Apollo 11 an Annex favourite By Linda R. Goldman It may be the best kept secret in the Annex. Every second Wednesday, Apollo 11 (1093 Bathurst St.) serves a house specialty: homemade moussaka, as good as Yaya (Greek for grandmother) might make. Moussaka is a traditional Greek baked dish that features minced beef or lamb […]

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We need to plant more than we harvest As we turn our attention to going back to school, it’s nice to reflect on the ways we can reduce the waste that we generate during the school year. According to one survey, the average school in the United States uses about 2,000 sheets of paper per […]

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Lots of places for ambling with a dog, playing sports, or watching the world go by Where are the best bathrooms, the best spots to laze away a day, or the best place to run a dog? It’s all here in the second instalment of our annual parks review. We’ll run the third and final […]

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Toronto shouldn’t have to pay for roads used by non-Torontonians I love a good history lesson. The Green Party of Ontario is floating a wonderful petition to implement road tolls on the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) and Gardiner Expressway. I haven’t been shy about being a fan for congestion control purposes. It likely won’t be […]

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Some parks still suffer from litter and disrepair Grading our Greenspace returns this month in the first of a three-part series. For this popular feature, we assess many of the parks in and surrounding the Annex considering factors like functionality, safety, cleanliness, seating, and shade. As in past years, our grades are widely varied: after […]

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Time to end the car era By Terri Chu While I grant you that visiting a place for a mere two days can’t possibly do it justice, I was more than happy to leave Madrid after what felt like a very long 48 hours. Despite great cuisine and historic vistas, the city felt destroyed by […]

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Narayever synagogue’s private sponsorship builds community By Clarrie Feinstein It took almost two years, but in March the First Narayever Congregation on Brunswick Avenue was finally able to welcome a Syrian refugee family into their community. When the couple and their five-year-old son arrived in Toronto, they became one of 14,000 privately sponsored families now […]

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Governments need to change behaviour through policy By Terri Chu This past Earth day, the planet surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I remember being taught in primary school that 350 ppm was the magic number we weren’t supposed to reach. We sang songs about loving the earth and […]

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We need to change ingrained cultural practices Food waste is a $31-billion problem. Every year, roughly 40 per cent of perfectly edible food that is grown and imported is thrown away. Of that, households account for half of the problem. Discarded food usually takes the form of unwanted leftovers, imperfect food deemed unsalable, oversupply, and, […]

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Tracking the rivers under our feet By Geremy Bordonaro It may be hard to fathom now, but the Annex was once home to three major creeks: Taddle, Garrison, and Russell. They are the area’s lost rivers, buried or incorporated into the city’s sewage system in the late 1800s. “For people, it’s often like ‘Oh my […]

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It’s hard to borrow a cup of sugar…but the problem isn’t Toronto Kellie Leitch is reportedly getting packets upon packets of sugar in the mail as a response to her comments that in Toronto, you can’t walk next door and borrow a cup of sugar. She’s right, to an extent…just not in Toronto. In my, […]

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Owner Katalin Koltai reveals enduring appeal of Country Style   By Clarrie Feinstein Despite the recent closing of Honest Ed’s and the constant turnover of Annex storefronts, Country Style has stayed firm in its place at 450 Bloor St. W. for 55 years. The only adjustment made to the Hungarian restaurant was a two-month renovation […]

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