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Jun 25, 2024 | 
torontolife.com | Haley Steinberg
In Mandarin, there’s a phrase that captures the spirit of teamwork: 双手共击 (shuāng shǒu gòng jī), meaning “it takes two hands to clap.” This saying is the heartbeat of Yueh Tung, Toronto’s first Hakka restaurant, opened by husband-and-wife team Michael Liu and Mei Wang in 1986. As Yueh Tung prepares to celebrate its 38th anniversary amid rising costs and slow post-pandemic profits, the phrase is a testament to the family bond that continues to sustain the restaurant.
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Apr 29, 2024 | 
torontolife.com | Carley Fortune |Haley Steinberg |Joshua Knelman were
Last Thursday, more than 400 guests and 38 Canadian authors gathered at the Toronto Reference Library in Yorkville for the Toronto Public Library’s annual Biblio Bash party. The gala raised over $1 million for library initiatives that support newcomers to Canada, including launching welcome resources in 40 languages and expanding financial literacy programs. Comedian, actor and author Ali Hassan hosted the evening’s festivities, which were organized around the theme of a magical green forest.
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Apr 25, 2024 | 
torontolife.com | Nick Zarzycki |Haley Steinberg
Caitlin Cronenberg grew up on the film sets of her famous director father, David Cronenberg, but she spent the first two decades of her career as a portraitist, photographing celebrities like Margot Robbie, Billie Eilish and Drake for the New York Times, Vogue and Vanity Fair. Now, she’s entering the family business with her directorial debut, Humane, a dark-yet-comedic thriller set in an eco-dystopia.
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Mar 20, 2024 | 
torontolife.com | Nick Zarzycki |Haley Steinberg
Torontonian and Canadian screen veteran Jennifer Podemski has spent her career fighting for Indigenous creative control and autonomy in film and television. “I will never do anything ever again where I am the only Indigenous person on the team,” she says.
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Jan 9, 2024 | 
torontolife.com | Courtney Shea |Haley Steinberg
When the pandemic put his stand-up career on ice, Kitchener-born comedian D. J. Demers wrote the sitcom he’d long intended to create. In One More Time, premiering January 9 on CBC, Demers plays a semi-heightened version of himself, starring as the manager of a sporting goods store who, like Demers, is hard of hearing. “First and foremost, we wanted to make a show that’s funny,” Demers says of portraying disability on prime time.
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Jan 8, 2024 | 
torontolife.com | Andrea Yu |Haley Steinberg
Reformer Pilates has seen a resurgence lately, thanks in part to TikTok and celeb endorsements from Harry Styles and Kim Kardashian. Unlike its mat-based counterpart, this style of Pilates uses a Reformer machine for a low-impact, full-body workout. Here are five new spots to try out Reformer Pilates in Toronto. Assembly MovementFor over a decade, studio owner Clio Templeton lived in Melbourne—a Pilates hub—where she did her Reformer training.
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Oct 31, 2023 | 
torontolife.com | Iris Benaroia |Haley Steinberg
In 2018, Hilary Lipkin watched with a heavy heart as city workers chopped down three elms in the garden of her Forest Hill home. The diseased trees needed to go, but bits of them live on in Lipkin’s living room, including in a tiny rocking chair that she whittled out of one of the stumps. “I’ve always been a wood freak,” says Lipkin, an artist and speech pathologist who is originally from Johannesburg, South Africa.
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Oct 5, 2023 | 
torontolife.com | Patricia Karounos |Haley Steinberg
Winter weather will be here before we know it, which means endless months of grey skies, freezing temperatures and snowy (or, worse, slushy) sidewalks. We’re sorry for the rude awakening, but it’s about time to start thinking about buying some boots that will get you through the season. Ideally, they’ll look great, keep your feet warm and dry, offer good traction when the sidewalks are slick with ice, and be comfortable enough for city walking.
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Oct 4, 2023 | 
torontolife.com | Haley Steinberg
What went down at the 2023 AGO Art Bash gala The stylish event celebrated new exhibitions of works by Kaws and Keith HaringLast Thursday night, art appreciators and party-circuit regulars descended on the AGO for the gallery’s annual Arts Bash gala. In addition to raising $1.1 million for the museum, the event celebrated new exhibitions of works by Brooklyn-based artist Kaws (a.k.a. Bryan Donnelly, who was in attendance) and the late American pop artist Keith Haring.
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Oct 3, 2023 | 
torontolife.com | Iris Benaroia |Haley Steinberg
As a lifelong maximalist, Charlie Li abhors a blank surface. “I’m allergic to empty space,” says the 28-year-old technology operations engineer, who moved to Toronto from Guangzhou, China, in 2011 for university. Growing up in China, Li admired her mother’s radical approach to home decorating. “Eclectic, maximalist decor was rare in China in the early 2000s,” Li says. The reigning design principle, as she remembers it, was zen simplicity.
