Can you believe the NKPR staff went to Paris last night – and were back at the office this morning?
Well, more accurately, we were transported to Paris at the VIP opening of La Société Bistro – the much-acclaimed addition to Toronto’s revitalized Bloor Street and the latest launch for Toronto entertainment mogul Charles Khabouth.
In fact, if it wasn’t for the crowd of Toronto’s most fashionable tastemakers, media and celebrities tweeting away the night (and tweet they did! #LaSociete was a trending topic!), it could have been Paris of the 1920s.
Luxe mahogany and leather furnishings, intricate marble mosaic tile floors and an ornate 20-by-30 foot stained-glass ceiling, all carefully curated by designer Alessandro Munge, helped suspend our disbelief… at least for a few hours.
And, although La Société’s 2,000 square foot patio – the largest on Bloor Street – provides plenty of people-watching opportunity, we couldn’t keep our eyes (or our hands!) off of the immaculate seafood bar. Yum!
Want to see more of La Société? Check out our Flickr gallery of photos from the opening.
Better still, make a reservation and say bonjour to a little piece of Paris in the heart of Toronto.
After watching the students from George Webster Elementary get excited about exercise and healthy eating at yesterday’s At My Best Ultimate Play Day, my staff and I were inspired to eat extra nourishing lunches today (and to make this type of food a more regular part of our everyday). And because everybody loves a little food voyeurism, I posted the pics here for you to check out. Enjoy!
Emily: Vegan, gluten-free taco salad. (Made with mashed up veggie burgers, kidney beans, guacamole, soy cheese, salsa, red peppers, lettuce, corn tortilla…) Deliciousness aside, this is my all-time favourite homemade lunch because it’s full of low-fat protein and veggies, and it only takes five minutes to make.
Lauren: My lunch was the “Chopped Caesar” from FRESH. Skip the bacon! The edamame and tempeh bits are unique additions that make this Caesar a healthy one!
Kaley: I forgot my lunch at home! Maybe someone will share their healthy snacks with me today? (below: NKPR’s fridge)
Kristin: Chicken pita. Delicious veggies and grilled chicken in a whole wheat pita. So delicious, I had to take a bite before I took the photo…
Cat: A salad full of veggies and legumes. A quick and healthy lunch fix!
Jordan: Veggie pita from Pita Pit with an apple and water. A healthy and fast lunch when I am on the go! (Helps that Pita Pit is next door to the office. ;))
Heather: Ever tried to take a photo of a veggie quesadilla oozing cheese? It’s not pretty. But here’s an approximation of the healthy lunch I ate almost every other day this week: baby tomatoes, a few slices of cheese and my lentil salad on greens. (Which, FYI, is so good my friend had to capture his lunch envy with this Twitpic.)
Sarah: My lunch today is a sweet romaine lettuce salad with goat cheese, onions, pecans and baked chicken with oil and balsamic dressing. Healthy and yummy.
Brittany: Vegetarian sushi is my fave (I hate seafood) and apparently ginger is really good for you.
Bunmi: My salad consists of the following: spinach, chicken, strawberries, mushrooms, peas, pumpkin seeds, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, cranberries and pear vinaigrette! It’s a great way to get some veggies into my system and it fills me up. BTW, I think it’s absurd that a place called Sandwich Box makes salads in bowls! (But that’s beside the point.)
Did these ideas inspire your next healthy lunch? Tweet me @natashankpr
After watching the students from George Webster Elementary get excited about exercise and healthy eating at yesterday’s At My Best Ultimate Play Day, my staff and I were inspired to eat extra nourishing lunches today (and to make this type of food a more regular part of our everyday). And because everybody loves a little food voyeurism, I posted the pics here for you to check out. Enjoy!
Emily: Vegan, gluten-free taco salad. (Made with mashed up veggie burgers, kidney beans, guacamole, soy cheese, salsa, red peppers, lettuce, corn tortilla…) Deliciousness aside, this is my all-time favourite homemade lunch because it’s full of low-fat protein and veggies, and it only takes five minutes to make.
Lauren: My lunch was the “Chopped Caesar” from FRESH. Skip the bacon! The edamame and tempeh bits are unique additions that make this Caesar a healthy one!
Kaley: I forgot my lunch at home! Maybe someone will share their healthy snacks with me today? (below: NKPR’s fridge)
Kristin: Chicken pita. Delicious veggies and grilled chicken in a whole wheat pita. So delicious, I had to take a bite before I took the photo…
Cat: A salad full of veggies and legumes. A quick and healthy lunch fix!
Jordan: Veggie pita from Pita Pit with an apple and water. A healthy and fast lunch when I am on the go! (Helps that Pita Pit is next door to the office. ;))
Heather: Ever tried to take a photo of a veggie quesadilla oozing cheese? It’s not pretty. But here’s an approximation of the healthy lunch I ate almost every other day this week: baby tomatoes, a few slices of cheese and my lentil salad on greens. (Which, FYI, is so good my friend had to capture his lunch envy with this Twitpic.)
