Joanne Lee Molinaro Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, coming to you from Newsstand Studios at Rockefeller Center in the heart of New York City.
Today's guest is Joanne Lee Molinaro, who so many of you know and love as The Korean Vegan. Joanne is a bestselling author, content creator, lawyer turned entrepreneur, and now beauty founder. She just launched Korean Vegan Beauty, a line inspired by her own plant-based journey and her love of K-beauty. Her second cookbook, “The Korean Vegan Homemade: Recipes and Stories from My Kitchen” will be out next week on Tuesday, October 14th. We talk about all of it, her new book, her recipes, her photography, how she weaves family history and Korean history into her work. Joanne also opens up about her relationship with her mom, how she handles criticism and online haters and why she feels compelled to tell the difficult stories behind the food we eat. We also get her favorite NYC eats, the inspiration behind her best-loved tofu dish, and what's next for her brand. It was so great to catch up with Joanne, who I had not seen in person in so long, and we also caught up at last week's Jubilee L.A. when she introduced author and social media sensation Sarah Ahn. If you'd like to see Joanne in person, her book tour kicks off October 15th at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. She'll be in conversation with Eric Kim and you could buy tickets for in-person or streaming access. I'll put the link in our show notes. Stay tuned for my chat with The Korean Vegan.
Today's show is presented by Square. What if your favorite sports bar only showed women's sports? That's the big idea our friend Jenny Nguyen turned into reality in 2022 with The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon. Thousands of fans showed up on opening day, and within eight months, The Sports Bra had served fans from all over the country and brought in nearly $1 million in revenue, but behind the scenes, the tech couldn't keep up. Their point of sale system kept crashing during game days, right when the bar was packed with so many excited fans, and that's where Square came in. Square is the restaurant point of sale that helps you manage it all from one place: payments, staff, customers, insights, and more. Now The Sports Bra runs on Square. From faster service to better reporting, the team finally has a system that works as hard as they do. And with Square's help, Jenny is planning to bring The Sports Bra to cities across the country. When your business is growing, you need a point of sale tool that's on your team, like Square. Go to square.com/big to see how Square can help you.
Today's show is also presented by Ketel One Vodka. Let's take a little trip back in time. Picture Holland in 1691, tulips and windmills dot the landscape, and the Nolet family is firing up their first copper still to make spirits. Fast-forward 11 generations to today and the Nolets have not only perfected their craft, but they're known for one of the most famous spirits around. Ketel One Vodka is distilled with non-GMO ingredients in hand-fired copper pot stills. Their very first still even gave the vodka its name, so every sip is literally a nod to history. Ketel One is smooth, crisp, and has just the right touch of citrus. In fact, it's made to cocktail. Think classic martinis, pink-hued Cosmos or espresso martinis, or maybe it's the star of your own personal signature creation. If you're feeling floral, there's the Ketel One Botanical Collection with its bright, fresh flavor combinations including grapefruit and rose, cucumber and mint, and peach and orange blossom. Head to ketelone.com for recipes, new twists on the classics, and all the cocktail inspo you need. Don't forget, you must be 21 to drink, and make sure to always drink responsibly.
Now that Jubilee L.A. is wrapped, it's time to start planning Jubilee New York 2026. It's taking place on Saturday, April 25th, at the Glasshouse in Manhattan. The team and I are already at work thinking about talent, the menu, the activities. I don't have any details to share with you yet, but I promise it's going to be a great day. Early bird tickets are on sale now through December 31st, 2025. If you're an official Bombesquad member or a paid Substack subscriber, be sure to use your discount code. You can find it in your inbox or on our Substack website. I'll put all the links in our show notes.
Now, let's check in with today's guest. Joanne Molinaro, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I'm so excited to be here in person this time.
Kerry Diamond:
In person. It's so weird to me because I love your Instagram and love you, and it didn't really daunt me that I haven't seen you for years in person.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Years. I know.
Kerry Diamond:
Since Cooks and Books.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
And Sophia Roe interviewed you.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I know. It's been almost four years.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh. That was the best event. People were so excited to meet you in person. My gosh.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I was excited. I still look back on it because I took so much video footage and I still look back on it and it remains so nostalgic and powerful and it makes me sometimes want to cry because it was in the pandemic, and we were just coming out of quarantine for a bit, and so seeing everyone was amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Cooks and Books was always one of my favorite events. I wish we still did it, but it got to be really hard for a million different reasons, but it was such a great event. And you know how much I love books. I love celebrating all my favorite cookbook authors and all the memoir writers out there, and it was just so much fun seeing you and Sophia in conversation and doing your thing.
