For those who crave local food, the long winter of parsnip and rutabaga soup is coming to an end. The surest sign of spring is the sight of farmers pitching their market tents for the year ahead. You know what that means: you'll be able to add fresh local asparagus and radishes to that soup any day now. Toronto supports a handful of year-round markets including the old reliable St. Lawrence and a relative......

Yesterday was a tough day for fans of free ice cream. You see, April 29th was Ben and Jerry's Free Cone Day, at participating store locations worldwide. Los Angeles residents, like much of the rest of the world, easily (and, we assume, happily) got theirs. The Ben and Jerry's at 238 Queen Street West, however—Toronto's only downtown store—was closed, with a sign in the window that declared it was "Closed for the season! See you......

Photo by mag3737. Brimming with ice, syrup and syntho-flavours, the right slushy can truly hit the proverbial spot on a hot day. Refreshment possibilities aside, our research has indicated, as per undoubtedly reliable sources, that these concoctions are also capable of giving you the power of not only song, but dance—Broadway style! With that in mind, jazz hands a-ready, and our insulin levels relatively in check, we went slushy hunting.......

Start with the caviar and hazelnut foam. Next, try the bacon-stuffed tangerine segment appetizer, and follow with a palate-cleansing sorbet of kiwi and heirloom tomato purée. You'd be a fool to miss the rock lobster meatloaf, which is served atop an oasis of fig and cucumber gelée. Finish with a candied beet root custard and a tassé of chipotle-scented espresso. Bon Appétit! Haute cuisine fans will descend on Isabel Bader Theatre (93 Charles Street......

Two ads for local bakeries lay side-by-side in an evening newspaper. One will become an international food empire (albeit one in the midst of boardroom turmoil), the other will find that a walking loaf of bread does not ensure longevity. George Weston (1865–1924) entered the bread business at the age of 12, learning the craft at several local bakeries. At 17 he purchased two bread routes that mark the beginning of the company that......

Have you asked yourself recently "Hey, what happened to the "s" in my local Loblaw's sign?" If so, you probably live in Toronto or Collingwood and are curiously attentive to detail. The missing "s" comes as Loblaw Corporation, parent company of Loblaw's grocery chain, tries out a rebrand at three of their stores. Two of the locations are in Toronto, one on Burnamthorpe, and the other at Yonge Street and Yonge Boulevard (between Lawrence......

A very well-dressed and perplexed-looking man stands in front of the egg display in a local supermarket, warily eyeing the dizzying array of medium, large, extra-large, white, brown, free-run, cage-free, organic, omega-3, enhanced, hard-boiled, pickled, and even yolkless eggs. He takes a step back, calls a trusted confidant on his cell phone, and asks: Man: Hi. How exactly does one go about selecting eggs? Ah, the paradox of choice strikes again.......

Sometimes what passed for clever advertising in the past leaves us speechless. Note that today's ad appeared seven years before Advertising Standards Canada came into being. The free guide offered in this ad was first published in 1944 and offered the following words of wisdom: Soup has long played a stellar part on the Canadian menu—but never has it filled so many interesting and appetizing roles as it does today! Formerly served as a......

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com. Snappy Answers, as you may have noticed, is a couple days late this time around. Sorry. That's what happens when you outsource to China. We'll be back to the regular schedule next week. Where in Toronto, preferably near University of Toronto, can I get my hands on large quantities of tasty, tasty naan bread? Going to Jodhpore Club's lunch......

Photo by blmurch from Flickr. Flour? Check. Yeast? Check? Three pounds of butter? Mais, bien sûr! While we realize that we have been a bit starch heavy as of late here on Torontoist, we just can't help but love these sorts of snacks, and what could possibly surpass any of our previous contestants, in terms of pure indulgence, than the ultimate bakery offspring, the croissant. With a self-made commitment to run at least 10......