Sarah: My lunch today is a sweet romaine lettuce salad with goat cheese, onions, pecans and baked chicken with oil and balsamic dressing. Healthy and yummy.
Brittany: Vegetarian sushi is my fave (I hate seafood) and apparently ginger is really good for you.
Bunmi: My salad consists of the following: spinach, chicken, strawberries, mushrooms, peas, pumpkin seeds, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, cranberries and pear vinaigrette! It’s a great way to get some veggies into my system and it fills me up. BTW, I think it’s absurd that a place called Sandwich Box makes salads in bowls! (But that’s beside the point.)
Did these ideas inspire your next healthy lunch? Tweet me @natashankpr
I don’t know about you, but I love being able to squeeze in a workout first thing in the morning. There’s really no better way to start the day. Apparently the students at George Webster Elementary School agree with me because they had quite a workout at this morning’s At My Best™ Ultimate Play Day… and they loved every second of it!
At My Best is a school-based children’s wellness program for students in kindergarten to Grade 3 that focuses on the three key areas of wellness: physical activity, healthy eating and emotional well-being. Today’s event was held in celebration of the third annual At My Best Day, a national event that invites schools across the country to show Canada what it means to be healthy. At today’s event, athletic superstars came out to inspire the kids to get moving! And wow, did it ever work! The kids had so much fun!
Trish Stratus, former WWE superstar and owner of Stratusphere yoga studio, taught the kids some yoga moves and stretches. Jennifer Botterill, a member of Canada’s 2010 Olympic gold medal winning hockey team, played ball hockey with the students and showed them some fancy new stick handling skills. And three Olympic medalists from the Canadian trampoline team–Karen Cockburn, Rosie MacLennan and Jason Burnett–put on an incredible high-flying show!
This is probably my favourite post of all time. Why? Because it could help you win two of the best things in the world: music and dessert! See what I mean? Best. Post. Ever.
Let’s start with music, specifically Royal Wood’s music.
The Juno-nominated singer-songwriter is performing at Celebrate Bloor on June 19 (click here for more details). To get you excited for the show, Celebrate Bloor and Royal want you to win this amazing prize package: a vinyl copy of Royal Wood’s album A Good Enough Day (special edition); vinyl copy of The Waiting; The Waiting CD (signed by Royal Wood); A Good Enough Day CD; and two Royal Wood t-shirts.
To qualify to win, simply answer the following question via Twitter: What song do you hope Royal Wood plays at the Celebrate Bloor concert on June 19? All entrants must follow @blooryorkville, @RoyalWood and hashtag #celebratebloor in their tweet to qualify.
Now for dessert!
I know you like dessert. Who doesn’t? But when you try to bake it yourself, do you:
a) drop the bowl of icing on your cat
b) burn your cookies to a crisp, or
c) use salt instead of sugar
If you answered “yes” to any one of the above questions, you could win a sweet treat from Baker Street! Here’s how:
In celebration of Kitchen Klutz Day on June 13, Baker Street wants to keep you away from the kitchen and keep you well fed, too! To be eligible win a fresh, handcrafted dessert, simply post your klutziest kitchen moment (in writing) on Facebook and sign-up to follow Baker Street on Twitter.
Most of us at NKPR are addicted to Twitter. In fact, we’re even kind of competitive about who has the most followers. Every now and then I’ll hear someone excitedly yelp out a number — “354!” — followed by applause, cheering and a challenge to try, if you dare, to “beat that.”
So, as you can imagine, we’ve assembled a nice (although far from complete!) list of favourite Tweeters, err, Twitterers, Twitterati? Anyways, here’s a sample of who we’re following on Twitter right now and why we <3 them.
Brittany: @AndyWarholSays. Warhol always had the best quotes. And when I’m looking for a fashion fix I go to @RWandCO. They post cool behind-the-scenes photos and contests.
Emily: @toromagazine gives me valuable “male brain” insight. I also follow @mindykaling, a TV writer hero of mine (The Office) and a master of the ironic hashtag. Mindy’s great because she doesn’t re-tweet too much, which annoys me — she just posts hilarious original thoughts.
Heather: A tweeter is only as good as their 140-character bio. Judy Blume’s stream? Not as favourable as her books. But her bio? Enviable.
Kaley: @peoplesrev. Kelly Cutrone is pure bad@ss: “You know where happy people end up? On welfare.” #socool
Kristin: @SKYYSpirits. They always have amazing drink recipes! Perfect for new patio cocktail ideas!
Laycee: @ispeakfemale. Because girls have to stick together!!! and the tweets are quotes that every girl should read once in their life! I also like @FollowAMB because the messages are so positive and inspiring.
Andrea: @mashable. Because he always tweets the most interesting information. I’m also a fan of @fila_100 because of the amazing giveaways.
Most of us at NKPR are addicted to Twitter. In fact, we’re even kind of competitive about who has the most followers. Every now and then I’ll hear someone excitedly yelp out a number — “354!” — followed by applause, cheering and a challenge to try, if you dare, to “beat that.”
