Step inside Ladan Pastry and Nuts and face a welcome assault of smells and colour.

This tiny Lawrence Avenue East shop is stuffed with pistachios, pecans, dried food and spices. Shelves are lined with traditional Persian pastries, and hard to find food products like quince jam, yellow fava beans and barberries. The chickpea dumplings and almond baklava are delicious.

Warning: don’t shop on an empty belly.

Ladan Pastry and Nuts, Lawrence Ave. E., Scarborough, 416-288-0253.

Eco-friendly designers are proving it's more hip than hippie to go green.

Take Urban Tree Salvage, a company that turns every scrap of water-recovered and recycled wood  (sourced within 300 kilometres of their shop in Dwight, Ont.) into something beautiful, lasting and unique.

Like modern day Gepettos, the team at Urban Tree Salvage creates one-of-a-kind beds, tables, consoles, cutting boards and wine racks.

Just think, your dining room table might once have held a woodpecker’s perch.

Urban Tree Salvage, 19a Malley Rd., Scarborough, 647-438-7516, www.urbantreesalvage.com