It all started with a small parsley plant a little girl grew in a cup. That little parsley plant was the foreshadowing of a community garden plot, a thriving rooftop garden and a head full of gardening knowledge. And that little girl was Gayla Trail, now an urban gardening advocate, crafty gal, and author of the popular gardening and project book, You Grow Girl: The Groundbreaking Guide to Gardening. Earning quite a big name in the local gardening scene, Trail was asked to talk about several issues such as the ways an urban Torontonian can start gardening, the benefits of community gardening, and whether or not she thought the rise of interest in sustainability was just a trend.

Continue reading Talkin’ the Green Revolution with Gayla Trail »

The Beet Organic Café and Market
2945 Dundas Street West
416-916-2368

Located across the street from the Academy of Realist Art and The Rue Morgue House of Horror, The Beet was established as a new addition to the Junction community back in February. While its proprietors took possession nearly a year ago, being situated in an historical building (a former TD bank) meant a lot more red tape than they originally anticipated.

But that was then.

Now, The Beet is a busy neighbourhood one-stop shop for organic takeout, seasonal/local produce, super-fresh smoothies, and socially-aware comfy goodness.

Continue reading Beet It! »

Hedonism is a word that I apply to the enjoyment of food somewhat frequently. Taste is, after all, one of the senses, and we receive great pleasure from eating well. There’s a line of thinking that says it’s hedonistic to buy imported strawberries throughout the winter, but that’s not true hedonism to me. Because the acceptance of hard flavourless imported berries pales in terms of sensual pleasure when compared to the blast of sun-warmed sweetness of a local June strawberry. The experience cannot be matched.

Continue reading The Berry Good Month of June »

It seems like everyone’s seeking refuge in lighter fare these days, with most finding refreshment in the cool crispness of lettuce leaves or sweet juicy tomatoes. However, increasing interest in foods that have been grown organically or naturally has put the spotlight on another leafy green that has been finding favour within our food community. Seaweed has been used as food by many, particularly those in East Asia, and is now showing up in many Western areas (albeit confined mainly to those restaurants serving Asian food). This sea vegetable is high in vitamins and calcium, and while most may associate it as only the purplish-black sheet that keeps hands clean when picking up a sushi role, or perhaps as agar used to gelatinize prepared foods, seaweed is a delicious product all on its own. Seaweed comes in all shapes and sizes, as highlighted below, and is scrumptious when it is served as a simple salad. I’ll gladly take this tasty alternative over any boring bowl of salad greens.

Marinated sheets of chewy wakame (above) sit on a bed of soft mixed greens, and is topped with shredded onion and crab meat at Chef Hiro Yoshida’s Hiro Sushi Restaurant (171 King East). This is a refreshing balance of cool vegetables from the land and sea.

Continue reading Salads from the Sea »

The pre-packaged take-out salad is a fickle beast, typified by soggy iceberg lettuce with a well-loved grilled chicken breast, a few nuts or slices of red pepper, and a choice of any number of healthy and not-so-healthy dressings. At price points above most other menu items, fast food salads are not the ideal choice for the food-lover in search of a lunch that is wholesome, fresh and fast. Nonetheless, there are a few options that combine grab-and-go convenience with finer food quality. Between the mainstream and high-end supermarket salad bars, and the new “build-your-own” salad restaurants, the exacting herbivore need not compromise on value and freshness. Looking at the variety and quality of the goods, the bang for your buck and the grab-and-go factor, it’s clear that there is now a lot of choice for greens on the go. But how do the competitors stack up?

Continue reading The Great Salad Toss-Up »

Although I try to eat a mostly seasonal diet, I’ve got to admit that in the dark months of January and February, I start craving fruit. Not just apples and pears, but bright juicy summer fruits like berries. At least once every winter I break down and come home from the grocery store with a bag of cherries, just because I really, really need them, even if they’re nowhere as good as the local cherries we get in the summertime.

