Supermarkets in France take an obvious and profound pride in their regions and encourage their consumers regularly to buy local goodies such as saucisson sec and––of course––wine.

The original plan was to tell you how to assemble a complete summer wardrobe for around $100. What kind of drugs was I on? The only places you can do that are thrift stores, H & M (and even there you'd whip through the budget fairly quickly), and the Real Canadian Superstore.

When I first started writing this column, Vancouver fashion design hardly existed and, when it did, few supported it. Armani or Donna Karan, fine, but a skirt by a local unknown? The Block and Dream were about the only stores that pushed local labels. And now look at us. Lower Main Street bursting with homegrown boutiques, the fabulous indie fashion at Portobello West market, stunning and marketable looks coming out of the design schools—Vancouver definitely isn’t the style backwater it used to be.

Main's on the move Giving busy 4th Avenue a run for diners’ dollars, Main Street’s latest addition is sweet spot Grub (4328 Main Street). With just 30 seats, this modern room has a “fresh board” of market-inspired daily entreés, antipasto, and thin-crust pizzas. A third Burgoo is slated to open mid June at 15th and Main, while across the street Brewery Creek Cold Beer and Wine Store is in expansion mode.

If you live in East Van, take a look-see at the new South China Seas Trading Co. (1904 Grant Street). You’ll find condiments and cookbooks from all over the world, as at the Granville Island location. Currently in the cooler at both stores are fresh morels and fiddleheads, and you can special order truffles and fresh masa (dig out that tortilla press). An on-site kitchen at the East Side location means cooking classes and food to-go sometime this summer.

Hanging out in John Bishop's kitchen and finding out what makes him tick is one of the pleasures of writing about food in Vancouver, says Angela Murrills as she bids farewell to the city.

A swish set to dish about If you thought that dining at YEW restaurant + bar (791 West Georgia Street) at the Four Seasons was a bit dear and too much of a scene, think again. Stop in Sunday and Monday evenings and a three-course dinner’s a swell $35. Plus, they’ll open any of the 150 wines on the list if you buy two glasses. Check it out at www.fourseasons.com/vancouver/dining.html

Be realistic. Chances are you won’t score a seat for the opening of the Sex and the City movie next Friday (May 30), so give it a few days. Instead, gather the gang for the SATC–themed fashion show at Changes (4454 West 10th Avenue) on the previous night. It happens in-store so, inspired by what you’ve seen, you’ll be able to shop for loads of sale bargoons right after—or buy any of the 20 outfits modelled by real customers. Door prizes, refreshments—what else?

The colour of new leaves, the organic green-pea soup with fresh mint foam ($7.50) that Jean-Yves Benoît makes at his Mistral French Bistro (2585 West Broadway) is like mouthfuls of spring. You can get it at lunch and dinner, served Tuesday through Saturday. Try for a seat on the south-facing patio.

Puzzled by sunroots? The easiest way to educate yourself before you stick something odd and knobbly in your basket is to begin with the obvious and ask the people at the markets who grew it.

Sea Queen fills a gap in a world where most designs are geared to the young and coltlike, and according to Monika Schnarre, what designer jeans have done for the butt, their swimwear has done for the bustline.

Angus An uses all the traditional Asian elements, but in nontraditional formats, to produce dishes that are as good to the eye as they are on the palate.

Market on the calendar Sign of the season, the East Vancouver Farmers Market kicks off on Saturday (May 17), from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Trout Lake Community Centre. Bring your trendiest tote so you can take part in the Shopping Bag Showoff.

The weather man willing, Lower Mainland barbies get their first airing this long weekend. But plain old burgers and steaks are so last summer. Before you fire up the burners, invest in Matt Dunigan (the former quarterback) and Chris Knight’s Road Grill (McArthur and Company, $29.95). Recipes for lamb sliders, citrus-tea-rubbed halibut with orzo-fennel-orange salad, planked apricot Dijon pork, plus sides and marinades galore prove these guys aren’t just blowing smoke.

Even nimble mental gymnasts will find it hard to figure out the connection between Crofton House School, Doolin’s Irish Pub, and the Starlight Casino. Now add golf courses, yacht clubs, movie-catering companies, and Big White Ski Resort to the mix. Give up? All are environmentally smart enough to use disposable cutlery made of wood.

For the first time in many seasons, ankle-length dresses will return to Vancouver sidewalks, with a wide range of styles to tickle your ankles.

Afternoon tea at a posh hotel, a fashion show, and a chance to impress Mom with your savvy eye for secondhand fashion, all for $20? Sounds like a Mother’s Day trifecta to me. Book your seats now for the Salvation Army Thrift Store Fashion Show, Wednesday afternoon (May 14) at the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver (791 West Georgia Street). On top of tea and the show, there’s a silent auction, gift bags, and door prizes. Tickets are available at all Sally Ann thrift stores.

