The sweet-toothed among us know that the best part of baking is munching sugary ingredients. Back in the day, raw cookie dough was the thing – worth all manner of baker distraction and kitchen subterfuge. These days, what with all the free-floating salmonella horror stories, sneaking cookie dough doesn’t feel

Happy Italian Day! On Sunday June 10th, from 12 to 8 pm, Vancouver will celebrate Italian Day on Commercial Drive, aka Little Italy. ~ ~ Just in time for Italian Day 2016, the City of Vancouver made it official. Commercial Drive – from 4 blocks north of 1st Avenue to

Which Vancouver-born actor can be found in a red and black full-body tactical suit when he’s not trolling his favourite van der Woodsen and her traveling town pants? It’s Ryan Reynolds, of course, whose BC-filmed Deadpool 2 is now into the hundreds of millions. Reynolds can celebrate with a Rye ‘N

Three sips. That’s what it takes, according to the Summerland sommelier. The first will still have traces of your last taste – lunch, 3 pm chocolate, another wine. With the second sip, your mouth is preparing itself for the wine at hand. By the third sip, you are fully into

‘Charlie Bucket found himself standing in a long corridor that stretched away in front of him as far as he could see. The corridor was so wide that a car could easily have been driven along it. The walls were pale pink, the lighting was soft and pleasant. ‘How lovely

The roses can only wish that we stopped at the smelling. For centuries, we have seen fit to drink the roses too. Nicholas Culpeper – influential 17th Century botanist, herbalist and physician – prescribed roses for all types of ailments. As he wrote in The Complete Herbal: ‘The decoction of

Marie Antoinette – the Queen with her own Chocolate Maker – started each morning with a wee tass of hot chocolate. Decades earlier, Louis XV and his mistresses looked to hot chocolate for an aphrodisiac boost. In 1755, Menon captured this Louis’ recipe. ‘Place an equal number of bars of chocolate

On visiting new cities, wise tourists will look for the restaurant teeming with locals and go there. A crafty visitor wandering up and down Main Street will take one look at Trafiq and rush right in. The place is buzzing and the food is delicious. This Cafe and Bakery at 26th and Main

Happy Lunar New Year! Prosperity, happiness and good health to you as we usher in the Year of the Dog. One of the most commonly offered symbols of good fortune and abundance is the orange, particularly of the clementine variety. Our orange offerings come in the form of beautiful paintings.

Thank Ida. If you like raspberries, take a moment to show some gratitude to Ida. According to Greek mythology, baby Zeus’ nursemaid nymph, Ida, was picking snow-white berries for her young charge. When she pricked her finger with a thorn, her blood dripped onto the berries, staining them red for