Okay, so you show up to the studio, you look like you're going to the Met Gala or something. What is going on? Because at Cooks and Books, you had just run a marathon or something.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I did. I had literally just run a marathon the week before, so maybe my brain was still in training mode, but-
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, you were full on leggings, t-shirt, glasses.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
And I almost went that route, but that's literally my uniform every other day. You can ask. That's what I wore every other day while I've been here in New York. And I was like, "You know what? I want to meet Kerry looking beautiful and pretty, and I know it's not video, but I don't care." You know how it is. Girls dress for girls.
Kerry Diamond:
100%. I really think most women dress for women or themselves.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah, that's true.
Kerry Diamond:
That's a forgotten part of that. I realized that the other day, and I was like, "Oh, I can't wear this." And I'm like, "Who am I trying to impress?" And I was like myself.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yes. You want to feel good.
Kerry Diamond:
Exactly.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Exactly. Okay, but tell me who made that gorgeous dress. We have to share a picture of it.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
This is Alice + Olivia, and it's funny, I was taking my mother to her first red carpet event. It was a movie premiere. I wanted to get her a really pretty dress, and so we got her a beautiful purple, lacy gown. She looked stunning, and then I was like, "Okay, now I need to find a dress for me." I think it was actually the afternoon before the event, and so we went to Alice + Olivia, which is great because they always have a variety of different styles. This wasn't the dress that I ended up wearing to the red carpet, but it was so pretty, and my mom's like, "You've got to get it." So I bought it and now I wear the crap out of it.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that you mentioned your mom and dressing her up for the red carpet because one of your topics as of late has been spoiling your mom-
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
... because she deserves it.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
She does.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us about that.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
My mother is a hard ass. I think it's hard because I think what people see of her now as the Korean Vegan's mom is, "Oh, she's so cute. She's 76 years old. She's a little grandma." And she is all of that, but growing up, she was very tough on us as children, and I think I resented her so much for being so tough on me, especially as her first child and as a daughter. And then when I was writing my first book, “The Korean Vegan Cookbook,” I had to do a real deep dive into her story and why she is the way she is, and it dawned on me during that time that I never really bothered to get to know the woman that preceded my mother. And what a vibrant, tough, but also fragile woman she could be at times. Once I dug deeper and deeper and found out, oh, she was a refugee. Oh, she was homeless. Oh, she was starving. Oh, she almost died multiple times.
Kerry Diamond:
And never told you any of this?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
She really didn't because I never bothered to ask, and I think a lot of times our parents think we're so uninterested, which we are legitimately, they believe that. I think she just never bothered to share this stuff until I started digging around in earnest and I realized how much she not only sacrificed for me when she became a mother, but how much she didn't get to have when she was my age, when she was younger, when she was a child, and what a gift it is to me to have the opportunity to shower her with those things that she didn't get to have when she was younger. I mean, that's a wonderful gift for me to be able to do that for her.
Kerry Diamond:
It is a big leap to get past that resentment. I think for a lot of us who had challenging childhoods, finding that grace within ourselves can be hard.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It can be, and I don't want to suggest that, "Oh, it should be easy for everybody. Everyone should just do it. Get over whatever hangups you had with bad parenting or unfair parenting." I can't speak to any of the things that precede whatever fraught relationship you have as an adult, but I will say my parents always loved me, and oftentimes that is enough to help you forgive and let go of that resentment, especially because I think that even as adults, there's this instinct in us to want that sort of relationship with our parents, so we're already leaning in that direction and just searching for a way to make it happen.
I'm very lucky that my parents have been so facilitative of that, especially in their latter years. They raised me to be the woman that I am, and part of that is being someone who was able to let go of any of those things.
Kerry Diamond:
When are you launching your self-help podcast?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I've tried that.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, you have?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I did have a podcast for a couple years.
Kerry Diamond:
I think I knew that.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It was really hard. You know. It is a totally different thing than social media is easy compared to podcasts.
Kerry Diamond:
I should have gotten better at just turning the camera on myself than... Anyway. No, I love this podcast and I love the conversations. I forgot you had a podcast.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
You've done so many things.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I like to try it all when I can, but podcasting is something I would love to return to one day because I love it, but I'm a one-woman show. I was writing, editing, recording, producing all of it myself, and it just became too difficult with a cookbook to write, a blog to write, social media, a business to run.
