Today was Akemi’s first class of the eight-session pottery course at Clay Arts Studio. I, of course, showed my support – not by actually attending the class with her (Perish the thought!), but by accompanying her there and meeting up with her once she was done. During the downtime in between, I roamed the neighborhood, no doubt raising the suspicions of local shop owners who must have seen me suspiciously saunter past a good half dozen times over the courses of a three hour window. I perused bookstores, checked out pet shops, and, at one point, mistakenly wandered into a tattoo parlor. In between, I did some eating….
My first stop was When the Pig Came Home Delicatessen – or, as Akemi mispronounced it, When the Pig Came Home Deliciousness. And, you know what? It was!
I had the classic porchetta – 1.3 lb of succulent pork with crispy crackling served on French milk bread. Service was prompt and super friendly. Highly recommended.
I ended up grabbing a mocha and pistachio cake (surprisingly moist and not overly sweet) at Claudia’s Coffe where I set up my home-away-from home office for about an hour or so. I’d prepared by packing my travel laptop and two graphic novels (which I never got around to reading). Unfortunately, it’s been over three years since I last used my travel laptop and I never got around to updating my various passwords so I wasn’t able to check my email, twitter feed, or reddit. I also found myself unable to connect to a lot of the sites I often frequent. Every time I tried, I’d receive the following ominous warning:
The first few times, it looked kind of sketchy. After about the tenth time, however, it was just annoying.
I concluded my afternoon foray by once again dropping by When the Pig Came Home and picking up a couple of beef patties – one spicy (for me) and one not (for Akemi). The spicy was gloriously so. And very tasty. One of Toronto’s best.
We returned home, took Suji for her afternoon carpet run, and fed her, after which I caught up on emails and was preparing to unwind after a day of walking around under the hot sun…only to have Akemi remind me that I have dinner plans tonight with out-of-town friends. The reservations are for 8:00 p.m. 8;00 p.m.!!! That’s dinner time for Spaniards and vampires! Meanwhile, there’s a special one-night-only truffle dinner happening tonight I’ll be missing. My friend Natalie, who brought the event to my attention, tried to reassure me that there will be another one later this year – but it’s black truffles not white truffles! I briefly considered whether I might be able to pull off a bang-bang, but the timing is too tight. Sadly, it looks like it’ll be just one truffle-less dinner for me 🙁
Today’s Yes/No…
Salt on watermelon? Yes/No
In defense of putting salt on watermelon, because it's just better that way https://t.co/BuMqXx6hKW— Joseph Mallozzi (@BaronDestructo) June 23, 2022
8pm dinner time for vampires …. I’ll have to agree. 😆 And missing truffle dinner is a bummer.
You’re a good man Charlie Brown, um, ur, I mean Joseph Mallozzi.
Can’t wait to see what Akemi makes this time in pottery class.
“This connection is not private” on a lot of your regularly visited sites either means your web browser is horrendously out of date and it can’t encrypt the connection to the web server, or the cafe’s wifi is compromised and someone is trying to steal your login credentials.
If your travel laptop gives you the same errors while at home then your laptop desperately needs updating. If your travel laptop works fine on your home wifi but complains on the cafe’s wifi then there’s something dodgy going on, you should not try logging into any sites while on the cafe wifi and you should change the password on any site you did try logging into as your username and password could have been sniffed by the dodgy wifi.
pottery encouragement…be carefull…( on what you will say) and you never know where it will lead you; my wife began with clay and 40 years later she is a renowned bronze sculptor artist…
Yes, on salt on watermelon. You will be surprised that hot sauce works great too. I found that out on a trip to Las Vegas where in the mall there was a long line for their smooths and fruit cups.
You’re a very good husband! Next time, get the computer loaded with all the updates/patches. I know apple doesn’t call them patches but 😉 . Did you scope out any other places for the next class?
Thanks for the food porn!
My dad used to put salt on Watermelon AND Grapefruit. It’s not bad. Any one else heard of the salted Grapefruit? I usually eat Grapefruit and Watermelon straight. A good Grapefruit doesn’t need any enhancements and I’m not a huge Watermelon fan anyway.
You would think my dad had high blood pressure from all the salted fruit and country ham but no. He actually had low blood pressure. Go figure!
If you come back from one of these trips with “I Love Pete” tattooed on your arm, you’re on own explaining it…