lisa ling transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City. Each week, we talk to the coolest culinary personalities around, the folks shaping and shaking up the food scene.
Like today's guest, Lisa Ling, the intrepid journalist, author, mom, and amazing human. Lisa's new six-episode docuseries just debuted on HBO Max. It's called Take Out With Lisa Ling and it's fantastic. Lisa takes a look at the Asian American experience through the lens of food and visits different communities across the US to bring so many stories and so much history to life. Lisa and I talk about her show and her remarkable career. She is a total trailblazer and we're so honored to have her on Radio Cherry Bombe. So stay tuned.
Today's show is presented by Territory Foods. Territory Foods delivers healthy meals right to your door. Territory has sent me some great meals each week to try this month, and I love what they've sent over. I'm definitely less hangry with healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner options waiting for me in my fridge. Regular listeners of the show know I love to cook, but that goes out the window when I'm busy. Territory's talented local chefs and registered dieticians work together to make sure everything is made with nutrient dense ingredients for a healthy, balanced diet.
I looked at the latest Territory menu on territoryfoods.com, and these are a few dishes that caught my eye. Given the weather, I'm definitely in a comfort food frame of mind. So the chicken meatloaf with notes of apple, sage and thyme, served with cranberry sauce, I love cranberries, roasted carrots and herbed mashed potatoes sounds perfect for right now. And I love noodles with peanut sauce and Territory's yummy version includes marinated and grilled tofu, eggs and veggies.
Whether you're paleo vegetarian, vegan, you name it, Territory has an option for you. If you'd like to try Territory Foods for yourself, head over to territoryfoods.com and be sure to use code Cherry75 for $75 off your first three orders plus free shipping. That's Cherry75.
A little housekeeping. Early bird ticket sales for our Jubilee Conference are ending this Friday, February 4th. So don't delay. You can snag your ticket at cherrybombe.com. Jubilee, for those of you who don't know, is our annual conference, and it's become the biggest gathering of women in the world of food and beverage.
I know, right? It's amazing. Jubilee 2022 is taking place Saturday, April 2nd, at the Javits Center in Manhattan, and it's going to be our biggest, brightest and best Jubilee yet. It's also going to be our ninth in-person Jubilee, which I kind of can't believe. I remember the first one like it was yesterday. I can't wait to see all of you there. Again, visit cherrybombe.com for tickets and more information.
Now let's chat with today's guest.
Kerry Diamond:
Lisa Ling. Welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Lisa Ling:
Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.
Kerry Diamond:
Congratulations on your beautiful new show.
Lisa Ling:
Thank you. I appreciate that you took the time to watch a few episodes. It means so much to me.
Kerry Diamond:
And it is a beautiful show and I know our audience will absolutely love it. Can you tell us how and when the idea for Take Out With Lisa Ling came about?
Lisa Ling:
So we sold the idea to HBO Max before the pandemic set in. Which is kind of interesting because after the pandemic, as we all know by now, the Asian American community has really gone through a lot. It has been scapegoated and in some cases, Asian people have been attacked and accused of having something to do with bringing coronavirus to our shores, which couldn't be further from the truth.
But what Take Out is, it's an exploration of Asian American histories and culture through the lens of the food that we've all come to love. And I don't know if most people know this, but there are more Chinese restaurants in America than McDonald's, Burger King, Pizza Hut combined. And these days, even in the smallest towns in America, you're likely to find even sushi or Vietnamese Pho or Thai food, or even Bangladeshi food.
Asian food is so ubiquitous. I think it's fair to say that most people have come to love Asian food, but never really gotten a chance to really know about the stories behind so many of these restaurants. And that's what Take Out really is. It's a fun, fascinating journey that is also incredibly delicious and will incite some salivating.
Kerry Diamond:
And moving. I'm so surprised that ... Not surprised, you've had an incredible career and just have an incredible take on so many things. But you were so prescient to have had this idea before the pandemic. My assumption, wrongly, was that this was in reaction to the pandemic and especially how the Asian American community has been treated.