Kerry Diamond:
But you gave it a try.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I did.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll be right back with today's guest. If you've listened to the past few episodes, I am on a big Substack kick. Cherry Bombe recently moved over to the platform, and I am loving it. If you love writing, writers, recipes, articles, personal essays, it's the place for you. You can follow Cherry Bombe for free or become a paid monthly or annual subscriber. We recently dropped our Nancy Silverton cover story from the new issue, which you can read for free on Substack. And like I mentioned earlier, if you're a paid subscriber, you have access to specially priced Jubilee tickets. Head on over and check it out. And feel free to DM me. I would love to know what you think and what Substacks you love.
One of the things I love about you so much, and I don't know if this is a social media thing, what do they call those? The para-
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Parasocial.
Kerry Diamond:
We have real relationship, but I don't know if it's our parasocial relationship. You come off as so fearless.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Well, I would say the same thing about you. And I think that's one of the reasons why it does feel like, "Oh, didn't we just hang out last week?" Is because you're the same way. It's not unfiltered in this stupid way, like an unpolished way, hardly the last word I would ever use to describe you as unpolished. You're very polished, but there's also something quite raw about the way you talk about women. You talk about friendship or the way that you talk about camaraderie or politics or threats to our autonomy. And when I see that in your captions or your posts or the things that you share on social media, well, that immediately triggers something in me. There's a reverberation that occurs, and so then I become inspired to match that energy to participate in that sort of discourse because I don't want to be left behind. And also, I don't ever want to be one of those people who benefited from other people's fearlessness while being a coward. I don't want that.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. I've got to stop you for one second though, because you deal with so much that I don't deal with, because my audience is mostly women. You have so much incoming at you. I'm just like, "How the heck has she not just made her account private?"
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Sometimes I want to go into hermitage. Yes, I do.
Kerry Diamond:
I think that's what I mean by the fearlessness. You have to deal with so much BS that a lot of us don't have to deal with because people are commenting on your appearance, they're commenting on the topics you're platforming, bodily autonomy, women's rights, things. I mean, there's a whole list of things that you tackle, but I guess my question about the fearlessness is, how do you deal with all the haters?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I don't deal with it as well as it may appear, to be honest. I'm human and I'm a fairly sensitive person. It comes with pros and cons, right? I'm able to tap into emotional topics and perhaps articulate things that people find incredibly relatable, but that's because I make myself open to a lot of different feelings, including sadness, despair, rage, anger, pride. So when somebody comes at me and says, "You're worthless because you don't have children," that's a comment I get quite often. "You're not a woman because you don't have a child," without bothering to understand how crazy that choice was for me. Yeah, sometimes I actually had to hire a therapist for a year to help me work through how do I deal with this level of animosity directed at me, not just every day, but every hour of every day. How do I filter through this? How do I let it go? How do I continue to function without it derailing my day?
That's very hard, but sometimes it's about capitalizing on it. It's like, "Oh, you're going to leave a nasty comment. Screenshot."
Kerry Diamond:
Oh yeah, you called them out. That's what's so remarkable.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Of course, it's content. It's content, but it's an opportunity too to not just educate them. Not that I'm really going to educate them, because they're not educatable. It's a chance to maybe reach people who are, "Oh, okay, I didn't think of it that way. Oh, I didn't realize that a person might be hurt by me thinking of things that way, even if I wouldn't say it out loud." And of course, it's also an exercise in making sure that women who are in a similar situation as I am feel seen.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you for all the inspiration and for how you deal with it, because I think you deal with it so beautifully, but it really makes me want to be braver and my interactions. Because there are plenty of times where I won't comment on something because I'll always look to see if it's a fake account first because I'm like, I'm not going to expend any of my energy-
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Or a bot.
Kerry Diamond:
... or a bot. But when it is a real person and I want to say something, I'm like, oh, I don't know if I want that person to now target me.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah, no, that's a very legitimate thing, Kerry. I mean, they can become dangerous. They can become obsessive. You don't know who you're dealing with behind that avatar, but not only that, it is an emotional suck, not just for that moment, but sometimes for days because they're responding, then you have to respond. Then you have to go through this same emotional exercise every single time, so you do have to make a calculated decision about whether or not this is something you want to engage in.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm looking up that Taylor Swift quote that I should have memorized. Do you know the one I'm talking about?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, your energy. I think it was something like, "You should think of your energy as a luxury item and treat it like that." And it's like, why are we just giving away our energy to all these things? Give your energy to the things that matter. And I've been trying to remind myself of that.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It's so perfect.
Kerry Diamond:
I wish she would write a business book. I admire her as a creative and an entrepreneur, and someone who runs obviously a very successful business just like you, babe. We're going to talk about your brand-new business. That's a good segue. Korean Vegan Beauty. Oh my gosh.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I know. I can't even sometimes believe that this is me, but it's also very Joanne. It's like, "Oh, I want to do this. Figure out a way to do this."
