Results tagged “icecream”

All signs pointed to ice cream. But for some strange reason, our invitation to the Barenaked Ladies' mysterious press conference (held at the top of the CN Tower, we might add) left us in the dark. The banner-dragging bird, the sky-blue background peppered with white clouds and bubble letters—everything about the e-vite seemed eerily familiar. But it took Ed Robertson's unveiling of a giant tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream—called "If I had 1,000,000 Flavours"—for us to finally clue in.

Yesterday was a tough day for fans of free ice cream.

Torontoist is one of fourteen cities in the worldwide Gothamist network. Each Sunday, the editors of every site—from LAist to Londonist—choose their most interesting article, a list which is compiled into the network-wide feature Elsewhere In The Ist-A-Verse.

Winterlicious is back with 130 restaurants participating. For $15 or $20 for lunch and $25 or $35 for dinner, foodies get a three-course meal including appetizer, main, and dessert. Too bad most restaurants play it safe by offering the standard soup or salad, chicken or beef, and cake or ice cream. Although the food is rarely bad, boring food at nearly $50 a head (after taxes and gratuity) is pretty hard to swallow. Luckily, some chefs are treating Winterlicious like a couture show at Fashion Week and presenting innovative and clever fare.

This is precisely the idea behind MyBikeLane Toronto. A North American network of blogs launched in 2006, MyBikeLane is dedicated to outing the road hogs and other boobs blocking the way. All cyclists who have experienced lane blocking are invited to post photographic evidence and license plate numbers, track re-offenders, and use Google geotags to record the scene of the crime.

With Toronto in the midst of a nasty heat wave, this cooler beckoning walkers-by in Yorkville with "Free Water" seemed like a desert mirage. But sure enough, the lid pulled back to reveal perfectly-chilled bottled water care of The Body Clinic, a high-end spa and salon.

Photo by Blaine Kendall from the Torontoist Flickr Pool.

This weekend is going to be a scorcher. Lured by the siren song of the ice cream truck, it will be hard to resist that choc-vanilla twist cone, or Rocket Pop. Then there’s always the convenience store on the corner for a Strawberry Shortcake or Freezie. Of course, after too many of these sweet treats, your bikini or swimming trunks have a snugger fit than you were hoping for while strutting your stuff on the boardwalk. You can thank the high fat and sugar content for that, not to mention the artificial additives and preservatives you may be getting with each mouthful. Not so much fun any more.

Kensington Market Organic Ice Cream has returned! This small, Toronto-based artisinal ice cream joint that took our taste buds by storm several summers ago has always had trouble maintaining a venue. Last summer, it was operating out of The Back Alley (the restaurant, not an actual back alley) on Augusta. The summer before that, it was using the since-abandoned Sancis Fine Foods storefront on Kensington. Torontoist was dismayed a little while back when ice cream weather first came upon us for 2007 and we made a trip to the Back Alley jonesing for a scoop of rose ice cream only to be told that the organic ice cream had moved on. Oh, sure, we could always buy a small tub of the stuff from somewhere like Whole Foods if we really wanted (as if blogging paid well enough to enable grocery shopping at Whole Foods!) or down at the Dufferin Grove Park farmer's market on Thursdays, but it just isn't the same as having a regular organic ice creamery to frequent whenever we had a hankering for a scoop.

This week, the already-awesome Dufferin Grove Park is absolutely ablaze with awesomeness, with tendrils of wicked cool billowing through its leafy canopies and filling the lungs and hearts of theatre aficionados everywhere. The Cooking Fire Theatre Festival, which runs from June 20-24, is a presentation of five short plays, accompanied by a spectacular organic meal and infused with a spirit of collaboration and comraderie from start to finish.

It’s time to dust off your basket, bust out the sandals, and head outside to relish the seasonal bounty of Ontario. Tuesday marks the unofficial start of open-air Farmer’s Market season, with the opening of Friends of Riverdale Farm Farmers’ Market. Now in its 7th year, it runs every Tuesday from 3-7 p.m. The timing is perfect; how good is it going to feel basking in the sun, the suddenly-warm air rejuvenating your pale winter skin, with playful animals scurrying around while you pick up some of the freshest food available in the city?

Downtown corners are speckled with hot dog vendors selling wieners to hungry pedestrians. There are no salad bar carts, no roti carts, no souvlaki carts, and no Chinese bun carts. Food vendors on the street sell hot diggity dogs due to Toronto's strict public health bylaws:

Food preparation must be limited to the reheating of precooked meat products in the form of wieners or similar sausage products to be served on a bun. Hazardous raw meats (hamburger patties, steaks, shish kabobs, farmers sausage and chicken) must not be cooked on the cart.