Lisa Ling:
Well. Yeah. I credit HBO max for green-lighting it before the pandemic. But to me now, there's even more urgency for this kind of a show. Because the reality is that even though I was born in America, I grew up here. I never learned anything about Asian American history in school. I never spent a single day learning anything about it. And when there's no reference to a community's inclusion in our history books, in our popular culture, then it becomes really easy to overlook and even dehumanize a whole population. And I think that that's what's been happening over the last couple of years.
No matter how much we've achieved or what we've done, there will still be large swaths of this population that don't see Asian people as fully American. And so that's why this show is so special because Asian Americans have contributed greatly to this country, and fascinatingly Asian food has been able to transcend so much of the discrimination that Asian people have faced. As I said, it seems like most people these days really love Asian food. So my hope is that if you do love the food that you'll take the time to know the stories behind them.
Kerry Diamond:
Is food, as a storytelling device, new for you?
Lisa Ling:
Oh yeah. Yeah. And I'm very specific about the fact that this is not a cooking show.
Kerry Diamond:
It is not.
Lisa Ling:
Because I don't cook.
Kerry Diamond:
We're going to get to that later. I didn't know the answer to that. But now we do, we'll talk about that more.
Lisa Ling:
I am such a foodie and I love nothing more than consuming, having conversation over an incredible meal, and food is just something that it transcends so much. It transcends cultures and hardships and genders, and I think the best way to get to know a culture or a people is through the lens of food.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Speaking of that, how did you decide what communities to focus on for the first season? That must have been a very hard decision.
Lisa Ling:
Oh my God. When we first got green-lit, I said, "Okay, I need 20 episodes." And even then we'll just be scratching the surface because the Asian American diaspora is so vast and so diverse, but they only gave us six. And so what I'm proud of is that even though we only had six, each episode has its own unique identity.
We explore the roots of the first Asians to settle in America, the Filipinos, and they settled not in New York or Los Angeles, but Southern Louisiana, in the bayous of Louisiana. And they had entire communities that would later get washed away by hurricanes.
But in some towns like Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, the mayor told me that 70 to 80% of the inhabitants of Jean Lafitte currently have Filipino blood running through them. And this is a town of people who are as blonde and blue-eyed as anyone you'll ever see, but their Filipino roots are really strong.
You will drive through town and you'll see signs for Rojas Brewery, and that's because they are descendants of a Filipino man named Rojas. And so those are the kinds of stories that we explore, while also exposing you just to the most delicious crab boils and Filipino Kamayan celebrations.
Kerry Diamond:
So you decided to tell your own family story for the second episode. What made you decide to do that?
Lisa Ling:
Well, I think for so many of us, our family's roots started in Asian restaurants. My grandparents, even though they were educated in ... My grandfather was educated in America in the 1930s. He got his undergraduate degree at NYU and got an MBA from the University of Colorado. My grandmother had an advanced music degree from Cambridge in England. But when they immigrated here in the late 1940s, they couldn't get a job in the professional world because they were Chinese. Literally, they had doors slammed in their faces. And so they eventually just started doing odd jobs and scraped together enough money to open a Chinese restaurant.
And that seems to be the pathway for so many Asian immigrants, many of whom don't speak the language. It's hard to get hired in other kinds of jobs. So they just do menial labor and work and open Asian restaurants because we've developed this palette for Asian food in this country. And the stories are fascinating. They really are. They're stories that are filled with inspiration and struggle and survival and resilience, but also incredible triumph.
Kerry Diamond:
You made a point of saying that your grandmother never taught you how to cook, even though she knew how to cook very well.
Lisa Ling:
Well for them, they worked so hard in that restaurant. They worked seven days a week. They never had any holidays off. For them, it was truly a means for survival. And so my grandmother didn't want me to do that. She wanted me to study and not have to rely on the restaurant business. Because they just toiled away and she always just hoped that one day I wouldn't need to cook in the way that she had to cook in the restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
For survival, right?