Kerry Diamond:
I love it. I was a beauty editor for years.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Which I am totally shocked by.
Kerry Diamond:
What was the spark or the light bulb moment?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Well, it was very organic. It was very similar to why I started The Korean Vegan in 2016. There were a lot of dimensions to my Korean-ness, and the first thing that I was scared of losing was kimchi, right? Because I was like, "Okay."
Kerry Diamond:
Because you went vegan?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah, because I went vegan, and I was like, how am I going to...
Kerry Diamond:
I was like, wait, why are you losing kimchi? Not a vegan product.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah, not a vegan product, and kimchi is really a proxy for everything. It's a proxy for not just the food, but also my Korean-ness, and I was so desperate to do what I could to prove to myself, "I'll be as Korean as I ever was. It doesn't matter if I can't eat fish sauce and shrimp paste." So that was what I set out to prove, but shortly after that, we went from not just being plant-based but adopting an ethical vegan lifestyle, which meant, okay, no more leather. Let's try and use vegan soaps and of course, vegan beauty and makeup. I grew up on what is now known as K-beauty at the time, this is what we buy, usually at the Korean grocery store for our creams and masks and makeup.
Kerry Diamond:
It hadn't popped yet to become this gazillion-dollar industry?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It was not, it was this thing that was tucked inside the H-Mart, basically. I was like, "Well, what am I going to do? I can't use these products anymore because they're not vegan." And I was like, "Well, somebody needs to come out with a Korean vegan beauty line." I'm like, "Well, I already have the name," but that was years ago, and I was a full-time partner at a law firm. I was writing a cookbook. I already had my hands full, and I just assumed somebody would figure it out.
There are companies that have now figured it out, but I was given an opportunity about three years ago where a friend of mine was like, "I met these business people. They own a business that's K-beauty, but they really want to get into the vegan market. I thought you were the best person to put them in touch with." And we got in touch, and now they're my business partners. That's how Korean Vegan Beauty was born, and that was three years ago, because I'm a lawyer, and it takes me a very long time to do anything.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, congratulations.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
It looks gorgeous. There are so many things you need to figure out. It's not just “I want a beautiful product.” It's like, "Do I launch an entire line first? Do I launch individual products? What's my packaging? What are the boxes? What's my distribution?" So how much of this did they handle for you? What was your role versus your partner's role?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I was pretty much involved in every aspect of everything.
Kerry Diamond:
No surprise.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I really didn't want to be one of these persons who just slap my name on something.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. Because there is a thing called white label. Some of you out there might've heard that term where you want to make something, you can go get it from a producer.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
100%. And I didn't want that to be, and my business partners wouldn't want that either. They wanted the full package. They knew I was an attorney. They knew that I had experience at least from that angle of supporting businesses from small to large, and I think that was a big part of it. So I actually was very much the one who did the packaging in terms of color, in terms of branding, in terms of the logo, all of that. But it was a very collaborative effort. I do think that my business partners, because they're involved much more on the research and development and the manufacturing side of things, and certainly with their partners in Korea, because our products are all made in Korea, developed in Korea. They have two decades worth of experience in K-beauty specifically, and I would be an idiot not to leverage that, but we talked about everything.
I mean, sometimes our meetings would last three hours just because we wanted to make sure we were on the exact same page about every single detail. We went back and forth on the formula, which is hard because every time we had to make a tweak, we had to wait for them to not just make it, but then to ship it to us and then we had to try it.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. It takes a lot. People might not realize how long it takes when you're doing custom formulas.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
100%.
Kerry Diamond:
You launched with two products. K-beauty is so known for skincare. I mean, you've got the classic K-beauty skincare routine with 18 products in the morning and 40 products at night, and it's gotten a funny reputation for that. I don't know how many people are using that many products.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I hope not.
Kerry Diamond:
I was so interested when I saw you launched with a collagen cream and a shampoo because it's so edited down. I would imagine you've got more coming and we'll talk about that, but why these two products for the first ones?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Well, we knew we wanted to do a hair product. That was number one, and that's because I have really great hair.
Kerry Diamond:
You do. You have gorgeous hair.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah, I have a lot of it. It's very long. And I remember my friend who's the creative director, and he was the one who put me in touch with my business partners. When he first saw my hair, his jaw was on the ground. Because I usually wear it back. I'm a runner. I never wear it down. I'm wearing it back right now.
Kerry Diamond:
I feel like you could let it down and do one of those commercials where-
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I did that.
