Spice things up with Sheryl Crow

If it makes you healthy, it can’t be that bad. Singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow was living the typical rock star life – on the road touring the world as she promoted her latest hits. Her influence on the music industry became undisputable, with nine Grammy awards and other accolades confirming her talent. During that time, though, she was eating on the run, ordering off hotel room service menus, and snacking on chips and Diet Coke in her dressing room. When jolted with the shocking news of breast cancer in 2006, Crow quickly changed her tune. “My cancer diagnosis was a real game changer for me … Never once in my life had I really considered what I put into my body as having a direct connection to my wellness,” she writes in her season-inspired cookbook If it Makes you Healthy (St. Martin’s Press, 2011). Co-authored by produce lover and chef Chuck White, their guide to good food is packed with vitamin and Read more

Q&A: Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida

The insight of a musician is often nuanced by a lyrical approach, with words tumbling into themselves to uncover unspoken thoughts. Times that by two, and an engaging interview with Canadian singer-songwriters Chantal Kreviazuk and Raine Maida transpires. Married to each other and to their craft, the pair has hits like Feels Like Home, Surrounded, Clumsy and Somewhere Out There between them, but the soundtrack to their lives isn’t solely based on music. With Kreviazuk planning her next album, and Maida releasing his upcoming solo and Our Lady Peace records, the two somehow hit a high note in other areas of their lives. Balancing studio time with three kids and an innate approach to philanthropic endeavours, Kreviazuk and Maida have the synchronicity and grace it takes to turn the ugly into something beautiful. Read more

The Midwives Club

Lucy Sanna was pregnant with her second child when her maternal instincts for an alternative care option kicked in. She had mused about midwifery during her first pregnancy, but as other women before and after her, wasn’t so certain about its scope of practice. She wondered about its quality of care, safety and benefits. She wondered if there was a fee. Heeding the referrals of others, she placed a call to a midwifery clinic near her place of work in Etobicoke, Ont. “I was trying to figure out what to do. I have two cousins of mine who went with midwives as well, and they tried to convince me from the beginning with my first [pregnancy] to go, and the second time, I said, ‘that’s it, I’m going to do it,’” recalls the Bolton, Ont. resident. Nine months later, Sanna welcomed a full-term, healthy baby girl she and her husband named Mariah. Read more

Andre Agassi: BREAK, FAULT, LOVE

At his last Wimbledon appearance in 2006, the same tournament that embraced him with his first Grand Slam win, he stepped onto the sacred grounds of the All England Club wearing a necklace given to him by his son, a choker of block letters spelling ‘Daddy Rocks.’ He certainly did cause seismic effect in his young days, juxtaposing the very essence of tennis refinement by sporting hot lava tights, denim shorts and mullet toupees. During that tumultuous period of his life, however, he was just a boy, tormented by his hate for the lonely sport of tennis; a man-child choked by his unfound identity while finding his volleys and fine-tuning his backhand. Long before his departure from the game, the American athlete did break free from breaking convention with the clothes his enthusiasts often imitated; with John Varvatos and the sentimental accessory that spheres his neck now part of his signature look. He didn’t know then who he was as he took centre court, but the sport and his devotees certainly Read more

In the Moment with Laura Di Battista

When she’s not keeping Torontonians in on the news, Laura Di Battista has her own story to tell, one that involves how she loves her city well. “There’s a few places that you can look at in Toronto where you just see nothing and then the horizon. It’s just so calming,” says the life-long resident of the Beaches area, where she lives with her husband and daughter.

The Toronto-born journalist is most known for making waves as an on-air personality, asking the questions we all want the answers to, without having the courage to ask them ourselves.

It’s mid-morning and Di Battista scans the dailies, sweats out a workout and dives into research before going live at 3 p.m. “The best part of my job is that I leave here every day …  and get to, you know, explore all these great stories in the city.” As host of Read more

Vitanova Foundation: A Second Chance at Life

Some of us travel down roads that split into darkness until we can’t see where we end up or how we got there in the first place. It’s late afternoon and the sun beats down on idling drivers, frustrated by the wait that comes with a freight train charging through a railway crossing like the speed of life. The horizon appears as the gate arms rise, and, like the train, cars speed off into unknown destinations. Turning off a traffic-laden Vaughan road, a utopia of green and tranquility draws you towards a place that has driven 15,000 lives toward the right direction.

The Vitanova Foundation is a former private residence-turned-rehabilitation centre based on a client-centred treatment philosophy. I walk through double doors and take a seat on a green couch in the foyer to meet Franca Carella, the monarch of a not-for-profit corporation that has helped to rebuild the lives Read more

Life’s Simple Pleasures: Gwyneth Paltrow’s My Father’s Daughter

When you’re an actress-turned-mom-turned-blogger-turned-singer, you’re bound to have a lot on your plate. But Gwyneth Paltrow just couldn’t resist adding yet another entree to her CV – a cookbook author.

With her statuesque figure and peaches-and-cream complexion, the award-winning actress is just at home in her kitchen than she is on the stage, having developed a passion for food after sharing treasured moments cooking alongside her late father, filmmaker Bruce Paltrow. Stretching beyond her role as actress, Paltrow’s adoration for food imparted by her dad culminates in My Father’s Daughter (Grand Central Life & Style, 2011), which is now a bestseller. “For me, I kind of feel like everybody in the whole world has passions that they should be pursuing … if people see me doing different things … maybe they would think, Read more

Happy We Go!

While toys and family adventures into the unknown may seem beneficial to those significant years of human development called childhood, experts agree that the only souvenir kids need on their journey to a happy adulthood is time with mom and dad.

“Kids don’t need expensive holidays,” says Linda Cameron, a mother and associate professor in curriculum teaching and learning at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. “It’s quality time, where you are attentive and fully present and mindful of the child – the actual interaction and close one-on-one attention that you pay to an infant – that is far more important than all the toys that you might buy or all the entertainment that you might provide. That gives them a sense of security, connectedness, and an emotional bond.” Read more

Acheson’s Gifts & Decorative Accents

The royal wedding may be unfolding across the pond, but Orangeville, Ont. is closer to Britain than you think. You can thank Dianne Acheson for that.

Her eponymous boutique will lavish guests with all-day tea, finger sandwiches and scones as it broadcasts the elaborate nuptials of Prince William and Kate Middleton in the wee hours of April 29.

Not on the guest list? Watch history unfold at the Orangeville location of Acheson’s Gifts & Decorative Accents as it hosts a royal wedding get-together on April 29, starting at 5 a.m.

The perfect setting for a momentous union, Acheson’s Gifts & Decorative Accents is replete with British-inspired vignettes and Union Jack home décor; seafaring pictures and Read more

Alzheimer’s Disease

Every once in a while, our minds dip into the past, sifting through the vast files of our temporal lobes for the memories and moments that shaped our early days. When I think of my grandmother, I think of a hot summer afternoon, the air so thick the kitchen walls seemed to melt onto the linoleum floor. I remember the crackling noise eggs make in a frying pan, the red of ripe tomatoes perspiring against fresh basil. She stared emptily at the vacant wall before her, glancing at her plate and eating reflexively, her tight white curls matted to her head. Midday came and went. Rimmed red, her glistening green eyes pleaded for help. A flurry of words escaped her mouth, her arms flailed about. She had not eaten, she said, she was left to starve. I didn’t know then not to feel a ripple of burning hurt freezing my insides. I didn’t know then that the woman who stood before me was dying while living, her brain being ravaged by synaptic failure. All I knew was that a strong woman who had borne Read more

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