Innholdsfortegnelse for April/May 2021 i Zoomer Magazine

EVERY GOLDEN ANNIVERSARY deserves some upgraded bling. For the 50th edition of the Juno Awards, winners will receive new gold and silver human-shaped statuettes – the sixth redesign since the inaugural Junos, when fans gathered at the St. Lawrence Hall in Toronto to see Gordon Lightfoot, Anne Murray and Stompin’ Tom Connors take home walnut trophies shaped like metronomes. Last March, 72 hours before show time in Saskatoon, the awards show was cancelled when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. After a truncated virtual version unfolded in June, expectations are high for this year’s virtual celebration of five decades of Canadian music, where 15-time Juno winners The Tragically Hip, including late lead singer Gord Downie, will receive the 2021 Humanitarian Award. The festivities return to Toronto, where…

Janet Zuccarini is a resident judge on the Food Network’s Top Chef Canada and CEO and owner of the Gusto 54 Global Restaurant Group, which operates award-winning restaurants, including the legendary Felix Trattoria on L.A.’s Venice Beach and Chubby’s Jamaican Kitchen in Toronto. > What’s the best book you’ve read in the past year and why? Becoming by Michelle Obama. The Obamas are heroes to me – more so now that I live in Los Angeles almost full-time. Michelle Obama showed an admirable amount of candour and opened up about her personal life like no other first lady has ever done. One of the biggest takeaways for me was how Michelle overcame her own insecurities and fears. > What book can’t you wait to dive into and why? Educated by Tara Westover.…

CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME With COVID-19 causing such massive health, social and economic convulsions, the demand for charity is at an all-time high. But in one of this pandemic’s many bitter paradoxes, a steep drop in donations means many organizations can’t fulfill their missions. Amid so much economic anxiety, it’s no surprise many Canadians are tightening their belts and cutting down on discretionary spending. “You can’t give to charity when you’ve lost your job and your financial security is up in the air,” concedes Kate Bahen, managing director of Charity Intelligence, a Toronto-based group that analyzes how charities use our donations. Meanwhile, lockdowns, physical distancing measures and stay-at-home orders have cancelled lucrative fundraising events like walks, galas and door-to-door campaigns and, although charities supporting arts, culture, recreation and sport…

FOR OVER A THOUSAND YEARS, people have been walking the Camino de Santiago (the Way of Saint James) trail across northern Spain,” Lyndon Penner writes in the introduction to his new book The Way of the Gardener: Lost in the Weeds Along the Camino de Santiago. “Aside from the journeys taken by the faithful to Jerusalem and Rome, it is the most popular Christian pilgrimage in the world.” It wasn’t a hike or a religious experience that motivated the Saskatchewan-raised author, gardening expert, radio host and environmentalist to take on part of the 800-kilometre journey. “It started with a beautiful piece of music,” the 40-year-old writes. His good friend Carol, in her 60s, had travelled the route years before and introduced him to the composer Oliver Schroer’s Camino album.…

As an investment banker at Goldman Sachs and governor of both the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, Mark Carney was deeply enmeshed in an economic system that, by his own account, suffers from a crisis of values – namely that “market economies” have evolved into “market societies,” where price determines the value of everything. The economist explores this disconnect in his new book Value(s): Building a Better World for All, which he penned at his Ottawa home during the pandemic last year. The book, which came out March 16, is billed as a “practical manifesto” for achieving a more humane society. It explores how misplaced value is at the centre of the rise in inequality, populism, systemic racism and the health and economic crises now gripping…

EXTRA POUNDS are probably the least of our pandemic worries, but the sedentary double-whammy from stay-at-home orders that restrict our movement and lockdowns that shutter gyms is all too real. We used to walk to the bus stop, climb stairs or run an errand at lunch, but now our work-from-home days are punctuated by trips to the kitchen. Fortunately, new research shows short bursts of activity can have a real impact on physical and mental health. As insignificant as they may seem, these “exercise snacks” can really add up. “Some people think exercise is this special thing we do in a special place after we change into special clothing,” says Martin Gibala, a professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton. “The big picture is it’s just about activity, and…

OH DEAR. I THINK I’VE BROKEN SHARON STONE. We’re 36 minutes into what was supposed to be a 30-minute Zoom interview but, based on Stone’s – let’s call it reluctance – to let go of a badly phrased question, we are in no way ready to wrap this up. We’re talking about her new memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, which dropped March 30. In late September 2001, Stone suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage, a dramatic form of stroke, and an artery connecting her brain and body pretty much shredded. She underwent a lengthy, risky surgery called endovascular coiling to repair the artery with metal coils. She recovered, but it took seven years, and – this is a key point of the book – she’s not exactly who she was before.…

It stands to reason that more Canadians would give to charity if they knew about the tax advantages. “By using charitable-giving strategies, you can minimize your taxes and maximize what you’re giving to causes that benefit the community,” says Andy Kovacs, a Markham, Ont.-based Sun Life financial planner. Better yet, you don’t have to be rolling in it to become a savvy philanthropist. “You can create very significant gifts with small amounts,” notes Mark Halpern, a Toronto-based financial planner and CEO of WEALTHInsurance.com, a firm specializing in risk management and insurance solutions. So if you want to give more money to a worthy cause and less to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), here are some strategies to keep in mind. (As some are more complex than others, you may…

THE CASE A 64-year-old woman presented to the ER due to upper back pain. The occasional smoker had no recent heavy lifting, surgery or trauma; no cough or sputum production or fever (which could indicate infection); no history of high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes; no cancer, night sweats or weight loss. She travelled by car to visit family recently. THE SYMPTOMS Aside from the back pain, she felt mildly short of breath but no chest pain, nausea, sweating or lightheadedness (associated with heart attack) and no headache, dizziness, focal weakness or numbness (associated with stroke or brain disease). THE TESTS Medical students are taught the PQRSTs of pain. In this case, Provoking factors were movement and deep breaths. Quality of pain was soreness with occasional sharp jabs. Region…

NO ONE CAN SAY we didn’t see it coming. The second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was widely prognosticated long before it hit. And it didn’t take a rocket scientist to surmise that seniors residences would, again, be ground zero of the pandemic in Canada, much as they were last spring when eight in 10 Canadians who died of COVID-19 lived in long-term care and retirement homes. It was one of the most disastrous records in a world replete with disaster. Yet, prepare we did not. At least not very well. From infection control to understaffing, despite some amelioration, the problems behind the seniors homes horror show are in many cases unaddressed more than a year since the pandemic started last March. After a lull in cases last summer,…

Michael Moss looks at rows of brightly packaged cookies, jars of spaghetti sauce and microwaveable meals on the shelves of his local grocery store in Brooklyn, N.Y., and has a good chuckle. While most of us are ignorant of the machinations that compel us to buy food, the investigative journalist knows the thought that goes into the wrapping and irresistible contents. “I look at all the tricks that they use to get us to put that package in the shopping cart and laugh,” Moss, 65, says in an interview from his home. “It’s so diabolical, it’s funny.” He also knows what is happening when, with dismay, guilt or regret, we realize we’ve inhaled one of those stand-up bags of mini-Oreos we can eat with one hand. It’s all orchestrated…