Kerry Diamond:
... you swish your hair all over.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Not thinking, and he was like, "Oh my God, I had no idea you had all that behind you." And so I knew I wanted to do a hair product and a shampoo was the perfect place to start because I always find it difficult to find a shampoo that will tame my hair. It's been a pain point for me because it's tangled. It doesn't brush right, it gets dry and bristly and on and all this stuff. So that was what we knew we wanted.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm so shocked you did shampoo and no conditioner.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Okay, so we didn't do a conditioner because we only wanted to do two products. Because we wanted to really test the data, see what the community was willing. I know. It's so amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my God. I just opened it. The shampoo smells gorgeous.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
And it's so pretty. It's like pearlescent pink.
Kerry Diamond:
The color is gorgeous. You all can't see it, but it's the prettiest pale pink.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Peach. Yes. It's like a mauvey, pinky peachy kind of color. And it is exactly, which is soothing. It's meant to be soothing, serene, calm. We wanted to go with something that we felt would hit all of those things. We didn't do a conditioner because this is a smoothing shampoo, and we were like, you should be able to use this without having to condition your hair on a daily basis.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
That's really what I wanted. I hate having to do that.
Kerry Diamond:
I would look like a rat's nest on top of my head without using half a bottle of conditioner.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Don't worry, we're coming out with a conditioner. So we are coming out with a conditioning mask, but we also wanted to do a cream because it is a K-beauty brand, and we feel like you can't do a K-beauty brand without a skin cream. So that's why we started it that way.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about this collagen cream. Because I freaking love face cream and face oils and moisturizers.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Kerry, I think you're going to like it.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It's super hydrating. It smells so good.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it smells great.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Somebody actually said, "I think you should bottle up and start selling it as a perfume." And I was like, "Hey."
Kerry Diamond:
That's a great idea.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
That's not a bad idea. I think two of them would do great in scents, actually.
Kerry Diamond:
Working on it, babe.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
But yeah, so it's a collagen cream, but its key ingredient is its hero ingredient is bakuchiol.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my God, it smells so good. Got to put it all over my neck.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Bakuchiol, I always tell people, "Don't forget the neck." That's so important, especially for women our age. And I put it on right before my makeup. I put it on a foundation with SPF in it.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me how you're promoting this and where can people buy the product?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
We're D2C, so you just find us on the website, Korean Vegan Beauty.
Kerry Diamond:
Talk about the distribution because even with something like Cherry Bombe magazine, distribution is a bitch.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It can be.
Kerry Diamond:
All you people who have mastered distribution, God bless.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It can be difficult, but I mean we're keeping things simple. Everything is through us on the website, Shopify, our Shopify website.
Kerry Diamond:
So direct to consumer?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Direct to consumer. We do have a TikTok shop only because I have a large TikTok, but we're not really using that as much as we are just coming to our website. We have a mailing distribution list. You get, I think 15% off your first purchase if you sign up, and you'll be the first to know of all the major deals, all the product drops, and things like that. And it's been working out pretty good. I'm really proud of it.
Kerry Diamond:
And where are you shipping to? Can people buy it in Korea? All over the U.S.?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah. We ship all over. However, we'll do it, but we can't subsidize-
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it's so expensive.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
... the shipping right now with everything that's going on in the United States, and I am a little concerned now with the tariffs on Korea, and so unfortunately, these shipping costs have gone through the roof. And we're a tiny, tiny, teensy little business. We literally just started, and unfortunately, we do not have the kind of distribution infrastructure to subsidize really any of it. So we are very mindful.
Kerry Diamond:
Isn't that frustrating? I don't know if you guys know each other, but I was thinking of Sana Javeri Kadri, who's the founder of Diaspora, and they just slapped these massive tariffs on India.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I know.
Kerry Diamond:
And she has worked so hard for so many years to cultivate these relationships with the small farmers over there to do this beautiful product. And it's like, how is her business even going to survive?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
These margins are razor-thin now because of all of those costs. It's insane.
Kerry Diamond:
This administration hates small businesses. I'm just going to say that because everything you have done, if any of you're listening from the administration, is not pro-small business.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I hope they're listening. They should be listening.
Kerry Diamond:
We women need to rise up. All of us women with our small businesses who work so hard for so many years, it's definitely unfair.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It is unfair.
Kerry Diamond:
Because you just don't know what the story's going to be one day versus the next. And regardless of what business you're in, you are affected. For us, it's paper and ink-
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Of course.
Kerry Diamond:
... and the shipping. And for you, it's making your product in another country.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
In another country, and having that shipped here. And we wanted to launch much earlier, but it got stuck at customs. It got stuck in Korea because the shipping costs were astronomical because of the unpredictability of the tariff situation. So it was just sitting there for a couple months and we couldn't get our hands on it.
