Speaker 1: I Am all in Again.
Speaker 2: Oh, let's I Am all in again with Scott Patterson
Speaker 2: and iHeartRadio Podcast.
Speaker 1: Hey everybody, Scott Patterson, I Am all In Podcast one
Speaker 1: eleven productions. iHeartRadio Media, iHeart Podcast. We are doing a
Speaker 1: Luke's Diner with Joanne Lee Molinara. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: something about Joanne. She's a James Beard Award winner New
Speaker 1: York Times bestseller, but most importantly, she is a beloved
Speaker 1: storyteller and cook, captivating her four million social media followers
Speaker 1: with heartfelt narratives that accompany stunning videos that are preparing
Speaker 1: everything from traditional kimichi to inventive, career inspired pasta dishes.
Speaker 1: Her smash debut, The Korean Vegan, was named one of
Speaker 1: the best cookbooks of the year, and her sophomore follow
Speaker 1: up goes on sale this coming October fourteenth. Welcome joe Anne.
Speaker 1: How are you?
Speaker 2: I feel like glowing after that incredible introduction?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, we want to make you feel welcome,
Speaker 1: and you know you've got We had to cut this
Speaker 1: resume down, actually by by about ninety percent. You're so accomplished,
Speaker 1: but welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: And let's dive.
Speaker 1: Let's dive into it.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 1: You know, Korean cookie cooking and recipe crafting on the
Speaker 1: show Gilmore hasn't really happened yet. But when did your
Speaker 1: love for cooking begin? What is is something you grew
Speaker 1: up with or did that come later in life?
Speaker 2: No, it definitely came later in life. I was not
Speaker 2: one of those who spent a lot of time in
Speaker 2: the kitchen growing up, you know, at my grandmother's shoulder
Speaker 2: or anything like that. It was more a situation where
Speaker 2: I became plant based. And that story was while I
Speaker 2: was dating my then boyfriend now husband, and so it
Speaker 2: was partly out of need because there weren't a lot
Speaker 2: of Korean vegan options, but also it was this is
Speaker 2: the you know, age old tale. Was trying to impress
Speaker 2: my boyfriend. I wanted to cook for him, and it
Speaker 2: turned out I really really liked it. I found it
Speaker 2: extremely soothing and comforting but also challenging and inspiring and
Speaker 2: just kind of took off from there.
Speaker 1: Well, the Korean vegan is such a great name and
Speaker 1: it mashes two types of cuisine. Were you always a
Speaker 1: vegan or was there the turning point that led you to.
Speaker 2: No, I was definitely not a vegan. My boyfriend. He
Speaker 2: went vegan before me, and I remember remember telling him like, well,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but I can't be vegan. I'm Korean. It
Speaker 2: just doesn't work. But you know, he convinced me after
Speaker 2: a few weeks and I eventually joined him. And you know,
Speaker 2: that's that's was back in twenty sixteen, so we were
Speaker 2: like in our mid thirty I was in my mid
Speaker 2: thirties at that time.
Speaker 1: So what's the one Korean ingredient that more people should
Speaker 1: have in their kitchen.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's definitely tinjung okay, which I think is going
Speaker 2: to have. It's like qutchajong moment because everybody knows gucha
Speaker 2: jong right now because everybody's had the booky and it's
Speaker 2: like the really cool hot condiment, right. Tinjung is like
Speaker 2: Qutjujong's like unpopular little sister because she's too nerdy. That's
Speaker 2: how I would describe Tinjung. It has a very similar
Speaker 2: flavor profile to quot chu jong, you know, which is
Speaker 2: really red and fiery, but tin Jung is a little mellow,
Speaker 2: doesn't have heat. It's really about, you know, an explosion
Speaker 2: of umami. It's it's that thing that you add to
Speaker 2: your stew or to your soup, or to your pasta saucer,
Speaker 2: or to your dressing, to really elevate it to that
Speaker 2: next flavor level.
Speaker 1: All right, now we're going to ask you about a
Speaker 1: disaster story. Oh in the kitchen, you ever had a
Speaker 1: dish you thought it would be amazing only to have
Speaker 1: it failed miserably?
Speaker 2: Yes, I did.
Speaker 1: So.
Speaker 2: When I was developing recipes for the Koreem Vegan Homemade,
Speaker 2: which is the book coming out this fall, I had
Speaker 2: this great idea for let's see Korean style curry enchiladas,
Speaker 2: which is like it was very ambitious. So it was
Speaker 2: like a lot of different cuisines, one dish and so,
Speaker 2: and I was it's like, convinced, this is going to
Speaker 2: be the next big breakout recipe of my next cookbook.
