Tomorrow the boy goes off to camp for two weeks for the fifth year.  I always think before he goes:  He’s a tiny baby, how will he survive in the wild?  Actually, now I’m thinking how will the wild survive with Bigfoot in their midst?  He’s all spindly arms and giant veins with huge and hands and GI-NORMOUS feet that shuffle through the city streets looking for food.  Burgers, of course:  The Burgers Priest, Great Burger Kitchen, The Burger Shoppe have fed the Freddy.  And every Friday, Pizzaiolo brings him his large pepperoni with a Brio.  This Friday though, I thought I’d do something special and take him to the new pizza joint, Viccino Pizzeria, at 1923 Queen Street East, just east of Woodbine.  Before going in, I was kind of hoping it would be kind of like that pizza place in Do The Right Thing, which is one of my favourite summer movies and so influential that I still pronounce “mozzarella” like “mooza-f**king-rella” when I’m ordering it at a cheese counter, I just can’t help it.  Here we’ve been having a hot spell and I love when movies depict heatwaves as backdrops for crazy volatile behaviour like in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Dog Day Afternoon, good sweaty fun!  Anyway, I was half expecting one of those pizza places with checkered table cloths, Chianti bottles for candle holders and signed Hollywood photographs of the owner with Italian-American celebrities like Danny Aiello and John Tarturro.  Inside was quite fancy in that haute urban pizza parlour way, with the exposed kitchen in the back, featuring the soon-to-be-famous wooden pizza oven.  I found out this thing was a work of art, specially custom crafted and unlike any oven anywhere else.  It’s a family run business and our waiter (nephew of the owner) was really friendly.  There are several pizzas to choose from, as well as build your own, I ordered a chicken gorgonzola with caramelized onions….Freddy ordered ****pepperoni****am rolling my eyes, Jughead needs to step up his game.  The personal size is a medium, and they are quite big but!  Holy Heaven was in that crust!  Apparently there is something magic about the oven that makes it so fantastic.  Both Freddy and I tend to leave crust-bones behind for Betty the dog but this time, we inhaled them ourselves.  They did play Frank Sinatra which made the experience authentic and also helped us helped keep the pace.  Freddy ate the whole thing, nice and easy does it, and I saved a piece for Evangeline which I ate on the way home, call me irresponsible!

Viccino Pizzeria, 1923 Queen St East 416-693-1010, eat-in, takeout, or deliver!