The last thing I really wanted to do was to launch a beauty brand two months before I launched my second book. That was not the plan, but I had no choice. And you are right. Small businesses are at the mercy of these macro policies that seem to take very little into account when it comes to what we have to deal with on a day-to-day.
Kerry Diamond:
And the thing that truly bugs me is there's no strategy behind it.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I agree.
Kerry Diamond:
You get the sense that people wake up and are like, "You know what? What's the temperature today? I'm going to do that." And I could understand if there was some strategy that was communicated to the business community in advance, "This is the strategy. This is what we're doing," versus just whim.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
And that is the worst thing for the economy ever in every single way, when predictability goes out the window, that trickles down, not just on a macro level from the stock market to the S&P to big-time Federal Bank, all those things. It goes to the consumer, all the way down to the consumer. They do not know whether they're going to have enough money to spend on things from month to month, and therefore, they do not spend.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. It hurts our restaurant friends so much.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh, absolutely. It hurts everyone.
Kerry Diamond:
It hurts everybody. But I do think restaurants are that canary in the coal mine.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Totally.
Kerry Diamond:
It definitely impacts them. And I know how hard all you restaurant folks out there are working.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Absolutely.
Kerry Diamond:
And just sending you my love. I wish I could frequent all of you all the time.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Absolutely. I have been to so many restaurants while I've been here in New York.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, good. Where have you gone? Tell us. Yeah, let's talk about food. This is a food podcast, folks.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Food. We can talk about food. So we went to Ippudo, which was really great because before I went vegan, Ippudo was one of my favorite ramen houses in New York City, and now they have a plant-based option. So we went there and it was wonderful to have some ramen again. I just partake in my New York City bagel. I am not joking. Black Seed. It was great. They had a tofu schmear. I will go on the record as saying every bagel that is not a New York-style bagel is garbage. It's just freaking trash. And I say this to someone who's from Chicago and now in L.A., I have spent so much time looking for New York-style bagels wherever I'm at, and it just doesn't exist anywhere.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you been to Montreal yet?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't really know the Montreal-style bagel.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I've heard good things, but to date, I have not eaten a bagel that is edible other than the New York-style bagels.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't want the Canadians to come for you.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
So to date, I will hedge my statement. So I had my bagel.
Kerry Diamond:
And you got a Black Seed.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Black Seed.
Kerry Diamond:
Black Seed is great. They have one here at Rockefeller Center where we're recording, and shout out to Diana from Black Seed.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh, well-
Kerry Diamond:
She's amazing.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It was wonderful. It was literally so good. Where else did we go? We're going to Anixi tonight and then went to Spicy Moon, which is one of my favorite, probably my favorite Chinese restaurants in the country. I love that restaurant.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I've got to get myself there.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It's entirely plant-based, and I absolutely love them.
Kerry Diamond:
Is everything spicy?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It was pretty... I had the Dan Dan noodles, and I was coughing. It was spicy. It was really, really good. And they're very fast. So if you need a professional lunch meeting, it's a great place because the food comes out quickly, you get your work done. It's excellent.
I also went to Red Sorghum in Long Island City, another great Chinese restaurant. Really, I think when I went vegan, one of the things I missed was the smell of an authentic Chinese experience at a restaurant. I was like, "I don't want to go to a vegan Chinese restaurant." I want to just go to a Chinese restaurant. But it is a little bit hard, and that's one of the reasons I love Spicy Moon because they are all plant-based. But to me, as soon as you walk and you get that smell and you're like, "I'm at a Chinese restaurant."
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I've got to go. These are all new restaurants to me. I'm going to make a little list of your places.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yay.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you for sharing. You know what's funny, when I was looking at your social and just thinking what I want to talk to you about, I was like, I wonder what her number one recipe is. What is your most popular recipe?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
My most popular recipe is definitely my Kkanpoong Tofu, which is a Chinese, Korean kind of dish. Kkanpoong I don't think you're ever going to find at a Chinese restaurant, but you will often find it at Chinese Korean restaurants, which is that unusual hybrid in some kind of diasporic cuisine, if you want to call it that. I used to eat their chicken wings kkanpoong, and every Korean kid knows when you're at a party, you're going to get a big platter of kkanpoong and they're going to be all gone. I wanted to recreate that in a vegan way, so I made it with tofu.
My favorite comment is my husband hates tofu and somehow loves this dish. It is the dish that will convert tofu haters, which I just saw as one of the most hated foods in the country, which makes me so sad.