Lisa Ling:
Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
You've probably seen this in all the stops that you've made now, but there's this young generation reclaiming the food of their families and their cultures and proudly opening up restaurants and popups and markets, you name it. And like you said, older generations did not want their children working in kitchens. What shifted?
Lisa Ling:
I just think that as America has become increasingly more diverse, our desire to appreciate and understand other cultures has increased. Not for everyone. But I think that the consequence of so many Asian restaurants proliferating throughout this country is people have developed a taste and their pellets have even evolved.
Look, when I was growing up in a non-diverse community, I would be horrified if my grandmother or my parents packed anything remotely Chinese in my lunch. One time they threatened to put a soy sauce egg in my lunch, and I was aghast because I was already teased relentlessly for being Chinese. It would give me one more reason to be teased. And these days my kids, who are eight and five, they ask me to pack noodles or dumplings, seaweed packets, mochi in their lunch. And that just brings me so much joy. And not only are they bringing those kinds of foods, but their Caucasian and Black schoolmates, classmates are also taking ethnic foods. And we've come a long way and I think right now, I like to think that people are wanting to know these stories.
But to be honest with you, given the fact that I felt so much shame around Asian food growing up, I never thought that producing a show that highlights Asian food and Asian culture would even be possible. It wasn't even a dream because I didn't even think that it could be a possibility. And so this is an honor and I'm so excited to bring these stories to a bigger audience.
Kerry Diamond:
There's a really moving part in the series. I'm trying to remember which episode, and maybe it's the one about your family. Where one of the subjects talks about things that could be taken away from people, and it's in reference to land, but it could be anything. It could be livelihood, land, you name it. But that you can't take food away, and that really got me thinking about the nature of recipes. And you literally, you can take food away from the people, but you can't take what's in their minds. You can't take the recipes that are passed down through oral tradition and other ways. That line just really stuck with me. And I think it's in the trailer also.
Can you talk about that part a little bit more?
Lisa Ling:
Well, when you think about it, there are few things that really evoke feelings and nostalgia the way food and maybe music can. When you listen to a song of your past, all of a sudden these memories come back. Well, the moment you taste certain foods, even if you haven't had them for a very long time, it's inevitable, especially if it's a family recipe that you think. Our senses become heightened and we can literally be transported back to experience those traditions or whatever was happening at that time. And that's the amazing thing about food.
Even in America, for example, Chinese restaurants, they're open all the time on holidays. I have so many Jewish friends who talk about how they spent every Christmas in Chinese restaurants, because they're the only restaurants open. But those kinds of stories that connect you back to those memories, back to a certain time. It's something uniquely that food is able to do.
And in the case of these immigrants, who take this incredible risk to leave everything that they know with hardly any money in their pocket. They essentially have lost everything except for the recipes that they hold in their heads and in their hearts. And to be able to bring those recipes and for people to actually enjoy them as well is in some ways a kind of a victory. Whether you become successful or not, it's this internal victory that I think so many people are proud to be able to feel.
Kerry Diamond:
Lisa, because of what we talked about, there have been so many attacks on the Asian American community, which is absolutely heartbreaking. And there was just an awful murder in New York not too long ago of a young woman. I feel like your show is not a show you can engage with passively. I feel like it's a beautiful show to watch and it's so emotional and the food is wonderful. There's a bigger way people should be connecting with this show. Have you thought about that?
Lisa Ling:
Yeah, absolutely. As I said, to me the show, while it's fun and it's an experience, there is an urgency to it. It does introduce people to these forgotten histories and these varied histories that we wouldn't otherwise have an opportunity to know. Who would've thought that the first Asians to settle here would be these Filipino ship jumpers and would eat gumbo, for example, in Louisiana.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. And when you say ship jumpers, they literally jumped off the ships and swam to shore.
Lisa Ling:
Yeah. They jumped off Spanish galleon ships. They were either sailors or indenture servants on those ships. Again, they took this enormous risk and they created a life in the bayous of Louisiana and they championed the shrimp drying industry. So the next time you have gumbo, which is become a beloved dish in American culture, you might think about the fact that that dish might not have shrimp in it if it weren't for those early Filipino settlers. Because at the time, shrimp wasn't even part of the American diet.
