You may have noticed I haven’t been around the deli much for the last few days. I wish I could say I’ve been taking it easy and working on my Wii golf game or going to the gym or even that I’d escaped for a few days of r&r.

The truth is far less glam: I’ve got a cold. On top of that I’m moving on Tuesday so I’m taking this time to sort through all of my collected junk and purging all the crap I haven’t used or worn since I don’t remember when. I’m also getting rid of stuff that triggers bad memories.

Can you believe I still have my wedding tuxedo from 9 years ago? Gone. I put my golf clubs on craigslist because I haven’t used them in almost that long and can’t stand the game for more than 9 holes. Broken Ikea lamp that I always figured I’d fix? Gone. Cookbooks I never read, computer cords and disks for machines I no longer own? Out you get. This is really cathartic in a dusty, guilt-ridden kind of way.

A special friend called me a “hoarder” and it never occurred to me until she said so that she’s right. I’ve shifted all this crap from one place to another and even put it into storage when I lived in Florida a few years back. I paid to keep this shit?!? I even told her a story of putting feather cushions into storage. The look of shock on her face was enough to help me see that I have a problem: I hang onto stuff for way too long.

It feels good to let go. Achoooo!

I got the following message from Jay Grossman along with the pic of his son.

“Hi Zane,
Here is a pic of my boys first sandwich.. Interestingly he has never liked mustard yet demanded that it be on his sandwich.. Go figure!
Btw my daughter claims that you have the best fries in town!
All the best,
Jay Grossman”

I can’t tell you how much pleasure it gave me to meet these people, to see the sparkle in their eyes and watch them enjoy each other and my food. Jay’s delightful daughter held the basket of fries under her arm because she didn’t want to share but of course she did because her father’s taught her the value of sharing.

There are so many things that give me pleasure in my business: seeing parents and grandparents with their little ones, seeing people reconnect with old friends and doing that myself. I also get a charge out of seeing my team run the place and I have to tell you: we’re not perfect but in the last few weeks we’ve gotten pretty darned close. It’s so nice to be me when the place works, the line moves and people take the time to tell me we’re doing alright. Better than alright.

Good enough that I took a few days off to go to David Sax’s “Save the Deli” Montreal book launch last week. I’ve started a separate post about that experience but I’ll save it for another day (when my photos come back from the Censor).

Speaking of photos, I’m going to go back and add them in to make this blog a little more interesting so check back in the coming days and weeks. Obviously I’m having difficulty with photos so bear with me.  Maybe the Censor can help with that too.

In the meantime, just know you’re reading the words of one happy man.

Giulia Mandel is an original. She is smart, funny, hard working and extraordinarily talented. She can play the piano like a motherfucker and make conversational references to everything from Groundhog Day to Ibsen to stuff I’ve never heard of.

As a rule I try and hire people smarter than me and in her case I succeeded. Giulia runs the deli during the daytime and does it better than I ever could.

Against her better judgement I persuaded her to ask her partner Peter to come help us in the kitchen. His talent is wasted on what he’s been doing for us but I know we’ll find a way to make him happy once the positions get solidified – we’ve had a huge amount of turnover in the kitchen because I made some bad decisions. But back to Giulia.

It is because of her that I can take a day off every Tuesday (today being my second one). I know that if she’s there, everything will work because she’ll make it work even if it doesn’t. Huh? Let me explain…

Yesterday the custom-built steamer broke. Today, instead of just waiting for the guy, she called the guy. And when the guy didn’t respond, she yelled and screamed until he came in. Giulia is someone who cares. She finds solutions. She makes this work because she works it. She goes above and beyond and not just at work. Sunday evening, the start of her ‘weekend’, I woke her to ask for her advice on a relationship problem I was having. She was there for me without hesitation.

I’ve made a number of hiring mistakes. Giulia Mandel was not one of them.