Speaker 2: And I was so excited to make it. And I
Speaker 2: made it and the curry tasted great, but then once
Speaker 2: I tried to do it in enchalada form, it sort
Speaker 2: of fell apart and it got mushy, and I was like,
Speaker 2: I don't really know what I'm eating here, not to
Speaker 2: mention you, and I photographed all my own photos. It
Speaker 2: looked hideous. It looked like not something you would want
Speaker 2: to eat and so that was a total failure, and
Speaker 2: it was about half a day's worth of work just
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, literally through the trash.
Speaker 1: So look you found out right, yes exactly, some people
Speaker 1: work a couple of years and they you know, half
Speaker 1: a day's not so all right. So your your cookbook
Speaker 1: Homemade coming out October fourteenth. It took you four years
Speaker 1: to put this together? What made this such a labor
Speaker 1: of love?
Speaker 2: Well, I think part of it is because I do everything,
Speaker 2: you know. I photographed my own recipes, I develop my
Speaker 2: own recipes, I test my own recipes. I write every
Speaker 2: word that goes into this book. And so I'm maybe
Speaker 2: a little bit of a control freak. I don't like
Speaker 2: to let pieces of this thing that I'm creating be
Speaker 2: delegated to anyone, you know, other than you know, the
Speaker 2: things that are out of my control truly, And so
Speaker 2: you know, testing the recipes itself is a very long process.
Speaker 2: I tested them, and then I subject subjected them all
Speaker 2: to third party recipe testing as well, and then photographing it.
Speaker 2: That is a huge job, and so I was doing
Speaker 2: that as well. But I would say the longest piece
Speaker 2: of it was the writing. I write essays, to go
Speaker 2: with every single chapter of the book. And these are really,
Speaker 2: like you said, you know, the storytelling that I do
Speaker 2: on my social media, it's a mirror of that in
Speaker 2: the book. It's it's the written version of that. And
Speaker 2: some of these stories are a little bit emotional and
Speaker 2: they're vulnerable, and sometimes it takes a little time to
Speaker 2: really put that together in a meaningful way.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm going to get this cookbook that sounds
Speaker 1: very special. I mean, yeah, feel free to send me one.
Speaker 2: Of course, we'll send you one I'd loved.
Speaker 1: I'd love to read it. I'm always looking for new recipes,
Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm not going to be able to
Speaker 1: pronounce some of these works.
Speaker 2: We'll help you.
Speaker 1: These These are mouth watering recipes. There's a got you Jong,
Speaker 1: got you go Jong stew, stuffed camichi mac and cheese. Yes,
Speaker 1: a pesto? Did I say it right?
Speaker 2: That was actually pretty good?
Speaker 1: Very all right? Red beans stuffed French toast.
Speaker 3: I can say that.
Speaker 1: Chocolate's ask me cake?
Speaker 3: I was okay with that.
Speaker 1: How did you create these dishes?
Speaker 3: Did you grow up eating?
Speaker 1: And how's a mix of sweet and savory contribute to
Speaker 1: those dishes?
Speaker 2: So sweet and savory. That mixture is very very Korean.
Speaker 2: That's a very Korean sort of flavor profile, which I
Speaker 2: didn't even realize because, of course, when you grew up
Speaker 2: eating these foods, you do sort of take things for granted.
Speaker 2: But right now, you know, on TikTok, you know, and
Speaker 2: now I'm a denizen of that social media app, a
Speaker 2: lot of people are talking about why do Korean foods
Speaker 2: always have a little bit of sweet and a little
Speaker 2: bit of savory, And that's very much our style. So
Speaker 2: when I think about the foods that I wanted to create,
Speaker 2: gu jajongstew is a very I mean, it's a pretty
Speaker 2: traditional dish, right, But something like kimchi, mac and cheese.
Speaker 2: I really wanted this cookbook to show I'm Korean American.
Speaker 2: I grew up eating, you know, kimchi, but I also
Speaker 2: grew up loving mac and cheese. What would happen if
Speaker 2: we joined those two things. Just like my personality, I'm
Speaker 2: a little bit Korean, I'm a little bit American, And
Speaker 2: so that was so much a part of developing the
Speaker 2: recipes for this. Like you know, French toast, love French toast.
