Shows
This MattersSticker shock in the restaurant seatsGuest: Karon Liu, Toronto Star food reporter When one Toronto restaurant introduced a $25 cauliflower dish more than 10 years ago, it caused a bit of a stir at its eye-popping price. When Star reporter Karon Liu recently noticed the price of the same dish was now $41, it sent him to look at the steeply rising cost of meals out. It’s a trend driven by food inflation, wage inflation, rent inflation and a host of other factors. And for many diners, it means eating out is becoming less and less of an attractive option. Which doesn’t mea...
2025-05-2023 min
Commotion with Elamin AbdelmahmoudDragons' Den goes viral over boba tea, and Culinary Class WarsA recent Dragons' Den episode where guest judge Simu Liu raised the issue of cultural appropriation with the owners of a new bubble tea-styled product has generated a lot of online backlash. Elamin chats with the Toronto Star's food reporter Karon Liu about what this moment can teach us. Plus, the Korean reality show Culinary Class Wars has upended the formula for food competition TV. Elamin chats with Michelle Cho and Roxana Hadidi about why other cooking shows should be taking notes.
2024-10-1625 minCommotion with Elamin AbdelmahmoudDirty Pop doc and the fraud behind your favourite 90s boy bandsMusic journalist Maura Johnston joins guest host Rad Simonpillai to talk about 'Dirty Pop,' a Netflix documentary that explores Lou Pearlman's life, the mastermind and con man behind boy bands like N'Sync and Backstreet Boys. Plus, Stephen Yan from ‘Wok with Yan’ is making his first public appearance in 30 years. The Toronto Star's food reporter Karon Liu talks about growing up watching Stephen Yan, one of Canada's first celebrity chefs.
2024-08-0725 min
What Kind of Asian Are You?The Stories Behind The Food - Karon Liu (Toronto Star Food Reporter)Send us a textSeason 5 is now here! Thank you for all of your patience. We have taken a long but well-needed break, but we are back and looking forward to giving you all the great conversations about being Asians with the cool Asians that you yourself would want to have conversations with as well. To start season 5 with a bang, we had a conversation with Karon Liu, a food reporter for the Toronto Star who is based in the Greater Toronto Area. He is a super-talented writer and reporter telling stories about food and t...
2023-04-0359 minWhat Kind of Asian Are You?The Stories Behind The Food - Karon Liu (Toronto Star Food Reporter)Send us a textSeason 5 is now here! Thank you for all of your patience. We have taken a long but well-needed break, but we are back and looking forward to giving you all the great conversations about being Asians with the cool Asians that you yourself would want to have conversations with as well. To start season 5 with a bang, we had a conversation with Karon Liu, a food reporter for the Toronto Star who is based in the Greater Toronto Area. He is a super-talented writer and reporter telling stories about food and t...
2023-04-0359 min
ReframeablesVino is for Everyone: Diversifying Wine with Sommelier Beverly Crandon (Episode 44)We welcomed sommelier Beverly Crandon to the podcast to talk about making wine more accessible, and how diversifying vino can make the conversation around it all the more fruitful. It's a conversation that gets into wine as a way of bringing people together, how Beverly's upbringing informs her work as a sommelier, the importance of learning the entire story of a wine, and celebrating summer in Toronto with a focus on the senses.Beverly Crandon is a current sommelier, wine lover, marketing operations addict, and founder of the Spice Food & Wine Event Series, a collection of events...
2022-07-1340 minThis MattersFood fight: The Michelin Guide is coming to Toronto Guest: Karon Liu, Food writer at The Star. The Michelin Guide to restaurants is coming to Toronto. This dining guide is known around the world for its three star rating system which highlights some of the best restaurants in the world. That said, it also has its critics as many believe it caters to higher end restaurants and there have been unintended consequences with many establishments after the ratings have come out. Will it accurately represent Toronto’s food culture? Or bring irrevocable change
2022-05-1918 minThis MattersA foodie’s guide to pandemic diningGuest: Karon Liu, food reporter Two years of a pandemic have changed the hospitality industry, including the way we look at labour, essential workers, the way we eat and our relationship with food. The Star’s food reporter Karon Liu and food writer Suresh Doss have kept us updated by sharing the best of what the city has to offer our taste buds from a hidden food court at the back of a flea market to a delicious new pierogi spot in an old church basement. Liu joins “This Matters” to discuss the latest pandemic food trends.
2022-03-1618 minThis MattersPandemic highlights longstanding issues in the restaurant industryGuest: Corey Mintz, freelance food reporter and the author of the upcoming book “The Next Supper: The End of Restaurants as We Knew Them, and What Comes After” The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that in a lot of cases what was once normal couldn’t sustain a lot of people. Among many things, the pandemic highlighted longstanding issues within the restaurant industry, such as low pay, worker protections, burnout and delivery apps eating into profit margins. The impact on restaurants closing and reopening through lockdowns, and not having every table filled, was also visibly apparent. Toronto Star food r...
