Humanitaritween Bilaal Rajan

“I don’t know if I consider myself mature for my age but I definitely consider myself an average 13-year-old.” For someone who has shot the breeze with the likes of Nelson Mandela, Roméo Dallaire and Desmond Tutu, Bilaal Rajan is not your typical teenybopper; he’s not even your run-of-the-mill human being. He was just four years old when tackling global poverty became his playground. When I was that age, the idea of selling Clementine oranges door-to-door to raise money for earthquake victims in Gujarat, India, would never have crossed my mind as I pushed Barbie and Ken in a luxurious convertible Corvette across a laminate floor. Your childhood mentality was probably the same.

Let’s be completely honest with each other: making a difference in the world is as far from many of our Western minds as a remote ocean island on the most extreme point of the Earth. Read more

Modern Love

Love. The word is only four letters but holds such power and prestige that Romeo and Juliet died for it and Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee keep getting back together because of it. L-O-V-E. Such a small yet omnipresent word; rolling off your tongue and through your teeth and up into the air like dust that never settles. It’s invisible, it’s blind, it’s palpable. It can also be illegal in some states. Consuming and confusing; revengeful and regretful. The course of true love never did run smooth. It feeds all of our physiological methods of perception: We see it when lovers stroll hand in hand under a starry sky. We taste it from a lover’s kiss and feel our breath bate as it bleeds into our soul. We reach for it in the dead of night or in Rod Stewart’s case cheekily croon: ‘I wanna give you my love touch.’ It is featured in almost every television show or film and each song we tune into. Oh, the power of love that Céline Dion sings so well. Read more

Injections, Ejections: The H1N1 Enigma

Over the last couple of months, hello-kisses and pleasantries of ‘how are you?’ and ‘can you believe this weather’ have been replaced by distant smiles and rhetoric fringed with panic and utter confusion. All this – while worshiped Purell dispensers of a palpable deity status not seen since SARS’s heyday, oust Holy Water at religious gatherings.

Since health officials declared in October the ‘Second Wave’ of a pandemic that was first reported in Mexico this past spring – the 2009 flu pandemic, a.k.a. swine flu and politically appropriate, H1N1 influenza virus – the hottest topic these days is whether to sink or swim with the biggest mass vaccination program that has sloshed and frothed onto Canadian shores. Read more

A Communal Quest for Vindication

A Toronto Life magazine feature disheartens the Vaughan community, whose major accomplishments are clouded with claims of corruption and scandal.

Every time I’m asked where I’m from I hesitate. I pause because I want to avoid the know-it-all smirk. I equivocate because I don’t want to hear the toxic and discriminative comments that fall from ignorant lips. That’s not fair to me or any other resident of Vaughan who lives life according to the law.

I’m not naive, but Vaughan is primarily a city full of heart, ­not villains. So why do cantankerous mediums continue to pollute our clean air with what appears to be anti-Italianism and acrimonious sound bites? Read more

An Artistic Adventure Through Greece with Marina Khajetoorian

The heated days of a Grecian getaway climb and fall with ancestral beauty; burning with secrets from eras past, etched in age with epic verse, dumbfounding with archaeological mystery. Having jet and boated across the grandeur of Greece, interior designer Marina Khajetoorian is now one with Greek art, allowing her to fuse her illustrious firm, MK Interior Designs, with enhanced artistic design plans for your home.

From its rocky inclines, ships speck ocean vistas as Doric columns dot villages scarcely trodden by tourists’ feet. Sculptures and sketches, pottery and frameworks flourish and flabbergast with romantic influences, inspired by revolutionary apotheosis and the Bronze Age born on the island of Crete. Read more

Make the SmartChoice with a Mortgage That Moves

Finding the home of your dreams can be exciting, but it’s a life-long investment that involves a careful examination of the health of the economy, the state of interest rates, and how many years it will take to pay off a mortgage.

Without having to get off your seat, Sal D’Angelo will lift you through this decision-making process.

A broker with more than two decades of experience, D’Angelo, owner of SmartChoice Mortgages Inc., offers the advantageous mobile mortgage and rates as low as 2.65 for a five-year variable, in an economy with interests rates at a generational low. “SmartChoice Mortgages will come to your place of business or home so you don’t have to go to your local bank,” explains D’Angelo. “We have 30 lenders that we deal with, Read more

Mideastro: Spice up your taste buds with the latest fusion restaurant.

There’s something about Mideastro – it’s air thick with culture and elegance, it’s atmosphere saturated with downtown cool. Tucked away on a quiet street just north of Toronto, every visitor is whisked away on a romantic Italian journey, floated through the Mediterranean Sea and landed on the eastern shores of Israel. A place where East meets West, Mideastro isn’t your proverbial restaurant but an opportunity to delve into the mysterious and complex twists and tastes of flavours hailing from influential world-class cuisines, which bubble and melt like a dream on your palate.

A powerhouse when it comes to offering the local dining scene something a little more than the ordinary, Mideastro flexes with versatility. Its subdued décor of flickering candles soothes you, the syncopation of classical jazz from a live band Read more

The Big Cheese

Sprinkled on a green, healthful salad, served as an hors d’oeuvres, warmed on a French stick or savoured as a dessert, goat cheese turns every celebration from blah to bold. With its distinctively creamy, sharp taste resounding on the palates of party-goers and soiree hosts with the most, goat cheese has over the years become a table favourite; a special guest star. Onto the red carpet rolls Celebrity International Goat Cheese with Cranberry and Cinnamon, a freshly festive delicacy bursting with warmth and surging with bodied flavour. Made in Canada using the premier milk of soybean-fed goats, Celebrity shines on its own or when complemented with a robust glass of red wine and spread across crunchy crackers. Introduced by Canadian Food and Restaurant Association member Finica Food Specialties Ltd., the contrasting sweetness of the Canadian cranberries marries nicely with the tartness Read more

A Breath of Fresh Air: Bellaria Residences

With crossed gold keys pinned to the lapel of his uniform, a courteous Les Clefs d’Or concierge greets me warmly with a smile and a sweep of his hands. “Welcome to Bellaria Residences, my name is Vic Geiger,” says the experienced curator, as a swanky syncopation of jazz drifts through a stunning atrium of marbled floors, stoned walls, gleaming glass and artistic expressions of the Renaissance. “It’s a lifestyle that is very pleasing, because you walk in and you feel like you’re welcomed home,” says longtime sales representative Frances Chetti.

In just a few steps, the expectations of a boutique condominium complex set in suburbia are surpassed, as the extravagance of a European hotel unfolds. “I feel like I’m waking up in The Ritz-Carlton every morning,” gushes a resident as she heads to the private women’s changing room adjacent to a Read more

You Decide

We are what we do, said a wise Aristotle; so let’s acquaint ourselves with the consequences of our existence. Navigate through the environmental calamities affecting our world and discover the impenetrable connection between the planet’s poor health and how we choose to live. Read more

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