When we think about Valentine’s Day, roses come to mind, and we’re not alone: In the first few weeks of February, 110 million roses (mostly red) will be sold in the United States. Because it’s wintertime, 80 percent of these roses were grown in the warmer climes of South America (mostly Columbia and Ecuador), and then shipped in refrigerated containers to U.S. florists. It’s estimated that these Valentine’s Day roses produce about 9,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions as they make their way from the sunny flower farms to our Valentine vases. (Photo credit: Courtesy Uncommon Goods)

Read Article

We’ll watch Debra Messing and Anjelica Huston in anything, so we’re especially excited to see them in Smash, the highly anticipated (and heavily promoted) NBC midseason series about the making of a Broadway musical. With a great cast, fabulous musical numbers, irresistible backstage drama, and stellar creative pedigree that boasts Steven Spielberg, Broadway veterans Neil Meron and Craig Zadan, and composer-lyricists Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, this one just might live up to its name when it premieres tonight at 10 p.m. ET. (Photo credit: Mark Seliger/NBC)

Read Article

While we all want to do our part to help preserve the environment, it is often much easier to choose convenience over responsibility, especially when we’re on the go. Even in a city brimming with endless choices like New York, it often requires a bit of legwork to make eco-friendly choices. That’s why we were excited to hear about inBloom, a new location-based iPhone app designed to make it easier to be green.

Read Article

When we interviewed Katie Finneran for the January/February cover of VIVmag last fall, the star of Fox’s I Hate My Teenage Daughter — mother in real life to son Ty, who celebrates his first birthday Feb. 3 — told us that she and her husband, actor Darren Goldstein, hoped to have a second child. Well, she didn’t have to wait for long. She’s pregnant with her second boy, due in June, and she’s thrilled.

Read Article

While removing our shoes before yoga class one day, we noticed a poster for the Yoga Freedom Project, created by Off the Mat NYC and the Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF) to bring attention throughout the month of January to the issue of sex trafficking. The project culminates with a two-hour yoga class on Jan. 31 at Twelve21, 12 West 21 St. in the Flatiron District, with a lineup of nine of New York City’s top yoga teachers. For those not in New York, we also found ways you can help bring awareness to this important — and often overlooked — global issue. An estimated 27 million people currently are enslaved throughout the world, and one to two million children will be sold into slavery within the next year.

Read Article

We’re always fascinated by real-life medical mysteries and stories of survivors who beat the odds. So we’re not surprised that singer-songwriter Jewel wanted to host The Incurables, Veria Living’s TV series that delves into the real-life journeys of patients dealing with chronic — and often life-threatening — illnesses, especially since she has dealt with a few health problems of her own.

Read Article

A decade since she first came onto our radar in the delightful Bend It Like Beckham and two years since she hung up her ER hospital scrubs, Parminder Nagra is back on TV in Alcatraz, an intriguing new series from Lost creator J.J. Abrams that premieres on FOX tonight at 8 p.m. ET with two back-to-back episodes.

Read Article

We’re familiar with Anna Deavere Smith from her work on The West Wing and as hospital administrator Gloria Akalitus in Showtime’s Nurse Jackie, and were aware of her accomplishments as a playwright (Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992). So we were excited to hear that she’s bringing her acclaimed one-woman play Let Me Down Easy — an exploration the modern health care system and the way we deal with illness — to Great Performances on PBS Jan. 13 at 9 p.m. ET.

Read Article

For Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil (W.W. Norton & Company, 2011) author Tom Mueller talked to numerous experts about the history, cultural significance, growing methods and health benefits of olive oil — plus corruption within the industry itself. Among the politicians, chemists, growers and historians, he notes a magic quality about this food. “Even shady characters who’d grown rich making fake oil by the tanker-load spoke wistfully of their childhood spent at the olive mill, and of the life lessons they learned there,” he notes.

Read Article

Nobody does a high-class serial drama quite like the British, which is why we were totally hooked on the first season of Downton Abbey last year. Its mix of historical fiction, romance and intrigue earned six Emmys and 5 million weekly viewers, and left us eagerly anticipating season two, which returns to PBS’ Masterpiece Classic on Jan. 8.

Read Article