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Toronto Life Magazine February 2015
Food & Drink
The Reign in Spain: five bottles of garnacha to get you through what’s left of winter
Grenache, or garnacha, is like the white T-shirt of the wine world: low-priced, beloved, and it goes with everything Garnacha is...
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Culture
See a strange, secretive, practically silent opera
It doesn’t feel like an opera at all. Instead of a palatial hall, The Whisper Opera is performed in the Theatre Centre for an...
Style
Swish Château: an interior designer to the jet set creates a plush sanctuary in the city
For 25 years, Lori Morris has designed fantasy-inducing estates all over the world—a sprawling mountain lodge in Montana, an...
Shopping
The Find: five Om-worthy accessories for the meditation-mad
Ten years ago, it was yoga. Now, the voguish wellness crazy is meditation—tranquil, incense-fumed, cross-legged sessions that...
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City News
Memoir: I was terrified of having my son circumcised
My son was born last spring— a jarring six weeks early, after more hours of labour than I care to remember. At six pounds, three...
City News
Dear Urban Diplomat: how do I get my Ford-hating coworkers to stop mocking me?
Dear Urban Diplomat, I’m a supporter of the Fords. When people badmouthed them at work, I stood up for them. Now that Tory’s...
City News
Dear Urban Diplomat: should I call the cops on my neighbour, the parking-permit cheat?
Dear Urban Diplomat, Two doors down from our semi, there’s an older—but able-bodied!—man who runs a contracting business...
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City News
Ten things Ron Sexsmith can’t live without
The melancholy singer-songwriter releases his new album, Carousel One, next month. Here, the 10 things he can’t live without My...
City News
Puckheads: inside the crazed arenas of the GTHL
The world’s largest amateur hockey organization is also a breeding ground for unscrupulous coaches, raging parents and miserable...
Real Estate News
The Chase: they had $400,000 and were willing to live anywhere but in a condo
A little parental help gets a young couple their starter home
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City News
Dear Urban Diplomat: am I a bad person for leaving my newspaper on the subway?
Dear Urban Diplomat, I’m new to the city, and I read Metro during my morning commute. Am I littering if I leave my used copy on...
Culture
See Douglas Coupland’s futuristic pop art at MOCCA and the ROM
Douglas Coupland’s art dwells on the same subjects as his novels: urbanism, technology and a culture accelerating toward...
City News
The Relentless Robert Deluce: Porter’s founder wants jets on the waterfront. Who’s going to stop him?
His plans to bring jets to the Island airport have made him Public Enemy Number One. But Robert Deluce isn't used to failure—and...
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Food & Drink
Pie Eyed: Seven takes on a classic comfort food
Culture
Mama’s Boy: brazenly bratty, 25-year-old filmmaker Xavier Dolan is Canada’s next great auteur
When the lineup for the 2014 Cannes film festival was announced last April, the Canadian media transformed into a patriotic hype...
City News
Deputy police chief Peter Sloly on running to succeed Bill Blair, and the first item on his agenda if he does: race
As deputy police chief, you are frequently mentioned as a favourite to succeed Bill Blair. Do you want the job? William Blair is...
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City News
#TorontoIsFailingMe: My seniors’ group safeguards the mall
I came to Canada from Trinidad in 1963. When I retired from my job at the Ministry of Transportation 14 years ago, a couple of...
City News
#TorontoIsFailingMe: My parents worked round-the-clock to lift us out of poverty
My parents fled Sri Lanka as refugees from the civil war, arriving in Canada 30 years ago. My brother, Gobi, was born in 1981. I...
City News
#TorontoIsFailingMe: I want to teach kids that this neighbourhood isn’t a curse
I grew up in a five-bedroom townhouse in the Edgeley Village community housing complex. My whole life I had neighbours and...
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Food & Drink
Party in the U.S.A.: the Trump Hotel’s America serves excellent food—with a side of “What the hell?"
Just as Donald Trump is a cartoon moneybags, his tower at Bay and Adelaide makes for a caricature of a swish hotel. On my first...
City News
#TorontoIsFailingMe: I moved to Mississauga to get away from gang life
I was born in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, in 1988. My mother moved to Canada a year later, and my father followed soon after. But they left...
City News
#TorontoIsFailingMe: I ran against Rob Ford and suffered the consequences
My parents came to Toronto from Somalia during the civil war. I’m the fourth of nine children: eight girls and one boy. I still...
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City News
#TorontoIsFailingMe: My brother was killed outside a bar, and everyone assumed he was in a gang
My father, Tsehaie Berhane, fled Asmara, Eritrea, in the ’80s during the war with Ethiopia. He was a professor, and the...
City News
#TorontoIsFailingMe: I tried to improve my neighbourhood and got arrested
In 1989, when I was nine, my parents fled the escalating civil war in Somalia, moving me and my two siblings to Windsor. I fit in...