Someone at Maxwell House's marketing department must be catching on to some of the hints we've been dropping lately, because on the morning of Wednesday, March 26th, they'll be giving out free coffee to TTC riders at Eglinton Station. Get this—they're also giving free subway rides to the first 10,000 subway riders. It's a pretty awesome random act of kindness. And for good PR measure, Maxwell House is donating $100,000 to Habitat for Humanity.......

Photo by roboppy from Flickr. Don't be fooled by the beanage—red bean paste, eaten most often in Japan, Korea, and China, is sweet and not overly legumey on the palate. Boiled down and mashed to a paste of varying levels of smoothness, red beans are not only tasty, but also super healthy—high in iron, thiamin, protein, fiber, and low in fat. Sure, you could pull out your bean-eating spoon and straight-up consume a can......

Sarah Lazarovic—curator of the garage-based Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada—is painting a portrait of a Torontonian every day. Each Monday, we'll feature one of those portraits here. Clark took over his father's Roncesvalles produce shop three years ago. While his dad's approach was buy cheap, sell cheap, Clark is all about the organic. He says you get what you pay for. If you're spending a princely sum on an avocado, how do you make sure......

Photo of Christian Landers by Jessica Landers. If you're a white person and you haven't heard of Stuff White People Like, you've probably been too busy watching entire seasons of The Wire on your IKEA couch with your Asian grad-school girlfriend, sharing iPod earbuds and a vegan stirfry, and having irony-fortified arguments about Wes Anderson movies, Barack Obama, and whose turn it is to take out the recycling. Congratulations, whitey: you've finally got a......

Every weekday morning, bright and early, we feature a photo (or two) from a photographer in the Torontoist Flickr Pool. It's our way of giving the many excellent photographers in our pool the attention that they deserve. Mr. Cool BY TAYLOR ZHOU......

Sarah Lazarovic—curator of the garage-based Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada—is painting a portrait of a Torontonian every day. Each Monday, we'll feature one of those portraits here. Leonard Cohen thinks Mike's serves up the best hot dogs in town (we thought he'd be all about Buddha Dog!). He's known to take friends and fans down to the John Street doggery for a bite. On a recent snack-finding mission, Mike's friendly man at the grill was......

This fjord is my fjord, this fjord is your fjord, From the valley Thörsmork to the geyser Strokkur, From Lake Lögurinn to Björk's house in Reykjaviík. Iceland was made for you and me. Our favourite Nordic country just got a little closer: Icelandair will launch direct flights between Toronto and Reykjaviík on May 2. To celebrate, Iceland Naturally is hosting a week-long Taste of Iceland festival from March 10–16 to promote modern Viking culture......

Photo by Chenette from Flickr. Generally eaten in its native Trinidad and Tobago as a breakfast food, the loveliness that are doubles reminds Torontoist, yet again, why it's frustrating that the powers that be won't let us expand our street-vendor scope past encased meats. Luckily, there are a slew of places that serve up doubles from "proper" store fronts, and while we have a feeling they taste way better off the back of a......

Snappy Answers runs every Saturday afternoon. Send your questions, be they tough or trivial, to snappyanswers@torontoist.com. Hi, I'm a stressed-out U. of T. student in the middle of midterms, and I'm always looking for good places to study. I'm sick of campus and tired of Starbucks, which is usually overcrowded (not to mention overrated, overpriced etc.). I know Futures has good food and it's open late, but it's too loud. I just want a friendly......

Who knew that a year ago, while surly construction workers were working away at completing the incredibly polarizing ROM Crystal, the ROM's head honchos decided that the new building needed a signature drink to go with it? It may seem odd to picture the charmingly quiet-natured former Globe and Mail editor and current ROM Director and CEO William Thorsell pounding back different martinis with the ROM's governors and trustees and arguing well into the......

