Salumi - it's more than head cheese

I finally made it to Salumi after several failed attempts over the years. Salumi is the tiniest place in the world and has a better awesome meat to space ratio than most cattle. It's run my Dino Batali (Mario's Dad) and once you see the sandwiches this guy is dishing out it is easy to forgive Mario's jolly belly. If my Dad had been feeding me anything like that soprasata sandwich the guy with the baby behind me ordered, I'd definitely be walking with canes. Armandino opened the place in the late 90's as his retirement gig and the place is a perpetual mob scene, made even more mobbed by the fact that it is only opened Tuesday-Friday from 11-4 or when they run out of stuff.

I tried to bus down there one grey day and found the place closed - they sometimes don't feel like opening, I hear, and so don't. No one will hold it against them since they have called us all with the siren song of delicious salami and stuff like lamb priusiutto, oh my god, all cured on the premises. Another time my ride to the pioneer square shop fell through. It seemed I would never make it to Salumi and would be labeled a disgrace from here back to Babbo.

But alas, my new temp job's other perk, besides yesterday's UPS waterfall park, is that it is one block from Salumi. So I finally got to the holy grail of pancetta. Ironically, I shunned meat since it was "Gnochhi Tuesday!" They seemed to forget my order and so I got the extra joy of being coddled by the staff. A nice blonde woman said she hoped it was worth it as I grabbed a chair at the communcal table. Of course it was. I loved being crowded on all sides by strangers and felt especially superior hearing an Italian-American dad tell his daughter that gnocchi was made 'from dough - flour, eggs." The precocious gourmet looked doubtful. "I don't think so, Dad. It doesn't taste like dough." Good girl.

In less than a half an hour lunch I felt like I had a real experience, only available in Seattle. It makes me realize how little time I have taken to explore this city and how so much of it is so appealing and up my alley. This realization comes at a juncture of possible hindsight - maybe we're moving soon and I will have spent my years as a Seattleite in the dark, and not just because of a lack of sunlight. Or maybe we're not and I've realized just in time to spend the next year really making Seattle my own.