Given that this week is the first National Eat Red Week (February 4th - February 10th), I don’t feel so bad about indulging in some cherries. Particularly since local tart cherries are available both dried and in juice concentrate form year round – Ontario is the sole producing province of commercially-grown tart cherries, most of which are the Montmorency variety, and over the past five years, the average annual crop has been an average of 10 million pounds.

Continue reading Life’s a Bowl of Cherries »

K & K Tropical Fruit
298A Spadina Avenue
416-979-3435

When daylight hours get shorter and the temperature stays below zero, I find myself longing for the warmth of the summer sun that graced us only a mere season ago. Our city might continue its trudge through the dirty snow, but a quick trip to K & K Tropical Fruit can add a splash of colour to cure those winter blahs. Situated just on the northwest corner of the chaotic Dundas and Spadina intersection, this jewel is a much loved haunt of locals and non-locals alike. In fact, no advertisement is needed as their high quality fruits speak for themselves.

The first noticeable thing about K&K is the welcoming sight of its neatly arranged produce. A quick glance at the bountiful tables reveals its second charm: the variety of fruits available! Beside the market staples of apples, oranges and bananas are the many items with origins from South-East Asia or South America. K&K imports exotic fare year-round from Thailand and Vietnam, including piles of those thorn-covered and notoriously pungent durians, plastic mesh wrapped pomelos (the giant cousin of grapefruits), and the bulb-like dragon fruit. These strange looking treats take shelter inside the store during the cold winter months next to shelves overflowing with exquisite cases of mangosteens (aka the king of fruits), bundled up branches of lychees, trays of hairy rambutans, jackfruit and guava. Sometimes featured specials will highlight the orb-like persimmon, a tower of jumbo Fuji apples, luscious and firm white peaches or an excellent selection of ready-to-eat sugar-centric papayas.

Continue reading A Mid-Winter’s Trip to the Tropics (With Much Change to Spare) »

When I went to Joe to pick up the cucumbers and wild dill for my annual batch of pickles he had a case twice as big as last year. 40 pounds! “That’s how they come from the guy down there,” was his explanation. Joe runs Augusta Fruits (65 Nassau Street), a produce wholesaler in Kensington market, one of dozens a few decades ago, now one of the handful left. “The guy down there” he’s referring to is one of his suppliers at the Ontario Food Terminal, where nearly all of the produce in Toronto makes a stop. The Terminal is where growers and large-scale wholesalers sell their product to local wholesalers, who in turn supply Toronto’s restaurants. And I’ve always been way-curious about this Shangri-La of fruits and vegetables despite many people telling me how unexotic it is.

Joe agrees to take me with him. When I arrive at the shop at 11am Brad the delivery guy asks me what’s up. I tell him and he asks, “Why would you want to go there?” Why indeed.

Continue reading Where Apples Really Come From »

It’s that time of year when the spotlight turns on everyone’s favourite squash: the pumpkin.

It’s not hard to find pumpkins in the city, with boxes of them on display at every supermarket worth its own salt. But Toronto sits within a region rich in agriculture, so why not venture outside the city limits and pick your own pumpkin straight from where it was grown?

This is a guide to some of the excellent farms in and around the GTA that offer the chance to get out in the fall weather and traipse around looking for the ideal pumpkin. Most in the list offer pick-your-own right from the soil, while others have covered their lawns with thousands of pre-picked pumpkins. (Say that 10 times fast.) Many have family-oriented activities to further entice a trip to the country.

Continue reading In Search of the Great Pumpkin »

Excuses aren’t hard to come by when you want to ditch work early to make it to the market. I was going a’hoarding and I was serious.

Last Tuesday, I took my money and my squealing to Riverdale Farm after making up something about a migraine (Karma, I see you coming after me already).

I never go to the market with a list and I always regret it. I feel like I’m picking out animals at the shelter. I want them all.