What we try to do in this series in just kind of connect the dots of things. So the next time you're enjoying that delicious cup of gumbo, you might associate it back with an aspect of American history that you may have otherwise never known about.
Kerry Diamond:
Would you like folks to, once they watch the episodes, go out and find ways to engage with the different communities? You watch the Filipino episode and so many of people in that episode talk about how they really want Filipino food to be more popular than it is so that they can go find the comfort food of their families and their traditions.
Let's say you don't have that food in your community. You can go find cookbooks. You can get ingredients and make your own foods. What are some ways you'd like to see people take the show to the next level?
Lisa Ling:
Well, this applies to all different kinds of ethnic foods. To me, taking risks in the world of food, it not only allows your palette to expand, but it allows your world view to expand. And honestly, I think these days there's never been more urgency for the need to do that. Our country is so divided and because of COVID, we've been more isolated than we ever have been before. We've been stuck on our devices and social media and we generally follow the people who espouse our values, which in turn and makes us alienate everyone else.
My hope with this series and with all the work that I've tried to do throughout my career is that after watching these shows, you might feel more inclined to venture out a little bit, go, leave your comfort zone. You don't have to leave your country. You don't even have to leave your state. You can find communities that are different from yours in your town. And I don't even mean people who are ethnically different from you. People who might be economically different from you.
I think that that need to really engage our fellow humans is so, so important. And not only will you become a smarter person as a result, I truly believe you'll become a better person by just getting to know a bit more about the people who surround you in your community and the people who are beyond your community.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. I think of how we take for granted a lot of these restaurants. In New York, we're a little spoiled obviously, but you really, you know that Chinese restaurant will always be there and it will always be open. And I hope your episode makes a lot of people think, and like what you said earlier in the show, that those places are open seven days a week. They're open during holidays.
Lisa Ling:
There's a big sacrifice for all kinds of restaurants. But these immigrant-run restaurants, the sacrifice goes even further beyond time and money. And it's funny you mentioned New York. One of our episodes highlights the Bangladeshi community in New York, and I was shocked to learn because there are so many Indian restaurants in New York that most of them or many of them are actually run by Bangladeshi people. Which is an entirely distinctive people, culture and language unto itself. And that the Bangladeshi community is the fastest growing segment of the Asian American community. And that Bengali, the language, is the sixth most spoken language in the world.
So even for me, because Asian American history hasn't been taught, this has been such a learning experience for me, that again, has made me smarter and I think ultimately better.
Kerry Diamond:
I have to ask a food question. You ate a lot, obviously, during the filming of the series, what was a memorable meal?
Lisa Ling:
Oh my gosh, every meal.
Kerry Diamond:
I knew you were going to say that.
Lisa Ling:
I know that's such a cop out of an answer, but I've eaten Indian food all my life and all over the world at that, but I'd never even tried Bangladeshi food and it is delicious. And again, I didn't realize Bangladesh is known as a country of rivers, and so the seafood, the fish that comes from Bangladesh is just so, so delicious and tender. And now you can find Bangladeshi restaurants in New York. You have to look a little bit. They're in certain boroughs and in pockets, but it's just phenomenal.
In Los Angeles, where I live, we dedicated an episode to Boyle Heights, California. And when you think about Boyle Heights, you probably think of it being a mostly Latino community, which it is. But there's currently one Japanese restaurant left in Boyle Heights and it's called Otomisan. But after World War II, when the Japanese were released from prison camps, they flocked to Boyle Heights because they had lost everything. They had lost their homes, their businesses, and Boyle Heights became this refuge. It was one of the only place where Japanese Americans could afford to live and were allowed to. And so in the years post-World War II, there was this thriving Japanese community in Boyle Heights. And there still are vestiges of that community left there.
