Oh my goodness, one and a half days without internet access from home is brutal. We rely on it so much! Looking up recipes, sending e-mail, reading the news, reading my favorite blogs… Even our little one was suffering withdrawal from not being able to log onto The Disney Channel’s webpage. Anyhow, after an hour the cable technician was able to diagnose some loose cables outside our house and he found a nick in the cable that comes from the main line. Apparently he put in an order for the line to get replaced. Who knows when that will actually happen.

But what I really wanted to write about is The Ferry Building. I really don’t know if we have something similar to this in Chicago, so you can only imagine how excited I was to walk into this place with all these specialty food shops! My husband spent $50.00 within 30 minutes… it was so easy to do. I did visit some plant/garden/gift shops, too, but our main focus was on the eats.

For the mushroom fans, Far West Fungi. It was strange that no one seemed to be working there at the time… kind of eerie. Unfortunately, we didn’t really visit too long, but it was neat storefront.

Imperial Tea Court had a great selection of loose teas, but what we were really looking for was…

…this place! Boccalone! Their tag line reads, “Tasty salted pig parts”. How awesome is that? This place was featured on Food Network recently, and we just had to try the salumi cone. Deliciously salty and fatty. It can’t possibly be good for you. We did bring home some nduja, spreadable salami, along with some cheese from Cowgirl Creamery. A $20 grab bag of cheese and a little cheese knife.

Scharffen Berger chocolate… oh my dark chocolate goodness. The kids were so good in the store. You’d think they might go nuts in a place that has samples at every turn, but no, they were very well behaved and Abby really impressed the staff with her taste for 60%-70% dark chocolate. “Your daughter has a surprisingly mature palate.” Why, yes, thank you very much.

We ended our little foodie excursion with dinner at Taylor’s Automatic Refresher, a casual diner but with some upscale diner meals. We caught up with my college roommate (daughter’s godmother) and her new husband of one year (happy anniversary!!). I tried the Ahi Burger and we also ordered the Grilled Mahi Tacos. Fresh, delicious, light… mmmm. I’m sure the beef burgers were great, but we definitely wanted to try the seafood.

I think this pretty much sums up the day. My kids are such troopers when it comes to their dad and me dragging them to all these specialty groceries and food markets.