It's Black History Month, and Toronto has the longest record of any city in Canada to celebrate this occasion. In the aftermath of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, campaigns like Black Lives Matter, have spread across the streets of the GTA.
These efforts have highlighted the continued need for a dialogue about racism. Black History Month gives us an opportunity to engaged in these conversations with artists, musicians, filmmakers and comedians who have come together to celebrate the diversity and contributions of African-Canadians in Toronto.
Here are my picks for the top Toronto Black History Month events in 2015.
Jean-Michel Basquiat: Now's the Time exhibit
Jean-Michel Basquiat was the ultimate badass of the New York art scene in the 1980s. His politically charged paintings inspired by graffiti and comics waged a visual war against racism, poverty and colonialism. After years of struggling with depression and heroin addiction, the artist died of an overdose at age 27. Now's the Time is the first major retrospective of the artist's work in Canada.
The Wild Party
This musical will transport you to Manhattan in the roaring '20s where the gin and jazz were flowing. You'll be in the front seats watching as the reckless relationship between a Vaudevillian clown and dancer spirals out of control. The Tony-nominated musical is produced in association with Obsidian Theatre Company who are known for their award-winning work featuring the black voice.
Concerning Violence
If you want a crash course on the history of colonialism in Africa set against breathtaking archival images of the most daring moments in Africa's liberation struggle of the 1960s and 70s, check out filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson's documentary, Concerning Violence. The film, narrated by singer Lauryn Hill, features passages from Frantz Fanon's seminal work, The Wretched of the Earth, about the dehumanizing effects of colonialism.
Kitchen Conversations: Palattes of Africa-Carnival
Equal parts history and culinary art, Palattes will satisfy your hunger for both great food and cultural exploration. This event, featuring New York-based chef and cookbook author Pierre Thiam is set up as a pop-up restaurant serving up traditional West African dishes as well as unexpected Afro-fusion twists. Be ready to taste-test new dishes like Jollof Rice Sushi rolls with jerked catfish. The ticket also gets you admission to the ROM's popular Friday Night Live (FNL) so you can drink the night away surrounded by dinosaur bones.
Kuumba
This is the 20th anniversary of Kuumba, Harbourfront Centre's annual Black History Month festival. The theme this year is Afrofuturism, combining science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, Afrocentricity, and magical realism as a lens to examine issues of race and ethnicity. The event features music, dance, comedy, film and much more.
What did I miss? Add your suggestions for the top events at Toronto Black History Month 2015 in the comments.
Follow Sima Sahar Zerehi on Twitter @SimaSaharZerehi.
Restaurants within restaurants in Toronto are becoming increasingly popular, offering a secret twist to visitors looking for a novel dining experience. But the phenomenon isn't specific to eateries -- plenty of booze purveyors are offering their under-utilized kitchens to transient chefs looking to offer unique but complementary food concepts.
Getting started in a new industry is tough. Book-learning is important, but as anyone can tell you, you've got to make connections, get some real-world experience, start knocking on doors, grab the bull by the horns, turn your life around 
It's been almost five years since 
Takeout is like the "break glass in case of emergency" of ordering food -- you're too crunched for time to sit in a restaurant, too hangry to wait too long for your food, and too broke to get someone to deliver it to you. Why add more stress on top of that -- say, phoning in an order, or waiting in line behind 10 other people to pay? (Man, other people are just the worst.)
Fans of Korean pop music in Toronto have a big reason to celebrate -- the city's first-ever K-pop con is coming this spring. The fan-organized Toronto Kpop Con 2015, set to take over the Metro Toronto Convention Centre for one hectic day on May 2, has already picked up tons of early buzz thanks to a performance by boy band 
Progress Festival, Toronto's newest theatre event, hits the stage from February 4 to 15. The festival is the love-child of 
In the 1900s, Toronto burned. On the night of April 19, 1904, a small fire broke out in a necktie factory near the northwest corner of Wellington and Bay, lighting up the chilly April night. Thanks to a stiff southeasterly wind, within a few hours the blaze had penetrated south of Front St. Many of the wholesale stores and factories that dominated the area were completely gutted. Many collapsed into the street or in on themselves in great thunderous crashes. 
The fire had widespread consequences for the city. City council revised the building code to make provisions for fire safety, manufacturers began to move out of the downtown, and land south of Front St. was made available for the construction of present-day Union Station and the Dominion Public Building.
The turn-of-the-century skyline as depicted in a postcard.
The Traders Bank building at Yonge and Colbourne shortly after it was completed as the tallest building in the British Empire in 1905. The design was provided by U.S. firm Carrère and Hastings who would later produce the famous New York Public Library in 1911. The neighbouring high-rise headquarters of Canadian Pacific would take over the title of highest skyscraper within a decade.
Looking north on Yonge from near Temperance St.
Entrance to an underground public lavatory at Toronto and Adelaide streets. The washroom was the first of its kind when it opened in 1885. Before 1930, 
Interior of central library at College and St. George in 1909. It's now the Koffler Student Centre.