Kerry Diamond:
Why?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I don't know. It makes me so sad.
Kerry Diamond:
People are so weird.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It's probably because they haven't had Kkanpoong tofu.
Kerry Diamond:
I love tofu.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I love tofu too, but I get it. I grew up eating it, so I understand there might be a little bit of a learning process. But this kkanpoong, it's garlicky, it's tangy, it's spicy. It's got a little bit of what many people will think of as a teriyaki kind of flavor, even though it's not teriyaki sauce. So it's got all of the wonderful flavors of Chinese cuisine with tofu. And it's really, really, really good. So that's my number one. My number two is my kimchi. A lot of people like my kimchi.
Kerry Diamond:
How do you make it vegan?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I use a vegan fish sauce.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, there we go.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Which is probably one of my favorite recipes in my cookbook. It's the one that my mom was like, "Whoa, this tastes like fish sauce. What did you do?"
Kerry Diamond:
That's a good sign when you can blow your mom's mind.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yes. And that's what makes my kimchi, I think, different.
Kerry Diamond:
And these are in your first cookbook?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
The vegan fish sauce is definitely in my first cook. And yes, we have a thong kimchi, which is a very traditional style kimchi in my first cookbook. In my second cookbook, we have Mak Kimchi, which is the one that most people are making in Korea because it's a little bit simpler. There's not as much squatting involved, and it's probably a little less intimidating for most people.
Kerry Diamond:
So tell us about the cookbook.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Well, it's called “The Korean Vegan Homemade,” and I'm really excited about it. And like I said, it will have this other kimchi recipe, which is Mak Kimchi, and it will have a bunch of other kimchi actually in it, which I feel like is sort of necessary for a Korean cookbook. But really this cookbook, when I was asked, "Well, how do you want to make this book different from the first one?" I'm like, "Well, why would you want to fix something that isn't broke?"
Kerry Diamond:
Your first book was such a hit.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Exactly. I was like, "Why don't we pattern this at least in part on something that we know did really well." And so I didn't want to change it too much, but I also wanted to make sure I was giving some incremental value to readers so that they would be inclined to buy the second book.
The first book was truly an introduction to Korean cuisine. These are some of the most popular dishes that you'll see at a Korean restaurant and that many Korean Americans of my generation will be, "Oh yeah, kimchi jjigae. Oh yeah, yeah Kkanpunggi very, very popular. And book two is yes, we're still going to have a lot of traditional Korean dishes like gochujang jjigae or miyeokguk, things like that. But it's also, okay, you should be pretty familiar with soy sauce, denjang, the role of tofu. Gochugaru, gochujang, because you learned all of that in book one.
Now, let's take those tools and create foods that may be a little bit more familiar to you. So kimchi mac and cheese, or I make a tofu gochujang marsala. These are things that I think many American families probably have experimented with or perfected in their own kitchens, but now it's challenging them to incorporate Korean flavors into these favorites.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it sounds amazing. I still remember when your first book came out, you completely had your own aesthetic. The dishes were so personal to you because you had to veganize the food you had grown up on. I just remember when it hit and we were going through the book and your photography didn't look like anybody else. It was so distinctly yours. It was so special to see. I really remember being in the office and it being such a thrill, or even in office then, or working for my apartment.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah, I think you were in your apartment.
Kerry Diamond:
We might have been working out of my apartment wherever we were, but it was just so special. Did you do the photography again?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yes, I did. I did. And it's so funny that you say your photography didn't look like anyone else's it's because I was not a professional photographer. I bet there are a lot of professional photographers who were looking at it and they're like, "I don't know why you chose that angle." And I'm very proud of book one, and I'm very proud of the photography because I'm completely self-taught, and a lot of it was just me trying to figure things out, seeing other photographs that inspired me and trying to do something that was my own. And that was so much a part of writing that book and putting it together.
Same process for book two was really trying to push myself as not just a recipe developer, not just a writer. Because there's a lot of writing in this book, as was the case in book one, and not just somebody who's very familiar with the pantry items because I wanted to be credentialed in that, but as a photographer, how do I compose in a way that's better than book one? How do I make these foods look even more enticing than I made them look in book one?
And so book two, I feel every cookbook author is going to say, "I think it's better than my New York Times Best Selling James Beard Award-winning first book." But I really do. I mean, I definitely was so much more zeroed in and dialed in when it came to producing this one.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, you understood it. There's so much mystery around doing a cookbook, and I often laugh. I'm like pretty much all our cookbooks are the same when it comes down to it, the topics are different. The act of recipe testing and shooting everything, it's almost like they could just give us a guidebook on how to do it, make it so -
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
You should write a guidebook.