You may have noticed the sharp rise in coffee cups littering our streets, which can only mean one thing: it’s Roll Up The Rim time at Tim Hortons once again. When Torontoist was young and starry-eyed, we used to dream of unrolling our cup and finding that we had won a car or a boat or some awesome camping gear. (What ever happened to that prize anyway? It was always the best one.) After......

Says Charles DH Crosbie, who submitted the photo at right to our Flickr pool:Yes, this is how the slice came: a used and soiled "Convenience Size" bottle of Vaseline moisturizer, as found in a Pizza Pizza, bagged slice of pizza; purchased in-store at 8:30PM (EST) 23 February 2008, Yonge St near Bloor St (Toronto, Canada). If you want to see more (and why wouldn't you?), there are several more photos of the mess. (There's even......

Sarah Lazarovic––curator of the garage-based Montrose Portrait Gallery of Canada––is painting a portrait of a Torontonian (be they Mirvishes or Meashas) every day. Each Monday, we'll feature one of those portraits here. Chef Rodney Bowers' two cozy restaurants bookend Queen Street. While The Rosebud is dark and tiny, all awesome art and panelled walls, The Citizen is bright and airy and serves a schnitzel the size of Algonquin Park. But if taking your sweetheart out......

Photo by Darcie. We blew out our flip flops. Stepped on a pop top. Cut our heels; had to cruise on back home. But there's booze in the blender, and soon it will render, that frozen concoction that helps us hang on. Wastin' away again in Margaritaville, searchin' for our lost shaker of salt. Some people claim that there's a woman to blame, but Torontoist knows (doo doo do do doo), it's our own......

University students, busy families, and Crackberry-addicted workaholics, rejoice! No more take-out! No more factory-made frozen dinners loaded with fat and sodium! No more sad, sad "dinners" of Oreo cookies with gin and Seven-Up. Two businesses have sprouted up to simplify home cooking: SupperSolved and SupperWorks. They create the menus, shop for groceries, clean and prepare the ingredients, and even do the clean up. All you do is visit the location closest to you (SupperSolved......

Photo by ethervision from the Torontoist Flickr Pool. We wanted to start off this challenge with a proclamation, in Japanese, of our deep love of sushi. Unfortunately, all the online translators we tried just came up with a bunch of squares. We're pretty sure the Japanese language has evolved past this, so we're going to have to blame it on our inferior translator-finding skills and move on. Invented as an early form of fast......

Kensington Market's Left Feet and Heart On Your Sleeve will be hosting its first annual vegan chili cook-off this Saturday, January 26 in support of homeless outreach. Amateur foodies, in addition to local restaurants Urban Herbivore, Sadie's Diner, and the Magic Oven will compete to find who's got the best vegan chili in Toronto. The cook-off will be held from 2–6 p.m. (with ballots counted and prizes awarded at 5:30 p.m.) at 88 Nassau......

Remember Diamond Shreddies? Last summer, Post Cereals launched a new angle on their classic "Good good whole-wheat Shreddies." This year, one local comedy hero is reshaping the way we look at product testing. Toronto talent and four-time Canadian Comedy award-winner Kerry Griffin has recently appointed himself as head of Shreddies Market Research. Known for his work with improv troupe Slap Happy, Griffin spoon-feeds a series of test questions to consumers in three freshly-released clips,......

As part of the always interesting (and now delicious) This Is Not A Reading Series, U of T history professor Steve Penfold and noted food writer Christine Sismondo are joining forces this week to discuss snack food patriotism and Canada’s unofficial deep-fried culinary icon, the donut. All this in celebration of Penfold’s new book, The Donut: A Canadian History. The 256-page hardcover study “examines the history of the donut in light of broader social,......

What could be better on a cold winter day than a hotdog and fries, straight from one of the chip wagons lining Queen Street at Nathan Phillips Square? There are plenty of chilled condiments to choose from and some of the trucks offer free gravy. So take a break from those ice skates and load up on some carbs—this snack will keep you going for hours. Illustration by Kevin McBride.......