An unidentified location on the south side of Queen St. east of Church in 1909.
Toronto City Hall in 1907. The clock mechanism and bells were made in England and shipped to Canada in the 1890s and are still in regular service.
Southeast corner of Queen and Bay, 1906.
The Toronto Dominion Manning Chambers on the northwest corner of Queen and Bay. If it were still standing, this building would be on the outer edge of Nathan Phillips Square.
Southwest corner of Queen and York in 1909. Osgoode Hall is to the right, out of frame.
The Temple Building on Bay south of Queen lit up at night.
Looking north from Church and the Esplanade in 1907. 
East along Eastern Ave. to the bridge over the Don in 1907. The Canadian Pacific railway line crossed the street at grade.
Looking west along Queen St. over the Don River bridge. Don station, pictured on the right, is now located in Roundhouse Park south of the CN Tower.
The intersection of Queen and King in Corktown in 1907.
Wharves at the foot of Spadina in 1907.
Old Union Station on Station St. Current Union Station was built on land that became available after the 1904 fire, starting in the mid 1910s.
Houses on the east side of University Ave., south of College.
Christopher St. looking east from Centre Ave. near College and University in 1907.
Women in a car outside the Alexandra Apartments on University in 1906. 
Boy clings to the back of a cart as it makes its way down a muddy stretch of road.
Newsboy sells papers on a cold winter street.
Woman and child possibly "picking coke," manually fishing out usable pieces of coke from ash piles for burning at home. One place this was known to occur was outside the steel-producing Kemp Manufacturing Plant in Cabbagetown. The name of Picking Coke Lane commemorates the rather bleak practice.
A crowd gathers outside City Hall to welcome the future King George V, then the Duke of York, to Toronto in 1901.
The future George V poses for a photo with local dignitaries in 1901.
The King Edward Hotel as it appeared when it opened in 1903. Designed by Chicago architect Henry Ives Cobb and E. J. Lennox (famous for his design of Old City Hall,) work began in 1901. As part of the plan, Victoria St. was extended south of King to Scott St. It was named in honour of King Edward VII shortly before it opened in honour of Canada's newly-crowned monarch.
Dinner at the King Edward paid for by Sir John Eaton, of the Eaton department store family.
Looking west on King from outside the King Edward Hotel.
Parade celebrating the return of soldiers from the Boer War in 1902. 
A monument to the Boer War was unveiled on University just north of Queen in 1908.
Scarborough Beach Park at Queen and Glen Manor Dr. in the Beaches some time after 1903.
Kids playing in a bucolic Rosedale Ravine.
Cyclists outside a windmill on Kennedy.
Cycling near Mimico.
Kids from a school on Kingston Rd. near Highland Creek eat lunch in 1908.
Members of a cycling club in the Swansea area.
Hockey in a frozen Riverdale Park.
Amazingly long sled runs in Riverdale Park, possibly the same year.
A bowls match in an unidentified location.
The Broadview football (soccer) team in 1903.
Bathers in the water outside Hanlan's Hotel on the Toronto Island.
Toronto canoe club on the downtown waterfront in 1906. That's old Union Station in the background on the left.
Playing on the beach at Sunnyside in 1903.
Calisthenics at the Broadview YMCA around 1900.
Interior of Eaton's candy department at Queen and Yonge.
Inside the St. Lawrence Market in 1904.
Traders gather outside a store at Danforth and Dawes Rd. around 1900.
Hoses tackle the devastating fire that levelled a large portion of the city's manufacturing district in 1904. Flames added for effect afterwards.
The area was mostly occupied by factories and wholesale stores. The fire spread quickly due to a stiff wind and the fact few of the buildings had any kind of fire protection.
Looking east along Front from Bay St. By 11:00 p.m., the fire had caused buildings on Front to collapse into the street, pulling down electricity lines.
Remarkably, no-one was killed in the blaze, though a few firefighters suffered burns. However, more than a 100 buildings were destroyed.
West along Front towards Union Station. Nightwatchman Johnson believed the fire had been triggered by an electrical fault inside the E. & S. Currie necktie factory.
Alarm box 12, the one Johnson used to raise the alarm, was located where TD Centre stands today. The box itself is still in the possession of Toronto Fire.
A map of the area destroyed by fire. The blaze started in the northwest of the area circled in red, near Bay and Wellington, and traveled southeast on the wind to the Esplanade.
A boy paints a flagpole overlooking Front St. in 1907. Many of the buildings destroyed by the fire are still in ruins.
Plan of proposed improvements to the city as suggested by The Guild of Civic Art, a group of artists and architects. Central to the 1908 concept was a pair of diagonal roads (marked in red) that would have cut into the city from the northwest and east. The group, formed in 1897, also proposed several new parks and playgrounds.
Toronto Evening Star reporters at a desk in 1908.
Exterior of the Evening Telegram building at the southwest corner of Bay and Melinda. Buildings on three sides of the offices were damaged or destroyed during the 1904 fire, but the Telegram escaped with only minor damage.
