Must-try: posh popsicles that taste like summer on a stick

Photograph by Christopher Stevenson

At last year’s annual Roncesvalles block party, Janet Dimond lured foodies to a makeshift ice pop stand on the corner of Sorauren Street. She squeezed the juice by hand for a dozen flavours, added nothing more than a bit of sugar and some herbs, loaded up her deep freeze and sold 200 popsicles for $1 apiece. Since then, she has turned her one-day experiment into Augie’s Gourmet Ice Pops (named after her golden retriever), a bona fide cottage industry. She now sets up at farmers’ markets across the city. The flavours are intensely concentrated (summer fruit squeezed down to its sweet-tart essence) and creatively matched in combinations like blackberry-yuzu and strawberry-balsamic-basil. Each one tastes more like a killer virgin cocktail—garnish and all—than a kiddie treat. But judging by all the tiny popsicle-stained faces at farmers’ markets, kids are eager to refine their palates, too. $3 each.

Blackberry-yuzu

Grapefruit-ginger-lime

Strawberry-balsamic-basil

Lemon-buttermilk

Watermelon-lemon-mint

Honeydew-cucumber-lime-basil-mint

Saturdays at the Evergreen Brick Works, 550 Bayview Ave., 416-596-7670; Sundays at the Leslie ville Farmers’ Market, 20 Woodward Ave.; Mondays at the Sorauren Farmer’s Market, 50 Wabash Ave.