And one of the restaurants that we profiled, it's a popup restaurant called East Los Musubi and it's this beautiful fusion of Japanese and Mexican food. Because the proprietor of that restaurant is the granddaughter of a Japanese man who fell in love with a Mexican woman, but he was a soldier in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. And for those who don't know what that is, it's considered the most decorated combat team in US military history of its size. And it was a team of 18,000, mostly Japanese American men, who volunteered to fight for the US, even though the US government was incarcerating so many of their families. These are true American heroes, and there are monuments to the 442nd in Boyle Heights today.
Kerry Diamond:
That's amazing.
Lisa Ling:
Oh, and the one thing about East Los Musubi that I ate, you were asking about, they make this Hot Cheeto Musubi, which is an homage to the owner's Mexican and Japanese roots. And you know what, it's pretty delicious.
Kerry Diamond:
This just struck me, but we really need a guide to all the restaurants.
Lisa Ling:
Yes. I will post the restaurant guides on my social media.
Kerry Diamond:
Excellent. That'll be amazing. I especially love the Virginia episode, where you took a look at the Korean community there. You interviewed young Julia Chan, Kimchi Juice, who's a good friend of Cherry Bombes. We've commissioned some art from her. So it was really fun to see her in that episode.
Lisa Ling:
Isn't she phenomenal?
Kerry Diamond:
She's phenomenal, and so young.
Lisa Ling:
She's so young.
Kerry Diamond:
We met her, I think when she was 16.
Lisa Ling:
Oh my God. I think she was, what, maybe 20 when I got her?
Kerry Diamond:
Mm-hmm.
Lisa Ling:
The wisdom that this young woman exudes and the pride that she has in her culture. I felt a little bit of envy actually sitting across from her because I grew up so much shame around being Asian. And to see this young person, not only proud of her Korean American roots, but proclaiming and identifying and celebrating through her art was just really incredible, and what an immense talent.
In that same episode, we interviewed Michelle Zauner, who wrote the bestselling Crying in H Mart, which also is such a beautiful tearjerker of a book that uses the lens of food to tell just this incredibly personal story about connecting with the author's mother who was dying of cancer. It's beautiful, and she is beautiful.
Kerry Diamond:
The entire team read that book and we kind of declared it our book of 2021. So if you haven't read Crying in H Mart, you absolutely have to read it. But I was thrilled to see Michelle in that episode. And your husband, we got to meet your husband.
Lisa Ling:
My husband, who's older than me. And he and I, I think one of the ways we even connected was through stories of struggle growing up.
Look, I was a popular kid. I had a lot of friends, but when you're young, you just don't want to be different. You just want to fit in. And being Asian gave me a reason to not feel totally like I could fit in, and I was teased every day. It wasn't malicious. I don't even call it bullying. But every day kids would come up to me and go, "Oh, Lisa Ling." You know what I mean? It was just something that was persistent that would sometimes compel me to go home and cry. And so my husband grew up in that same kind of environment. He got in fights, and if he weren't six foot, four inches tall.
Kerry Diamond:
I wouldn't start a fight with your husband. Yeah.
Lisa Ling:
Exactly. For both of us to see this interest and celebration of not only Asian American culture, but Asian culture. Look at BTS, the biggest band in the world. For him, he's like, "Man, I'm coming around too late." But at least our kids are growing up in a time when people actually want to know more about Asian culture.
Kerry Diamond:
And I also loved when I started watching the first episode, what do you call the opening sequence?
Lisa Ling:
Oh yeah. The title sequence. Yeah. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
The title sequence. I was like, "Oh, that sounds like the Linda Lindas." And then I watched the credits at the end and it was the Linda Lindas. This incredible band of young teenagers.
Lisa Ling:
Teenagers. They are the baddest-ass teen punks.
Kerry Diamond:
What was their hit song? Like Sexist, Racist Boy?
Lisa Ling:
Racist, Sexist boy. Yeah. Because one of them was name called, and so they wrote this song. And it's just like this, I don't want to use the word angry because it's not that they're angry, but it's just like it's ferocious and it's loud. It was such an honor to have them score our opening title. And they really talk about wanting to know this history. Tell me a story that I don't know, and the stories of Asian America are stories that we don't know in this country.