Speaker 2: Everybody loves French toast, right, but I also really love
Speaker 2: sweet red bean paste. That's a very traditional Korean ingredient,
Speaker 2: and I thought, oh, wouldn't it be fun to stuff
Speaker 2: the French toast with a little bit of sweet red
Speaker 2: bean paste And it turned out glorious. It was like amazing,
Speaker 2: not like the enchilada. So that's really kind of how
Speaker 2: these recipes came to.
Speaker 1: Be, right, Okay, Well, the Korean army stew is a
Speaker 1: beautifully shown on the cover of your cookbook. Walk me
Speaker 1: through this recipe. What makes your version special?
Speaker 2: Well, part of the thing that I wanted to do
Speaker 2: when making Pudicchiga, which is the army strew, is to
Speaker 2: actually study it. I wanted to understand sort of the
Speaker 2: anthropology of this particular dish because it is you know,
Speaker 2: it can be triggering for a lot of people to
Speaker 2: see that dish, especially on the cover of a cookbook.
Speaker 2: And I talk about in the head note, my mother
Speaker 2: really doesn't like that dish, not because she doesn't like
Speaker 2: the way that it tastes, but because what it represents
Speaker 2: to her, which was this is the food that Korean
Speaker 2: people sort of mishmashed together with the leftovers during the
Speaker 2: war because they were so hungry. They were so poor,
Speaker 2: and so this dish to her always reminds her of
Speaker 2: how poor they were and how she nearly died from starvation,
Speaker 2: so I can understand that. So to me, it was
Speaker 2: really important when I was developing a vegan version of
Speaker 2: this to understand the history and the stories that really
Speaker 2: underlie how this dish came to be so that I
Speaker 2: could honor it in a way that wasn't disrespectful. And
Speaker 2: I think because of that, I learned a lot of
Speaker 2: interesting things. For example, if you go to a Korean
Speaker 2: bar right now and you order puditchige, a lot of
Speaker 2: times it's not going to come with beans. A lot
Speaker 2: of times it's going to come with ramen, and it's
Speaker 2: going to come with spam and all of the different
Speaker 2: heavy proteins, but not beans. And I was like, why
Speaker 2: not beans? Beans is such a big part of a
Speaker 2: plant based diet, and I was like, let's add a
Speaker 2: lot of beans back to this. So I actually used
Speaker 2: white beans because that's the bean that I prefer, even
Speaker 2: though back in the day in the nineteen fifties, they
Speaker 2: love to use baked beans or red beans. That was
Speaker 2: a really big popular item. The other thing that they
Speaker 2: like to use of course, is spam. I don't eat
Speaker 2: spam anymore, but I love vegan sausage, and so we
Speaker 2: incorporated a lot of that. I think the reason mine
Speaker 2: is great, though, is because I used Ramen seasoning. I
Speaker 2: love instant lamion. Lamyan is how you say ramen and Korean.
Speaker 2: I grew up on that stuff. My father like basically
Speaker 2: raised me on instant Korean lamion, and I like to
Speaker 2: use the seasoning in addition to the noodles for this dish,
Speaker 2: and it just instantly brings a ton of nostalgia, but
Speaker 2: an explosion of flavor to this stew. I think it's
Speaker 2: also why my dad absolutely loves my army Stewkay.
Speaker 1: So let's dive into your writing process a little bit.
Speaker 1: You build the dish first.
Speaker 2: So the writing process in terms of, you know, what
Speaker 2: comes first, chicken or the egg obviously neither in my book.
Speaker 1: But.
Speaker 2: For me, I kind of treat those things very separately.
Speaker 2: So I idate the recipes and I kind of let
Speaker 2: myself go as you know, crazy as I want to.
Speaker 2: Like the enchilada situation, like, let's really push the envelope.
Speaker 2: What kind of flavors do you want? What do you
Speaker 2: want to make? What do you think will be fun?
Speaker 2: What do you think will taste delicious? That's one part
Speaker 2: of my brain. The writing is done completely separately. Oftentimes
Speaker 2: I'll have already created all of the recipes and I'll
Speaker 2: have written all of those down, and the last piece
Speaker 2: of putting the book together is often the writing, because
Speaker 2: I know it's going to be the hardest, and so
Speaker 2: I will sit down and I'll think of a story
Speaker 2: that I think, you know, has some relationship to the food,
Speaker 2: or is at least thematically consistent with the rest of
Speaker 2: the book, so that it doesn't feel like, uh, it's
Speaker 2: literally coming out of nowhere, but is really designed to
Speaker 2: shine a light on the stories of my family and
Speaker 2: hopefully get people to feel like, oh, this is so relatable,
Speaker 2: I understand this. This makes me feel like, oh, I
Speaker 2: could sit down with this lady while she's cooking dinner
Speaker 2: for me and eat with her.