Continue reading Stocking Up For Winter »

Last year, a friend of mine living in Chinatown told me her grocery bills were reduced by almost half, largely thanks to her year-round access to dirt-cheap fruit and vegetables. So when I moved to a Chinatown apartment in July, I was excited that the bounty of Spadina & Dundas was minutes away from my front door. After several shopping experiences in the area, I’ve learned a few key things. There are crowds almost all the time. The cashiers are always lightening-fast. It’s hard to track down an unbruised tomato. It’s REALLY cheap. (Case in point: For just a few cents short of $10, I scored 4 lemons, 2-200 gram bags of shallots, a guava, 3 spartan apples, a pint of grape tomatoes, a bunch each of cilantro and scallions, 3 avocados, a zucchini, 3 bananas, two handfuls of sugar snap peas and a persimmon. Whew!)

Continue reading Produce-Hunting In Chinatown »

I am eating a Gingergold as I write this. The first of the season – they’re weeks early due to the hot dry weather. The skin is crisp, the flesh is sweet and if I allow it to linger on my tongue… yes, just the slightest bit gingery. The second best thing of summer is finding the pinkish-green apples piled in baskets at the farmer’s market. The first is the moment I bite into one. Neither the first corn, the first blueberries or the first peaches can match the moment of the first Gingergold. Oh, there’s other apples, and they’ll keep me happy throughout the winter and into the spring, but the Gingergolds never last; there’s not enough of them to start with and fans like me buy them in bushel baskets, hoarding them in cool closets or cellars, desperate to make them last as long as possible.

Continue reading How Do You Like Them Apples? »

FoodShare’s Good Food Box is a box of produce available by special order to the general public. The boxes come in a variety of sizes with options ranging from a small box for $12 to a large box of organically grown produce for $32. These are very affordable prices for delicious fruits and vegetables, which may include a box of Clementines or a bag of freshly harvested tomatoes.

According to Zahra Parvinian, Good Food Box and Produce Manager, prices are low because of the relationship the organization has with produce distributors and the free labour involved in the warehouse through volunteers. However, though price may be a major concern from a consumer standpoint, Zahra is quick to point out that the price is not the point; nutrition, knowledge and quality are. “Education and empowerment is in everything we do,” says Lori Nikkel, communications manager for Food Share.

Continue reading FoodShare’s Good Food Box »

I pulled myself away from my four-day Mission: Impossible marathon to swing by the farmer’s market at City Hall. I may not like hippies and they might not like me. Well they probably like me because they’re all Taoist. But I don’t like them because I’m small-minded and inflexible and my parents were hippies and my mother left when I was three and I have abandonment issues and… well, anyway, I’ll save it for my shrink. But apparently they grow healthy produce.

Foolishly I went during the lunch hour and found myself in a throng of Bay-streeters swarming over the produce stalls like carrion. The house band kept on rockin’ in the free world at a nerve-wracking level. The noise and crowds made it difficult for me to shop in my normal fashion (that’s when I’m shoving people, not the other way around).

Continue reading Life Of Leisure »

Toronto Sprouts
720 Bathurst Street
416-535-3111

I recently read a very good article about food science and food trends in the New York Times Magazine by Michael Pollan. One of the main guidelines he espouses for eating in his article “Unhappy Meal” is “Don’t eat anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.” This conviction weighed on my mind as I walked to Toronto Sprouts. I wondered to myself what my progenitors might say about eating tiny green things. “They haven’t finished growing yet!” might be one protestation. “You’re eating grass?!” might be another. When I told my roommate what I was writing about, he added his own commentary: “Horse food!”

Consequently, I was feeling ambivalent when I came in to Toronto Sprouts from the oppressive heat. I had not anticipated that the short walk from Bathurst station would be quite so arduous. Thankfully, I was promptly greeted by a wave of cool, fresh air, and then the employee-cum-owner, Marie, followed shortly. Both put me at ease and I settled into the blessed modernity of central air-conditioning, something my great-great-grandmother would’ve been baffled by.

Continue reading Toronto Sprouts »