The Telegram printing press.
Reporters from the Telegram. For much of its existence, the paper was locked in a circulation war with the Evening Star (now the Toronto Star.) It folded in 1971.
It launched in Summerhll and became a Financial District favourite, but now this Toronto-based wax bar empire is looking to get Leslieville residents looking their smoothest. Another spot just popped up in Bloor West Village, with more on the way -- clearly, their gentle, skin-friendly approach to waxing is catching on.
Starting this weekend, you're going to see a lot of Douglas Coupland around Toronto. Famous around the world for his literary works and cultural critiques, he has for the past 20 years also had a successful career as a visual artist. You may already recognize his sculptures peppered throughout city parks, condo complexes, and shopping malls. 
Less a retrospective than a selection of works and collected items presented as artefacts, Coupland makes pop art for the 21st century audience. Presenting material in a glamorous, easily digestible format that explores subjects ranging from Osama bin Laden to airline logos to Instagram, this is a show that will win new fans of contemporary art and irk some already established art lovers. 
There are pieces here that will either touch your heart or strike a nerve, but the underlying sense is that Coupland wants them to be relatable. Viewers who are already familiar with pop art may find the look of the work quite dated and derivative. And even as the work isn't groundbreaking nor entirely original in its execution, it certainly is eye-catching and cleverly packaged with current sensibilities taken into consideration. 
Some works lure you in like quiet storms, revealing their meaning with more subtlety than the more conspicuous pieces. His painting The Poet (2013) is only clearly visible after being digitally photographed, which then reveals a reproduced still from footage of someone jumping off the World Trade Centre on 9/11. With a measure of sensitivity, he allows the viewer to see the complete image or not. 
The colourful wall of memes entitled Slogans for the 21st Century (2011-2014) is like a sea of amusing tweets posted as writings on the wall. They aren't very deep, but that's precisely what Coupland is going for. The glamour of the banal and fleeting, items with pre-packaged meanings aching to be perverted, this is the world that the artist wants to explore. 
The massive hoard that makes up The Brain (2014) is arguably the culmination of such a fascination, overwhelming the viewer with over 5,000 objects arranged as a symbolic atlas of Coupland's brain. As a pleasing counterpart to this work, the neatly arranged shelves containing an array of parts from old construction sets and toy pieces in Brick Wall (2013) are beautiful musings on order, form, and colour. 
Coupland's urge to subvert reaches its peak with the work 
The most demanding task thrust upon the viewer through this entire show, however, is the effort he or she has to make to see it. The venues holding the exhibition are about an hour's walk apart. Many will be left to decide whether to see one or the other, and arguably the show is best seen in its entirety. 
If one wants to take in even more Coupland, there's also an exhibition at 
Everywhere is anywhere is anything is everything is on at the ROM from January 31 to April 26 and at MOCCA until April 19. GUMHEAD will be on display at Holt Renfrew until March 9.
Dutch food in Toronto is relatively tough to find - it's spread out over a number of small specialty stores. The city's few Dutch cafes, delis and restaurants have closed over the years, leaving few opportunities for expats to find their old favourites - and for newcomers to try Dutch specialties. 
Scones in Toronto are less-closely linked to traditional British tea ceremonies than your local cafe or brunch spot, where you'll find them stocked alongside cookies and croissants or served next to your bacon and eggs. Whether sweet, savoury, ordered to go, or enjoyed with jams and cream, these baked goods are best enjoyed fresh (and, preferably, with a hot drink in the other hand).
Every hour of the day, all year round, a team of technicians are watching over Toronto's urban highways from a top secret office complex in East York. 76 cameras located along the Don Valley Parkway, Gardiner, Allen, and Lake Shore Blvd. relay information back to the 60-screen Traffic Operations Centre, which is overseen by a private team of team of contractors hired by the city.
The highway team share a building with the city staff responsible for setting the timing of Toronto's more than 2,300 sets of traffic lights.
Toronto has a long history of computerized traffic operations. In 1964, the city became the first in the world to turn over control of some of its intersections to a computer.
Toronto's first traffic computer--
These photos, taken during the summer, show Toronto's highways moving well. During inclement weather or in the aftermath of an accident, the messages displayed on the overhead gantries and information relayed to EMS teams are of critical importance.
The feed from the highway control centre's cameras 
According to the city, the centre deals with about 12,000 traffic incidents and 700 emergency road closures every year. 869 loop detectors embedded in the road surface provide real-time traffic flow information.
In future, the highway control centre plans to provide travel time information and install additional cameras on important arterial roads.
Most people in Ontario know what it's like to arrive at the LCBO at a perfectly reasonably hour only to find it dark and shuttered. For a corporation established to sell alcohol to the public, provincial liquor stores don't exactly seem keen to furnish consumers with the ability to buy their products.
Free events in Toronto this week will have you braving the cold around town at the Progress performance festival and various Black History month events, plus a very sexy story telling slam and a cinema free-for-all. You can also stop by TIFF's "
Long Winter Fair, part of Toronto's 
