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happy birthday, Geoff

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

'Twas Geoff's birthday celebration, tonight. One that he shared with his wife and a third party, actually. We traipsed over to the Gooderham Worts distillery to one of the new places that's opened up in there.

Unfortunately, it was a pasta place, which meant that I was quickly scanning the corners of the menu for non-pasta, non-diary things that I might eat. Nothing. For the first time in almost seven years, I couldn't find anything on a restaurant menu that I could eat.

But all was not lost. My heart sinking, I told the waiter about my problem. He disappeared for five minutes, and emerged with a different menu. Apparently, he'd gone to one of the other restaurants from the grounds and had returned with their (rather stunning) menu. I ordered a steak.

The steak was one of the best I've ever had. With no exaggeration! I was delighted. We wound up tipping him *big* at the end of the evening, given the sparsity of our liquor consumption, the length time we stayed, and the fact that he was so good to us (he even let one of us bring in a Tim Hortons cake).

It was a fun evening. Aside from Geoff and me (the only two mangiacakes), there was a Korean girl, a Chinese girl, a Korean girl who grew up in Japan, a Chinese-Canadian who was born in the UK, and another fellow who I suspect was Chinese. A very Toronto evening. All we needed was a Greek and maybe a Serb.