Kerry Diamond:
I was so thrilled to hear that song. You have a lot of girl power swirling around the show.
Lisa Ling:
We do. In fact, so many of our crew were Asian women. In fact, most of our crew consisted of Asian people. And for me, I've worked in this business for over 30 years and I've never even worked with more than one or two Asian Americans on a crew. And so it was just really fun and everyone was just so invested. And our show runner, Helen Cho, who's Korean American, she brought in Asian American directors because she wanted each episode to have a distinctive vision and identity, and I think they really do. And these directors, again, they all said that, "We never thought that we would get this opportunity to highlight our culture and that people would want to see it."
So on so many levels, it's just been such an exciting triumph for us.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, well, congratulations. It's so clear this is more than just a special series for you. This goes a lot deeper than that.
Lisa, I want to talk about your career, because you have just had the most mind-blowing career. And we're talking about the Linda Lindas being these teenagers, you started your career, I didn't even know this, you started your career when you were 18.
Lisa Ling:
Actually, I started when I was 16.
Kerry Diamond:
16.
Lisa Ling:
I got hired to host a teen magazine show when I was 16. And then when I was 18, I got hired by Channel One News, which is a show that was seen in middle schools and high schools across the country. In fact, Anderson Cooper from CNN was one of my colleagues. And that show sent me all over the world to report on stories for a student audience. So that's how it all started a long, long time ago.
Kerry Diamond:
You left home at 17?
Lisa Ling:
I did leave home at 17. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. Wow. So you just plunged right into this career. How did it even happen? Did you want to be a journalist? Were you scouted somehow?
Lisa Ling:
Well, it's interesting because my parents were divorced when I was seven. We didn't have a lot of money and the TV was always on in my home, and I used to have these fantasies of somehow working in TV, but nobody on any of the shows that I watched looked anything like me. The only Asian person that I had ever seen on a national stage was Connie Chung. I don't know if your viewers are familiar with Connie.
Kerry Diamond:
I remember Connie.
Lisa Ling:
She's a legend and she was the only Asian person that I'd ever seen reporting national news. And if you ask any Asian person of my generation, we will all say that Connie was our inspiration for pursuing news because she allowed us to know what was possible. And so initially, I pursued television because Connie allowed me to know it was possible. And when I started working for Channel One and it sent me into the world, my desire went from just wanting to be on TV to wanting to communicate these incredible stories that I was experiencing. And so I've been lucky enough to have been able to have a TV career despite the fact that there aren't a lot of people still who look like me.
Lisa Ling:
Increasingly that's changing, but for 30 some years, and I'm heartened to know that there are so many other kinds of opportunities for Asian Americans. Because for so long, we were on the periphery. We were never in leading roles. You would only see stereotypical images of Asian people, working in restaurants or overly-sexualized women or emasculated men. And over the last couple of years, that's been changing and I think that's a really positive step.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, let's go back to you though and the journalism you pursued, because you did not pick an easy path in journalism. You have been out there, like you said, for 30 years, 30 plus years, covering all sorts of disasters, manmade and otherwise. And that has kind of a come your specialty, reporting on this, navigating this. How did that become your thing?
Lisa Ling:
I didn't have a lot of money, so my job facilitated this travel and just opened my eyes to things that in my wildest dreams I couldn't even imagine. And I just felt at the time just so compelled to share what I was experiencing. When I was 21 years old and sent to cover the civil war in Afghanistan. And at 22, I went to cover a story in the Islamic Republic of Iran. And then throughout my 20s covering stories about drug wars throughout South America or globalization movements throughout the world.
Stories that had ever anything to do with the American experience, but stories that most Americans didn't know were happening in the world. And somehow I had been given this chance to see these things with my own eyes, and that just compelled me to want to share this and communicate these kinds of stories. And fortunately I've been able to continue doing so. And I hope that the work that I've done has enlightened people or at least elevated and expanded people's consciousness about how people in other parts of the world live.
