TITLE: relations between  log schemes and toric varieties
QUESTION [6 upvotes]: The theory of regular log scheme, roughly specking is that scheme theory with singularities like those of toric varieties.
Dose anyone could explain this idea in detail or give a reference about the relations between  log schemes and toric varieties?

REPLY [9 votes]: The source text
Kato, Kazuya
Logarithmic structures of Fontaine-Illusie. Algebraic analysis, geometry, and number theory (Baltimore, MD, 1988), 191–224, Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, Baltimore, MD, 1989. 
available here 
http://www.math.brown.edu/~abrmovic/LOGGEOM/Kato-log.pdf.
Example (3.7) (1)
the bottom line is
"... essentially, the theory of toroidal embeddings is nothing but the theory of schemes with smooth fine log. str.'s over a field (with respect to the trivial log. str. on the base field)."