So, as you can imagine, we’ve assembled a nice (although far from complete!) list of favourite Tweeters, err, Twitterers, Twitterati? Anyways, here’s a sample of who we’re following on Twitter right now and why we <3 them.
Brittany: @AndyWarholSays. Warhol always had the best quotes. And when I’m looking for a fashion fix I go to @RWandCO. They post cool behind-the-scenes photos and contests.
Emily: @toromagazine gives me valuable “male brain” insight. I also follow @mindykaling, a TV writer hero of mine (The Office) and a master of the ironic hashtag. Mindy’s great because she doesn’t re-tweet too much, which annoys me — she just posts hilarious original thoughts.
Heather: A tweeter is only as good as their 140-character bio. Judy Blume’s stream? Not as favourable as her books. But her bio? Enviable.
Kaley: @peoplesrev. Kelly Cutrone is pure bad@ss: “You know where happy people end up? On welfare.” #socool
Kristin: @SKYYSpirits. They always have amazing drink recipes! Perfect for new patio cocktail ideas!
Laycee: @ispeakfemale. Because girls have to stick together!!! and the tweets are quotes that every girl should read once in their life! I also like @FollowAMB because the messages are so positive and inspiring.
Andrea: @mashable. Because he always tweets the most interesting information. I’m also a fan of @fila_100 because of the amazing giveaways.
How amazing is it when corporations come together with charities to make the world a better place? Personally, I find it so inspiring — these sorts of relationships are the reason I do what I do. So, as you can imagine, I was very happy last Friday, May 26, when Camp Oochigeas (Camp Ooch) hosted the grand opening of Ooch Downtown, the first-ever urban camp for children with cancer.
JP Arencibia and Bryan Farrell from the Toronto Blue Jays were at the event. They spent the morning meeting campers and even joined in a game of hockey on the new BMO Sportscourt. Camp Ooch Executive Director Alex Robertson along with campers from Ooch presented a cheque alongside representatives from each of Ooch’s Founding Friends — BMO, Toronto Blue Jays through the Jays Care Foundation, PlayStation and Sporting Life — each of whom made generous $300,000 donations to Ooch Downtown. See? Totally inspiring!
The 18,000 square-foot centre is located at 464 Bathurst Street in downtown Toronto, only blocks away from SickKids Hospital. Ooch Downtown will provide a camp experience to children at no cost to their families who, without the convenience of a city location, may otherwise miss out on the opportunity to go to camp. What a special place!
Here are some photos from the grand opening:
I hope you’re as inspired by Ooch and their Founding Friends as I am! What inspired you today? Tweet me @natashankpr.
Just as we were preparing to launch this column – a new weekly post highlighting the PR and social media hits (and misses) discovered during our web travels – the unthinkable happened.
An office-wide Internet outage, the result of a faulty router, forced us all to consider just how much we rely on an online connection to, well, make connections, inform our decisions and communicate ideas.
Since we couldn’t resort to e-mail or iChat, we were forced to pick up the phone, get up from our desks and (gasp!) put the public back in public relations.
Kudos to André, our IT guru extraordinaire, who remained calm during countless, increasingly frantic questions of “do we have internet yet?”, and (after a quick jaunt to the Apple store) got our connection back up and running so we could complete this post!
Ben & Jerry’s Fair Tweets Campaign
It’s not just our love of frozen sweet treats that made us melt for this campaign. Ben & Jerry’s launched “Fair Tweets”, a cool tool that helps spread the word about World Fair Trade Day by turning unused Twitter characters into a message about Fair Trade. At the time of this post, 463,819 characters had been committed to the cause. Cool, right?
The Canadian Blog Directory
Virtual high fives to Mark Evans and Think33 on the launch of the Canadian Blog Directory at Mesh earlier this week! It’s a PR dream come true and quickly shot to the top of our “bookmarked” list.
Influencers: How Trends & Creativity Become Contagious
In PR, we use the word “influencer” almost to a fault. This short documentary features interviews with leading creative pros about what makes an influencer and how trends develop. A must-watch if you’ve ever struggled to define exactly what and who an influencer is.
Got a link you think we’d love? Tweet us or share it in the comments.
Have you walked down Bloor Street lately, in the Bloor-Yorkville area of Toronto? Doesn’t it look amazing? If you’re as happy as I am to see Bloor looking so beautiful and SO green, mark June 19 on your calendar! This is the date for “Celebrate Bloor,” an event marking the completion of the Bloor Street Transformation Project — the two-year beautification of Toronto’s fashion mile.
This is truly a one-of-a-kind event. I mean, how often do you get to see a red carpet rolled down Bloor Street? No, really. This is actually happening!
From 11 am – 4 pm, Bloor will be closed to vehicles from Avenue Road to Church Street to accommodate a one-kilometer red carpet and all kinds of amazing attractions, including tasting pavilions, the Yorkville Exotic Car Show, a concert stage (featuring Platinum Blonde, Shawn Desman, Keshia Chanté and Royal Wood), a celebrity interview stage, in-store promotions and the official opening ceremony.
