The Toronto Gourmet Food & Wine Show is on this weekend at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. I checked out the official opening last night, and I will say this: if you plan on attending this weekend, you better put your game face on.

Between the good old fashioned grape stomp, celebrity guests on the Food Network stage, 23 tutored tasting sessions, a mixology pavilion, a Portuguese culinary extravaganza and almost 200 exhibitors there is tons to see, taste and do.

The Edible City: Toronto's Food from Farm to Fork is a new tasty morsel added to the the popular Toronto-centric uTOpia series. It's an interesting little compilation dishing out essays "on peaches and poverty, on processing plants and public gardens, on rats and bees and bad restaurant service, on schnitzel and school lunches."

The publisher, Coach House Books, has three essays available for preview on their website and The Torontoist featured various excerpts on their website last week. After reading and enjoying them I decided to check out the This Is Not A Reading Series event/book launch held at the Gladstone on Sunday afternoon.

This past weekend the Harbourfront Centre hosted a festival in celebration of the Mexican holiday Dia de los Muertos or the "Day of the Dead."

The Day of the Dead (actually traditionally held over two days on November 1st and 2nd) is anything but depressing. It's generally a holiday meant for festive family gatherings and parties to commemorate those that have passed on, and has been celebrated in Mexico for thousands of years.

At the Toronto rendition, the Harbourfront Centre rocked out music, dancing, food, arts & crafts, and more in honour of the holiday.

After having a hopping good time this summer at Victory Café's Summer Cask Ale Festival, I jumped on the opportunity to check out Volo's Cask Days, their 5th annual cask ale festival.

Seventy casks from 40 brewers have graced the Yonge Street watering hole over the last week, and the festivities officially wrap up tonight with $5 pint night.

We head back to Kensington for our latest essential bar. A summer favourite for its front patio, this bar also makes for a worthy fall/winter retreat thanks to its good selection of beers on tap and definitely off the tourist-track sort of vibe.

Today's bar: Ronnie's Local

Photo by Yellow Bananas

So you're too old to get all dressed up and go around stockpiling candy in an old pillowcase on Halloween. Not to worry, you can do your trick-or-treating at a variety of fun-loving bakeshops across the city. There is a great selection of cookies, cakes and other goodies to satisfy even the most mature sweet tooth out there.