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Private School Guide
The Private and Independent School Directory Spring 2025
Big Stories
Deep Dives
Inside the rise and fall of the Vaulter Bandit, the 21st century’s most notorious bank robber
To fellow tourists he met around the world, Jeffery Shuman was a semi-retired developer with a bright smile, an even tan and a fat wallet. In truth, he was a legendary bank robber on the run from the Toronto police and the US Marshals
Deep Dives
Anchor Man: Fox News host John Roberts on Trump, the trade war and the American psyche
If Fox News seems an unlikely landing spot for a guy who got his start pumping out Platinum Blonde on MuchMusic, you probably haven’t heard his thoughts about joining the notorious network, the Canada–US relationship and what he misses most about Toronto
Deep Dives
Trump’s Loss, Toronto’s Gain: Meet the artists, professors, scientists and other luminaries ditching the US and moving north
They’re coming from Big Law, the Ivy League, arts institutes and beyond, brimming with smarts and energy and united by a common cause: avoiding the carnage of Donald Trump. True tales from the brain gain
Deep Dives
Dancing Queens: Patrons, staff and performers share their wildest memories of Crews and Tangos, Toronto’s most storied drag bar
Crews and Tangos has been enforcing the rules of the Village for more than 30 years: wear what you want, kiss who you want, but don’t forget to tip the drag queens. With a condo development looming, we asked around for tales from the iconic spot
Deep Dives
The Joy of Sex with Strangers: A Toronto hotwife’s adventures in ethical non-monogamy
Three months ago, I was a suburban mom in a monogamous relationship. Now I’m sleeping with people I meet online—with my husband’s blessing—and we’ve never been happier. Don’t judge us until you’ve read our story
Deep Dives
The Scandal, the Firing and the Fallout: Anatomy of a Bay Street fiasco at RBC
Nadine Ahn was a high-ranking executive at the bank. Ken Mason, her subordinate, was rapidly promoted. Then someone claimed to see them canoodling at the Royal York, tipped off HR and triggered an inquisition
Deep Dives
Edward the Conqueror: The unlikely ascent of Canada’s telecom king
Edward Rogers was dismissed as a meddling nepo baby—until he muscled out his siblings, acquired his competitors, cornered the telecom market and became the dominant force in Canadian sports
Deep Dives
Lady Parts: Inside Meredith MacNeill and Jennifer Whalen’s new show,
Small Achievable Goals
The
Baroness von Sketch Show
alumnae have elevated joking about women’s issues to an art. Their new show takes aim at menopause. How funny is that?
Deep Dives
Murder in the Blue Mountains: The story behind the killing of Ashley Schwalm
Ashley and James Schwalm had what seemed like a fairy tale life—two wonderful children, fulfilling careers and a gorgeous home close to the private ski club where they’d fallen in love. Then Ashley’s remains turned up in a burned-out car at the bottom of a ditch, and all signs pointed to her husband
Deep Dives
Dark Horse: Inside the fall of Eric Lamaze, Canada’s most famous equestrian
For years, Lamaze was the world’s top-ranked show jumper, living an enviable life filled with fancy cars, international travel and adoring fans—the kind of life a person might do anything to protect
Deep Dives
Dividing Line: How the Bloor Street bike lane turned the city into a battlefield
A few kilometres along Bloor has become Toronto’s most contested strip of concrete, igniting fights over congestion, safety and the future of downtown
Deep Dives
The Chosen One: At just 23, Scottie Barnes is the new face of the Raptors—and the team’s best chance of salvation
Barnes is shouldering the weight of an impatient, basketball-mad city, a hit-and-miss team, and his own colossal ambitions. Does he look worried?
Deep Dives
Almost
Famous: Inside the Beaches’ rise to rock stardom
A viral earworm about a breakup turned the Beaches into Toronto’s hottest export. Now, the panty-throwing, stage-diving, all-girl rock band is seducing fans around the world
Deep Dives
“I was nearly beaten to death by my partner. The case was dismissed because it took too long to get to trial”
How an overburdened justice system is failing survivors of intimate partner violence
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Food & Drink
“We felt disconnected from the outdoors before”: What St. Lawrence Market North vendors think of their new home
And what locally made and grown goods they’re selling
Food & Drink
Sort-of Secret: Amelia’s Market, a Geary Avenue grocer selling local goods and light lunches
Like lovely cheese plates paired with glasses of Ontario-made wine
Food & Drink
“There’s more attention now on shopping close to home”: How Broadfork Produce is connecting Toronto’s top chefs with Ontario farmers
And the west-end supplier is opening to the public soon
Food & Drink
The US tariffs are coming for your espresso martini
With Kahlúa no longer available at the LCBO, Toronto bartenders are getting creative