We’ve recently hung out a lot with friends at Provence Mediterranean Grill (4473 West 10th Avenue). Each time, we’ve all gone for the trio of antipasti ($13). The pissaladière, salty with anchovies and sweet with long-cooked onion; pesto-y Mediterranean vegetables; farro salad with apple and fennel—it’s all good. Forced to pick only three, I’d say roasted free-range chicken, grilled chili squid, and maybe those haricots verts with the little black niçoise olives.

There's no sushi, sashimi, or B.C. rolls, but the colourful Japanese tapas on offer here are full of clean flavours and a real visual wow factor.

Like many new moms, Elizabeth Yap-Chung wasn’t jumping up and down with glee at the thought of returning to the 9 to 5 world after her maternity leave ended. But where most women heave a sigh, organize childcare, and resign themselves to the daily commute, Yap-Chung started to think about a way around it. “I wanted to stay home,” she says in a phone interview. “I’d had a business of my own before, and I had a taste for that.

Your weekly food round-up

After launching scents whose names start with A, B, C, and D, Canadian-born “nose” Ineke Rühland has created—well, no prizes for figuring out that it begins with E. Her Ineke line’s evocative Evening Edged in Gold has top notes of plum and osmanthus, features night-blooming midnight candy and angel’s trumpet, and finishes with bass notes of leather and wood. I’d call it “delicately sensual” but if you want to get technical, it’s classified as a “woody oriental”.

A new ingredient to keep in your fridge, sake kasu is a fermented rice mash that’s loaded with essential amino acids and is high in glutamines (hello? the umami factor). It’s what’s left after Masa Shiroki has hand-made his sakes at Artisan SakeMaker (1339 Railspur Alley, Granville Island). At C Restaurant, chef de cuisine Quang Dang uses the creamy white paste ($3.50 for 450 grams) in what he calls “Japanese Mayo, Part 2”, blending it with honey and rice-wine vinegar to serve with salmon cakes.

Once upon a time, before culinary writers, bloggers, and Web sites existed, people learned about food firsthand. Travellers returned from exotic lands with strange seeds and spices. Aspiring chefs refined their techniques by watching not Gordon Ramsay but their elders. Home cooks picked up tips from Mom. So in a way, Don Genova, food journalist and educator, is heir to a long tradition that began when one Stone Ager said to another, “You know, if you brush some sap from that tree over there on your T.

Small white flowers, blue-black berries, golden-orange leaves, vivid red stalks—hearing Caitlin Black describe the seasons of a blueberry bush makes you want to go out and plant your whole yard with them. Black and her husband, Owen, are partners in Aloe Designs, a company that creates gardens for people who not only care about their own patch but about the planet at large.

Groans were heard when the Kitsilano Café (2394 West 4th Avenue) shut recently and showed signs of gentrification. Sure enough, the huge inflatable beer bottle that hung from the ceiling is no more. The new twig-brown décor is sleek and modern, the menu has everything from izakaya fare and brown-rice sushi to congee and “Chinoise” dishes. The place is under new management as Mandala Iki Asian Bistro, with some of the original staff.

The signatures of southern India's food are complex spicing, lightness, and freshness. Discover them all at this Broadway vegetarian restaurant.

See the Gallery With Main Street and Gastown bursting with boutiques brimming with B.C. design, Portobello West a monthly must, and blogs and Web sites landing news of the hotness within the city limits in your inbox every day, it’s easy to forget that local fashion only became a major force fairly recently. A biannual happening since 2004, Vancouver Fashion Week was a once-a-year thang when show producer Jamal Abdourahman first launched the event in 2001. “He wanted to create a forum for B.C.

Shaken: Not Stirred Sunday Brunch, Shakespeare’s 444th birthday, a hip new watering hole, carbon-neutral coffee bar, Vista D’oro Farms, FigMint Restaurant & Lounge and fried chicken Fuel Restaurant.

Logically, good skin-care products should come from places with cold, dry climates that suck out every bit of moisture. Rocky Mountain Soap Company (3057 Granville Street)—based in Canmore, Alberta, in the lee of the Rockies—has a new line of face and eye creams, soothing toner, and cleansing oil ($24.99 to $39.99), all 100-percent natural and sustainably packaged.

This Saturday (April 19) marks the first annual Bike the Blossoms, a partnership between the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival and Slow Food Vancouver. This gentle meander through the city’s leafiest streets starts at the VanDusen Botanical Garden (5251 Oak Street) at 9 a.m. or whenever. It’s not a race, and you’re meant to explore food stops en route, like Coco et Olive (3476 West Broadway) and Soma (151 East 8th Avenue).