Kerry Diamond:
Where did you find the bravery to do a lot of the storytelling that you did, because you did not put yourself in easy or necessarily safe situations?
Lisa Ling:
I wouldn't call it bravery. I would just call it innate curiosity. I've always been really curious. And for me, I feel most alive when I'm in an environment that is unfamiliar to me. My senses are heightened. I'm acutely aware of my surroundings. I'm sensitive to the smells, to the taste, and I love that feeling. Nothing bores me more than just a rote experience.
I can sometimes forget what I did in the morning or what I did yesterday. But when you're in an environment that's unfamiliar to you, you are just so aware. And for me, that opportunity as a young person, which is why I tell people that no matter what school will always be there and I would never undermine the importance of higher education. But for me, the opportunity to travel and be immersed in the world was the best education I could have ever conceived of. Because again, it made me smarter. It made me more well verse and it made me better. And my ability to expand the dialogue far outweighs those who haven't gotten that experience.
And so that's what I tell young people. If you're worried about standing out in the job market, your experience in the world will only be an asset to you because you'll be able to expand that dialogue.
Kerry Diamond:
Does this translate to you as a mom as well? Has this, being the mother of two beautiful young girls who we get to meet on the show, has that changed the kind of stories you're willing to take on right now? The places willing to go?
Lisa Ling:
Absolutely. When I look back at some of the places I traveled to and stories that I've done, I certainly am like, "What, was that me?" I'm still as curious as I always have been, if not more. But I have to think about my kids at home and I think it would be irresponsible of me if I did that with any sense of regularity, gone into places that were contentious. But at the same time, it's really, really important for me as a mom to expose my own children to the world. And not just the world of American resorts, but the world that people inhabit. The challenges that people face.
I think that that is the best gift that any parent can give a child, is taking them beyond their comfort zone. Again, you don't even have to leave your country to do that, but just expose them to different kinds of people and different kinds of stories. That to me is a true gift.
Kerry Diamond:
Are either of them exhibiting the curiosity that's your trademark?
Lisa Ling:
Oh, my kids love to travel. The last two years with COVID have really impeded our ability to be in the world. But my eldest, I took her to Vietnam at five. We did a volunteer vacation. We lived in this guest house that was not fancy and we worked in schools and then we took the time to tour around the country. And those are experiences that I don't think she'll ever forget. We still talk about it today. And for her to just be exposed to how different people live.
But that's also why in Los Angeles we like to venture out and leave our bubble, and there's so much diversity and ethnic communities in Los Angeles. In all towns in America, and engaging with people with stories that are unique and different, I think is such a great education for kids.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. So we have to talk about the cooking part. You already told us that you do not cook, and that does not surprise me because I don't know when the hell you found the time to cook with all the travel and the work that you have done. I'm guessing you ate in a lot of hotel rooms and on sets?
Lisa Ling:
That's true.
Kerry Diamond:
You don't cook today?
Lisa Ling:
I don't really cook today. And quite honestly, with all these restaurants delivering now, it's amazing. There's so many different kinds of food to be able to try that I've even felt less incentive for myself to learn how to cook.
Kerry Diamond:
So we could answer this question a few different ways. So either tell me a few places you love in LA, or tell me what kind of food you love to eat, or some of the most interesting things you've eaten recently? I'll let you pick the direction.
Lisa Ling:
There's no food that I won't try. I will try anything anywhere. But I do have an affinity for Asian food because it's so diverse. Whether it's Korean food or Nepalese food or Bangladeshi food, the flavors are so distinctive that I find myself craving Asian food probably over other kinds of food, just because of the vastness of it. And again, these days, no matter where you are in America, you can find it and it could be delivered to your door, which is incredible. And it's something I hope people take advantage of.
