dad Michael. And Sax because the world can never have too many menchs.  Menchim?  Here’s gravy in your eye.   Mmmm…. gravy.

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