Speaker 1: Right right, All right, Well, let's go back to the
Speaker 1: show a little bit here. Gilmore Girls Season three, episode nine,
Speaker 1: a deep fried Korean Thanksgiving, missus Kim famously serves Tofurky,
Speaker 1: have you ever made that yourself? And another question is
Speaker 1: if you were hosting a Korean vegan Thanksgiving? What would
Speaker 1: you have? What would have to be on the table?
Speaker 2: Okay, so those are really two good questions. I have
Speaker 2: not made the classic tofurky, but I have made many
Speaker 2: dishes that are very similar to tofurky. And you know,
Speaker 2: obviously I don't have all of the cool, fancy ingredients
Speaker 2: that the tofurky people have. But what I have is,
Speaker 2: you know, I have made tofu wrapped in either tofu
Speaker 2: skin or rice rice paper, right soaked rice paper that
Speaker 2: has been you know, in a brine, just like a
Speaker 2: turkey would be. So I have done something very very similar.
Speaker 2: And I often treat turkey like, you know, sort of
Speaker 2: a poultry type of meat, you know, So I have
Speaker 2: done that. In terms of your second question, what would
Speaker 2: I serve at a Korean vegan Thanksgiving? So I have
Speaker 2: been celebrating Thanksgiving in a very Korean way long before
Speaker 2: I even went vegan. So I always like to have
Speaker 2: a mix of both Korean food and American food when
Speaker 2: we celebrate Thanksgiving. I would say the things that are
Speaker 2: always there are mac and cheese because I love mac
Speaker 2: and cheese. I love, love, love mac and cheese. I
Speaker 2: often bring my kimchi mac and cheese now my pea
Speaker 2: can pie. I love my peacan pie. That's from my
Speaker 2: first cookbook. It's the Peacan red Bean Pie. It is
Speaker 2: one of the mos like more popular recipes of that cookbook.
Speaker 2: And I would say also corn bread, because I love
Speaker 2: corn bread. I just think there's so many ways that
Speaker 2: you can prepare it. We love biscuits. I'm trying to
Speaker 2: think in terms of a protein. I always go with
Speaker 2: my braised tofu. That's a very traditional Korean dish. It's tupuchodine.
Speaker 2: It's very popular. It's easy to prepare, as our brais
Speaker 2: dishes oftentimes, but it really packs both, you know, a
Speaker 2: flavor punch and a protein punch.
Speaker 1: Well, here's something that I read that I found fascinating.
Speaker 1: You're also an attorney. Yes, has anyone ever tried to
Speaker 1: mess with your IP? And? Boy, bad bad move on
Speaker 1: their part, right.
Speaker 2: It's inevitable, sort of inevitable. So a few years ago,
Speaker 2: I got a text from one of my friends who's
Speaker 2: also a cookbook author, and it's a screenshot of a
Speaker 2: book on Amazon called the Korean Vegan Cookbook, not my cookbook,
Speaker 2: somebody else's gigbook. And he goes, what you know, wt
Speaker 2: F and I looked at it, and you know, the
Speaker 2: thing that was troubling about this because I got to
Speaker 2: tell you, there are many books now called the Korean
Speaker 2: Vegan Cookbook that kind of exploded after mine came out,
Speaker 2: and I was told that there's not a lot I
Speaker 2: can do about it. But this one was particularly offensive
Speaker 2: because everything looked identical. The only thing that was different
Speaker 2: was the cover image. But even the cover image was
Speaker 2: very similar to my cover image. And then when you
Speaker 2: open it up, you'll find that they literally copied and
Speaker 2: pasted all of my chapters, I mean, including the Korean words,
Speaker 2: which was very troubling, and so we were thinking perhaps
Speaker 2: this might have been one of the early AI generated,
Speaker 2: you know, cookbook ripoffs, because of just the way that
Speaker 2: it looked. We looked up the so called author person
Speaker 2: doesn't exist, which is virtually impossible in this day and
Speaker 2: age on the internet, and so it was very frustrating.
Speaker 2: It was very hurtful, it was enraging. I posted something
Speaker 2: about it on both my Twitter and my Instagram, and
Speaker 2: I think, you know, I said, note to rachel Issi,
Speaker 2: the purported author, I still work for a thousand lawyer
Speaker 2: law firm, just and you know, the community was galvanized
Speaker 2: by that. And also we put in a call to
Speaker 2: Amazon and the book was delisted within twenty four hours.
