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

The Genesis of Guizzetti Developments Inc.

Over the past 50 years, Giovanni Guizzetti has worked to build the future he always wanted: an empire based on honesty and respect. Competing only against one person – himself – Giovanni’s labour has paved the way to a conglomeration of success, a legacy he has now passed on to his son Stefano.

Today, Guizzetti Developments Inc., which has revolutionized the Yonge Street Corridor with high-density, mid-sized commercial and residential projects, is a testament to the fortified bond between father and son. “I’ve never been afraid to make sacrifices,” says Giovanni, who left his hometown in Bergamo, Italy when he was 26. Arriving in Halifax on his birthday in 1956, he travelled to Montreal for work where he humbly accepted pay of 80 cents an hour. Patient and inquisitive for opportunities, Giovanni landed a job cutting wood in Timmins, Ont., which Read more

The Canadian Tenors

Performing for world leaders, royalty and spellbound audiences across the world, a time-strapped 2010 hit a high note for the multilingual Canadian Tenors. Presenting rich and soulful falsettos to also support philanthropic action, the vocal quartet visits the broken region of Bulembu, Swaziland to cultivate awareness for the charity Voices for Bulembu. Working with the legendary likes of David Foster, the Canadian ambassadors for Toronto’s 2015 Pan American Games reflect on an explosive year.

Fraser Walters, on giving back
It’s very difficult to top our performance on the Oprah Winfrey Show when Celine Dion surprised us halfway through our song, but I would give equal billing to our return to Africa this summer. We had absolutely life-changing experiences working with the children of Bulembu, as well as our work with Free the Children Read more

Web Design Store: Surfing for Success

By 2009, there were an estimated 234 million websites. Translation: there is a lot of tough competition out there. So how can a budding entrepreneur or established but out-of-date businessperson compete with their opposition? Enter Web Design Store, a Toronto web development firm with a premise – and promise – to solve all your web design woes with industry expertise and experience. Established by Dolce Publishing Inc. co-founder Fernando Zerillo, Web Design Store is a one-stop shop that makes it simple for business owners and professionals to connect to untapped target groups with the latest technology. “Everyone is using the Internet to gain information, communicate, socialize and purchase,” says web developer Steve Bruno. The question is, which of the 1.73 billion worldwide Internet users are logging on to your website? Read more

Depression: Defeating the Mental Illness Stigma

In 2008, Dr. David Goldbloom, one of Canada’s leading expert psychiatrists, began a speech with an excerpt written by a young man in 1841: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would be not one cheerful face on Earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell. I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible. I must die or be better, it appears to me.” The young man who wrote these words was Abraham Lincoln, who later led his nation successfully through the American Civil War.

Broadcasting hope of recovery to the thousands of Canadians coping with mental illness, this gripping account mimics some of the symptoms of depression. “One of my darkest days is when I attempted suicide in 2004,” says Richard Braudo, who has suffered from familial major depressive disorder since he Read more

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