It seems like, all across the network, folks were up to no good. Maybe it was all the green beer from last weekend...

The youth offerings of IFOA get under way today and run through the end of the school week. Oriented mainly to school groups, Young IFOA readings feature international authors representing a variety of perspectives and books intended for a range of ages, from picture books and early readers, to young adult fare. Stay-at-home parents and regressive hipsters may also find much to amuse and educate. Tickets are $15.

If the creators of Borat knew just how much buzz they'd get from Thursday night's projector malfunction they'd probably have taken a club to the machine themselves. So here we are 24 hours later and finally through a whole screening of Borat.

It's happened to all of us before - you pass by something and you think "wait, when did that change?" Like, when did all the Kinko's in Toronto become "FedEx Kinko's"? When did that happen? When did that Coffee Time become the Coffee Tip, and then the Coffee Type, and finally the Dream Steak House? It's just natural - we can't notice everything as it happens, not even when we pass by regularly. I...

Theatre people often get a bum deal. Humiliating auditions, selling the car for acting classes or singing lessons or to fund a play, producing blood, sweat and tear-filled work and for what? To end up emotionally drained, penniless and with nothing but a collection of tap shoes and wigs to keep them warm at night? So is life on the stage. And, damn it, they deserve recognition for it.

7-Do a rain dance. Bring on the rain with a wacky dance and then step outside to cool off. If we're lucky, the rain will do us some good.

The Toronto Sun and Torontoist agree on something. That Toronto Unlimited Logo totally bites. It bites so much that a giant room of monkeys working in front of iMacs would eventually design a better logo. Instead of going this experimental route billboard company Astral Media teamed up with OCAD advertising students to come up with alternative slogans for the city.

Who knew the traditional Mexican hat known as the sombrero is also the model for an easy-to-make and delicious holiday dessert? The sombrero - which, by the way, has meaning beyond the headwear aspects - lends structure to this tasty after-dinner treat. Check this out:

The relentless Julia Breckenreid is at it again! The illustratoress with the boundless energy has organized shows at a Kensington Ice Cream Shop and Xpace, and now she's invited fifteen lady illustrators to display their wares at Secrets From Your Sister, in support and with proceeds going to Willow, a group for breast cancer survivors. Sez Julia: The launch is for a new alternative for breast cancer survivors - Beryl Tsang has knitted breast inserts for women who are recovering from cancer, as she herself has done. She is selling the pattern so it is less expensive alternative to the very costly silicone or other inserts (prosthetic).

They're giving away free ice cream today at The Big Chill, with all donations going to Sick Kids Hospital. What a nice thing to do on such a grey day. If you're in the nabe, stop by before they close.

Descanter Mark sends us this post about the literary mag's swish fundraiser tonight:

Restaurants: Coffee Mill TIFF

If you aren't already head over heels for the deliciously intriguing flavours of the Kensington Market Organic Ice Cream Shop (Ist List's #3 choice!), then take the opportunity to try out Rosepetal and Chocolate Ginger when the little ice cream shop that could crams twenty-two pieces of savoury art onto its walls. We don't know if any of the piece are lickable, but learn for yourself at tonight's opening. There will be works by local talents Katy Dockrill, Ben Shannon, Carey Sookocheff, Julia Breckenreid and many more. 7pm. And they've even provided a map.

...and not the pre-Rod Stewart 60's rock band! Though they were much better before Stewart infused his trademark pub-rocking, scratchy-throat voice. Anyway, not the Faces at all. This is called "Faces of the Global Village" exhibit, and it's at BCE Place starting yesterday. Over 100 images from documentary photographer Irving Posluns will be on display throughout the Allen Lambert Galleria (you know, that main hallway thing there), depicting the humanity and compassion needed for our current 'global village' situation. The photo to the left, for instance, is a school girl from the West Indies carrying the book "We are Neighbours" - the theme of the exhibit. This is a free Oxfam-sponsored event, running until August 26. And, in case you like ice cream, BCE Place give a free cone to anyone brave enough to spend $5 in their food court.

According to the usually infallible Wikipedia, today is Pi Approximation Day in these parts, because the date is written as 22/7, which works out to an approximation of pi (the irrational number, not the much-revered dessert). Now, many a math purist may tell you why this holiday is flawed, but we are firm believers in milking every excuse to eat pie for all it's worth, and no pooh-poohing PhD is going to rain on our parade.

last weekend of this theatre marathon:

Cinqo, quatro, tres...uh...dose!