Speaker 3: Good good, good move.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know, it's the age of the Age of
Speaker 1: AI is fraught with copyright.
Speaker 2: It's just tragurism, that's what it is.
Speaker 1: No, No, that's the big issue with AI in terms
Speaker 1: of like, you know, the entertainment space. It's like its
Speaker 1: all about copyright infringement.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Was there a moment when you realized food was no
Speaker 1: longer hobby for you but just a full second career, I.
Speaker 2: Would say when I was offered a book deal. I
Speaker 2: mean that was such a like like surreal moment. I
Speaker 2: was a partner at a law firm. I remember I
Speaker 2: took that call in my law firm office, you know,
Speaker 2: and I got, you know, lawyer work happening over here,
Speaker 2: and I'm taking calls with publishers over here, and you know,
Speaker 2: my lit agent told me the good news. And you
Speaker 2: could have picked my jaw off the ground. You should
Speaker 2: see my parents, you know, my very Korean immigrant parents,
Speaker 2: who were like, we're not going to stop doing this
Speaker 2: cooking nonsense, you know, you know, like you know, they
Speaker 2: were like, what you're going to make money off of this,
Speaker 2: so I would say that, you know, and that was
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen, when we first started talking to publishers
Speaker 2: and we realized that there was actually going to be
Speaker 2: a book in my future. I would say that was
Speaker 2: when it became more than a hobby. But I'll tell
Speaker 2: you what, I still haven't lost that same sort of Oh,
Speaker 2: this is so fun. I love doing this sort of
Speaker 2: feeling that you have for hobbies, which sometimes can dissipate
Speaker 2: when it turns into a profession. I've been really fortunate.
Speaker 2: I just made these amazing zucchini fritty sandwiches yesterday with
Speaker 2: this like amazing like you know, greenawl of topa nod
Speaker 2: and like a lemon ricotta and like this beautiful, gorgeous
Speaker 2: fresh basil pesto on these like crusty baggettes that we
Speaker 2: picked up like right here in Brooklyn. They've got so
Speaker 2: many different bakeries here, and I was just like, this
Speaker 2: is so fun, like making this, like you know, just
Speaker 2: seeing how it turns out and then getting to eat
Speaker 2: it at the end of the day. I mean, I
Speaker 2: love doing it.
Speaker 1: You make me when I come to Brooklyn and deep bread,
Speaker 1: I mean it's just like I can smell it. I
Speaker 1: can smell it. I miss it so much. All Right,
Speaker 1: we're running out of time. Last question for you, Joanne.
Speaker 1: We know, we know, we know you're busy. You're busy, lawyer,
Speaker 1: busy writer, You're busy, busy, busy. Uh. If you were
Speaker 1: to walk into Luke Steiner and you can't do that
Speaker 1: yet but maybe soon, what was your order and where
Speaker 1: would you sit?
Speaker 2: Okay? I would sit in a corner booth. Let's do
Speaker 2: that one first. Okay. I would sit in the corner booth,
Speaker 2: all the way in the back, right next to a window.
Speaker 2: I love having a window so that I can people
Speaker 2: watch and see everyone who's passing right and they can
Speaker 2: see me if they want, I don't care. And what
Speaker 2: I would order, for sure, this is a classic Joanne
Speaker 2: move is I would order the largest available size of
Speaker 2: French fries, with plenty of ketchup and a diet pepsi
Speaker 2: or coke, whatever they have, that's all I need. If
Speaker 2: they do have dinner rolls, I will add that to them. Okay,
Speaker 2: so we'll have dinner rolls like you know, the stale
Speaker 2: stale dinner rolls like the classic stale I love those,
Speaker 2: so I'll have that with a plate of hot French
Speaker 2: fries and lots of ketchup and a diet pepsi or coke.
Speaker 2: Is my favorite meal.
Speaker 1: There is no wrong answer for that question. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much, Joanne Lee moll and Irey Homemade coming out
Speaker 1: October fourteenth. Go get her cookbook. It is amazing assortment
Speaker 1: of recipes. Thank you so much for the time, Joanne,
Speaker 1: and please please please come back. We really enjoyed it. Listen, everybody,
Speaker 1: thanks for all the downloads and all the love and
Speaker 1: all the cards and letters. You are the best fans
Speaker 1: on the planet. You know that, and where you lead,
Speaker 1: we will follow.
Speaker 3: Stay safe, hey.
Speaker 1: Everybody'll forget. Follow us on Instagram at I Am all
Speaker 1: In podcast and email us at Gilmore at iHeartRadio dot com.