For me personally, because of its accessibility, I will always try to look for Korean food first. My husband's Korean American. My kids are half-Korean. But I just have an affinity for these pungent, sour, fermented flavors. In fact, I'm in Denver, Colorado right now on a shoot and I have a jar of kimchi in my hotel refer refrigerator right now because I hit the local grocery store and they had it and I had to have it in my hotel room.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that. I love that. You mentioned that you will try anything. Were you always like that or is that because you had gone to so many interesting places that you had to learn to be accepting of what the different folks were serving you, what the different cultures were eating?
Lisa Ling:
I think I've always been pretty adventurous. But absolutely, when you travel in the world and people take the time to share with you things that they have cooked or foods that are integral to their culture, I would never, ever turn that down or never reject that because so much care and passion goes into that food. And so by doing that, I think that my palette has expanded and it's allowed me to become more adventurous than before.
Lisa Ling:
And quite honestly, the things that I have scoffed at and even gone like, "Oh my God, I don't know if I can eat yak tartar." Have been the most delicious things that I, that again, they're nostalgic for me and it takes me back to that time and Tibet when I was in that little restaurant with a dusty floor and foldable chairs and when I tried it the first time and I was just so pleasantly delighted.
Kerry Diamond:
Lisa, tell us how you take care of yourself. You've had such a high pressure job for so many years. You've been so intrepid and brave in you're reporting. And it's been a very public job because you are on television. How do you take care of yourself, and has that evolved over the years?
Lisa Ling:
I really try to take the time to maintain self-care to the extent that I can. It is hard. I try to eat as healthy as I can. When I'm in the field, I try to seek out healthier food. When I'm in airports, I will rarely take the escalators. Even if I'm carrying heavy luggage, I will always try to take the stairs and just keep my body moving. Exercise is really important to me, making sure that my heart is pumping vigorously and that I keep it going. And I climb stairs in my hotel rooms. I carry along an ab roller. In fact, I have it in my bag right now. It's like these two wheels with two handles. It goes everywhere with me.
Lisa Ling:
I always have books with me. I try to do the digital books, but I don't like them. I always have books because for me, my way of just getting grounded and calming down is by just reading great books. I prefer fiction because I also always just have that escapist thing in me. But those are things that are really important for me.
When I get home from trips, I usually take a day to just decompress. I love physical touch. And so, yeah, I love to get a massage. It's not only important to relieve the tension, but again, just that touch is really important to me and it's something that I think we as a culture have become afraid but that is, I think, integral for the human spirit.
Kerry Diamond:
What is Lisa Ling streaming these days?
Lisa Ling:
What is Lisa Ling streaming? I just will watched Dope Sick on Hulu with Michael Keaton. It's horrifying and maddening, but it's really good. It's well-acted and it's a story of the Sackler family who championed opioids. Yeah, it's a powerful show.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Last question. Is there one piece of advice or a mantra that gets you through the day?
Lisa Ling:
Is there one piece of advice that gets me through the day? I think because I often find myself in communities or environments that are different from mine, even if I'm having a hard time, I always think to myself, "I'll be so grateful that I had this experience in retrospect." It's hard to think about it at the time when you're having a hard time and you are unhappy in your surroundings, but I'm always grateful that I had every experience that I had, no matter how hard or challenging it is.
Kerry Diamond:
Wonderful. You've contributed something so beautiful to the food world and to the world at large, and I know this was a very personal, important project to you.
Lisa Ling:
It was so much fun. Thank you for taking the time and having me on the show. I really appreciate it.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, Lisa, you're the bombe.
That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Lisa Ling for joining me. Be sure to check out her brand new series, Take Out With Lisa Ling on HBO Max.
Thank you to Territory Foods for supporting today's show and keeping me well-fed and healthy this month. Learn more at territoryfoods.com, and don't forget to use the code Cherry75.
Also don't forget, early bird ticket sales for Jubilee end Friday, February 4th. Snag your ticket before prices go up at cherrybombe.com.
Radio Cherry Bombe is a production of Cherry Bombe Magazine. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Thank you to Joseph Hazan, studio engineer for Newsstand Studios. And thank you to our assistant producer, Jenna Sadhu. And thanks to you for listening. You are the bombe.