2021-11-1116 minThis MattersButtergate, the dairy conspiracy theory, explainedGuest: Karon Liu, food reporter for the Toronto Star What’s going on with Canadian butter? For more than a year, hawk-eyed bakers, chefs and food experts stuck at home have noticed something odd, a hypothesis that has morphed into a low-stakes but viral conspiracy theory: the butter we’re now using is physically firmer and melts slower. Is this true? How would we prove or disprove ‘Buttergate’? Toronto Star’s food reporter takes us down the winding path of food scientists, palm oil plantations, dairy farms and the ultimate arbiter of butter: his dad. If you wou...
2021-06-0718 minThis MattersHow some restaurants opened and adapted during the pandemic and what’s nextIt sounds counterintuitive, but according to some research, more restaurants opened than closed in Toronto during the pandemic. Data from Yelp, found by Shauna Brail and her team for the Toronto: After the First Wave project, tells a different side of the restaurant story than we typically hear about this struggling sector. As Ontario looks to reopen, we discuss what will that look like for diners and an industry that is trying to get back to normal. Guests: Shauna Brail, urban planner and associate professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga Institute for Management and Innovation and Karon Liu, Fo...
2021-06-0421 minThis MattersCOVID can take out restaurants but not great foodFood writer and editor Suresh Doss specializes in highlighting the culinary gems in Toronto’s strip malls and plazas. He joins the Star’s food reporter Karon Liu on “This Matters” to talk about the particular challenges of food businesses in the suburbs, how younger generations are keeping their parents’ businesses alive and, of course, where he’s been getting takeout.
2020-12-2421 minThis MattersRestaurants remake themselves for the short and long-termKaron Liu, Toronto Star’s food and culture reporter, talks to Adrian Cheung about the inventive ways restaurants are changing for the long-term and how many small business owners are refusing to give up in an unprecedented crisis for their industry.
2020-11-1318 minThis MattersFood for thought: How the pandemic changed how we buy, cook and eat (Rebroadcast)This episode is a rebroadcast from Monday, September 21. From bread baking to meal kits to everyone cooking at home more, The Star’s Karon Liu, a culture & food reporter, joins This Matters to talk about COVID-19 pandemic trends in food buying habits and how the industry is adapting.
2020-10-1220 min
What's Cooking With Chef NoelEP:006 | With Toronto Star Karon Liu: The Art of Food WritingWhen it comes to developing a dish or writing recipes every expert has their own signature style. In this episode, Chef Noel is joined by the Toronto Star Food and Culture reporter Karon Liu where they discussed the art of food writing, the easiest way to communicate the steps involved in cooking a dish, and what inspires him when he is whipping up a brand-new article or dish
Liu is From Hong Kong moved to Canada when he was young and now, he is one of Canada’s top food writers and culture reporters. Karon is Formerly the resident food wr...
2020-10-041h 02
Worship with Bethel-Maidstone United ChurchPart 1: Food for the Soul “Table Manners & Belonging”The first episode in a 5 part series on the significance and symbolism of food in the teachings of Jesus and our everyday lives. Find recipes and more on our Facebook page! References for this episode: Miriam Feinberg Vamosh, Food at the Time of the Bible: From Adam’s Apple to the Last Supper.
Gary W. Charles, Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1. Westminster John Knox Press, 2008.
“Food for thought: How the pandemic changed how we buy, cook and eat” Toronto Star’s Karon Liu on the podcast This Matters
2020-10-0318 minThis MattersFood for thought: How the pandemic changed how we buy, cook and eatFrom bread baking to meal kits to everyone cooking at home more, The Star’s Karon Liu, a culture & food reporter, joins This Matters to talk about COVID-19 pandemic trends in food buying habits and how the industry is adapting.
2020-09-2120 minThis MattersWHO says millennials drive COVID-19 but who says they’re covidiots?Like all generations, there are ‘Covidiots’ and ‘Novidiots.’ Everyone is not the same. The Star’s culture reporter Karon Liu went digging and talked to many young people who are fighting the stigma of covidiocy.
2020-08-1919 min
The Pay Chen ShowEpisode 159 - October 22, 2016Explaining Halloween to new Canadians...it's ok to take candy from strangers one day of the year.
Find out how you can meet some of your favourite designers and bid on a one-of-kind piece of furniture decorated by some of the city's best...including Norm Kelly! All to support the great work done by the Furniture Bank.
Food + Film = the Eatable Film Festival...in its second year, the festival co-founder explains what delicious things there are to eat and drink along with the screenings.
Toronto Star food writer Karon Liu visits the newly opened P...
2016-10-2400 min