Shad­ows grow longer, leaves turn to rus­set and fall to the damp earth, and an autum­nal chill settles upon our fair city. So what bet­ter time to cel­eb­rate the new life and fruit­ful­ness of spring?

Yes, East­er is upon us, so we should pre­pare ourselves for ser­i­ous con­tem­pla­tion of the greatest mir­acle of all. Chocol­ate.

The good people at Truffle are always ready to help cel­eb­rate the abund­ance of nature, or at least the edible por­tion of it, and they have some spe­cial good­ies for the sea­son. Bags of Pied­montese chocol­ate eggs by Ven­chi are a snip at $14.95 for 135 grams, and they’re also stock­ing some spe­cial items from Wel­ling­ton’s favour­ite alchem­ists of con­fec­tion­ery, Schoc. Those with a farm­yard fet­ish can pre­tend that they’re in a Cad­bury’s ad and gorge them­selves on chocol­ate rab­bits and poultry, while aes­thetes might prefer the one-off hand-painted hol­low eggs. In the same vein as their Christ­mas bars (real gold, frankin­cense and myrrh), they offer East­er chocol­ate bars fla­voured like hot cross buns. What sor­cery is this?!?

Poster for Sheba's Dirty Thirties CabaretOf course, when one thinks of East­er, one thinks of cab­aret. No? Must just be me then. But it seems that oth­ers think the same way, since on Good Fri­day Sand­wiches will be home to “Sheba’s Dirty Thirties Cab­aret”. Any­one who’s seen one of Sheba’s cab­aret per­form­ances (such as at last year’s Mid­night Bur­lesque) will know that “dirty” won’t be an exag­ger­a­tion.

For those who prefer a more sed­ate cab­aret exper­i­ence, Eat­er­ia de Man­on (by all accounts the best French res­taur­ant south of Majoribanks St) is hav­ing a trib­ute to Edith Piaf on Sunday night. For $55 you get a three course meal and live music from loc­al Piafo­philes Sans Souci. I’m not sure what will be on the menu for the night, but they are known for such dishes as squash and pork trot­ter soup, bri­oche-crumbed lambs brains and squid stuffed with wild goat. While those of a sen­ti­ment­al per­sua­sion can ooh and ahh over cutely gam­bol­ing east­er lambs, isn’t it nice to think that some of us will be eat­ing their brains?