It warms my heart to know I can still buy milk in glass bottles from a 100-year-old farm within the city limits. Way to go, Avalon Dairy. If you’ve never been, head there sometime and pick up your dairy supplies from their small store (5805 Wales Street), open weekdays 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m, and Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Newest addition to the range (which includes organic milk) is Vitala, which comes from Abbotsford cows fed on wild-tuna meal.

From the plainspoken dietary analysis of John Thorne, to succulent Portuguese pork and clams, or fun foods for kids, there's plenty here to whet your appetites.

A fashion and image project for teens encourages them to evolve their own style rather than follow the fashion herd of scuzzy celebs and supermodels.

Secrets of Norte We’re pleased as punch to report that much missed Philip Mitchell of gone-but-so-not-forgotten Café Norte is back in our sights and will be teaching a few secret-no-more Norte Mexican favourites at Tools and Techniques (250–16th Street, West Vancouver). Maximum Mexican Comfort Foods is on April 21 and Mexican Fiesta Flavours on May 12. Book early at www.thestoreforcooks.com/.

Just write old hoodies and designer shoes on your calendar. This Saturday (April 12) starting at 10 a.m., new store Orb (2028 West 4th Avenue) hosts the Hoodie Swap Charity Clothing Drive. Be among the first 100 to donate your old one (it’ll go to Kitsilano Neighbourhood House) and get a brand-new Orb special-edition hoodie in exchange. On Wednesday (April 16), get your running shoes on and roar over to the legendary shoe sale at Army & Navy (various locations). Major labels like Ric

Am I alone in thinking most early-bird deals are too early? Gastropod (1938 West 4th Avenue) heads in the right direction with a civilized 7 p.m. cutoff time. Samples from its new early three-course prix fixe: Quadra Island mussels escabeche, organic pork shoulder with polenta and wild mushrooms, sweet carrot risotto. This early menu is available Sunday through Thursday for $35 (plus $25 for wine).

With retro beer mats for cold pints of lager, large platters of squid, and thumping great burgers, the Cascade Room serves up a tasty night out.

Know your itinerary and dress right for business travel; at Impact: An Event for Change’s fundraiser, low-income women get job-ready style help too.

Love his funk ’n’ fantasy shoes, not just for their cool, irreverent style but for the good conditions they’re made in, and the fact that you can get them fixed (which you can’t say for a lot of brands out there). So general rejoicing that shoe designer John Fluevog has opened a second Vancouver store in Gastown in the former Richard Kidd location (65 Water Street).

An absolutely colossal lightning bolt will shoot down from the sky and fry you if you eat fish that aren’t sustainably harvested. Not really, but it’s not a good thing to do and ignorance is no excuse. What you need is the little Ocean Wise Restaurant Directory published by the Vancouver Aquarium, which lists all the places that have got with the program so far. Download or order your copy at www.vanaqua.org/oceanwise/order-directory.html.

Oh dear, grains—the moral majority of the dinner plate. Dull, bland, righteous, humourless, dour, and about as much fun as doing your taxes. No foodie rushes to tell friends he’s just gotten his hands on the new season’s barley. No invitation includes the conspiratorial whisper, “Psst, I smuggled back some organic oats.”

Wood is good was the underlying theme at Interior Design Show West (IDSWEST), held March 19 to 22 at the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre.

It was like herding cats to get this year’s panel together to judge the Golden Plates critics’ awards, but eventually we did.

At it's core, family-style cooking is simple, unpretentious, tasty food. And that’s what Feenie predicts we’ll soon be eating in restaurants.

A sumptuous cape pieced together from silk scarves coloured with natural dyes from plants grown in the artist’s own garden. Discarded duds cut into strips, rewoven, and stitched into a jacket. Good idea or what? These are just a couple of the items you’ll see at the Green Is the New Black Wearable Art Fashion Show, on March 30 at 2:30 p.m. at the Vancouver Museum (1100 Chestnut Street). Presented by the Vancouver Guild of Fibre Arts, the show features close to 50 textile talents and students.

Thanks to the Internet, relatives in Croatia and a friend in Australia had front-row seats as RozeMerie Cuevas sent her signature curvy dresses and suits down the runway.

Pigging out on starters recently at Sha Lin Noodle House (548 West Broadway) meant I got to doggy-bag enough for lunch the next day. What took the edge off my appetite in the best way—as we pondered the merits of pulling, pushing, and dragging noodles—were skewers of grilled lamb, speckled thickly with cumin and spicy with chili. At $1.50 a stick, I had pictured something on a toothpick, but these were much, much bigger. The onion pancakes didn’t help much, either…

A Guide to Vancouver Street Food would be Kate Moss–skinny. Hot dogs and roasted chestnuts—hardly even a pamphlet. The closest we get to what street food could be are the rows of steaming stalls at the Richmond Night Market.

New face for Feenies, Wine fest awards, Tequila takes a shot with new resto & more