Kerry Diamond:
And I think some of them exist now and just make it easier on all of us because once you finish the first cookbook, you're like, "Oh my God, I can take on the world now."
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I totally felt that.
Kerry Diamond:
I know how to do this.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I totally felt that. I was like, "I'm an expert in cookbook writing." And then you start writing your second one, you're like, "Oh my God, I still have so much ground to cover. I really didn't do this the most efficient way," all of those things. But I genuinely learned so much from the first process. For example, we did use third-party recipe testers for every single recipe.
Kerry Diamond:
Why did you make that decision?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Because I realized the first time around, I recipe tested obviously everything, but then I also used my family to recipe test a lot of it. And it's like, well, they're Korean. They've been making doenjang jjigae their whole lives, wrong person to test this. I went on to my newsletter family, "Hey guys, I need recipe testers." And we got 82 recipe testers.
Kerry Diamond:
And that must be so much fun for... I mean, I would test recipes.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I hope so.
Kerry Diamond:
So much fun.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It was really helpful.
Kerry Diamond:
It's like being a detective.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yeah. And we had a little form that they filled out, but it was also just a wonderful way for me to connect with my community. And they were so amazing. My recipe testing squad, they're incredible people. Sometimes I get emotional thinking about them because it's scary to go through that process. And they were like, "We think this is great. We think there are a couple tweaks you can make here or make a clarification." They were so valuable.
Kerry Diamond:
So valuable.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I mean, so supportive, and I'm just so grateful to them.
Kerry Diamond:
Since your first book came out, Korean culture has taken over the world.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
“KPop Demon Hunters.”
Kerry Diamond:
“KPop Demon Hunters.” Love so much.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
You guys have to do the dance.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, wait, I don't even know the dances.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh yeah. There's so many dances. But yeah, if you should do a dance and put that on TikTok, it could go viral.
Kerry Diamond:
My sister said we have to watch “KPop Demon Hunters.” My sister is a public school librarian.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh, okay.
Kerry Diamond:
And she said, "All the kids are going to come back and be talking about this, so we have to watch it." And I was like, "It's a cartoon?" And I somehow didn't know that much about it, so we sat down to watch it. Joanne, within two seconds, I was like, "What is this magical animated feature?" I was like, "I love this." I was so smitten within five minutes.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It's a story of friendship, women's empowerment, the shattering of glass ceilings everywhere on a mystical, professional, whatever level. Wonderful music.
Kerry Diamond:
And a female creator.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yes, a female creator who's been working on it for years, who probably had many doors shut in her face.
Kerry Diamond:
I even, I just got goosebumps. I can't even imagine. And she is the toast of Hollywood now.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
As she should be.
Kerry Diamond:
It's the number one movie on Netflix all time.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Of all time. Yeah. Number one.
Kerry Diamond:
Incredible movie.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
It's amazing. And it makes me so proud.
Kerry Diamond:
And there's a cat. Don't you love the cat?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I mean, all of it is wonderful. I'm so proud of everyone that's been part of it, especially Maggie. She was so uncompromising. "No, I have a vision for it. And if you don't want to participate in executing on it, that's too bad. I'll find somebody else."
Kerry Diamond:
I can't wait for Halloween.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh, oh my God.
Kerry Diamond:
The costumes.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Totally. A lot of my TikTok followers told me I should cosplay. I was like, we'll have to pick which one.
Kerry Diamond:
Which one would you pick?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I have no idea.
Kerry Diamond:
I love all of them. Somebody said that to me the other day. They're like, "Which is your favorite?" And I was like, "Oh my God, I love all of them." And I think that's the idea. They all represent something so different in terms of the creative process and the friendship. But anyway, folks, if you are the last person on the planet who hasn't watched it, go watch it.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Go watch it.
Kerry Diamond:
But talk to me about what is going on that all this incredible entertainment products, food has just really taken hold and people are just in love with all these different aspects of Korean culture?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I can speak to how it makes me feel. I think it makes me feel so proud and happy. And certainly feeling like I had been invisibilized or my experiences and my culture had been silenced or invisibilized for so long, and having even taken that for granted, not even realizing that my culture had been invisibilized for so long. And with this recent explosion and the microscope on the stories of my family literally, and then metaphorically, it's really opened my eyes to, "Oh my God, I viewed everything through the white gaze." Because that was all I knew. And I don't say that maliciously. It literally was all I knew.
So now it's like having the glasses, the scales removed, and I'm like, "Oh, now I get to just view things as a Korean-American," which is very different from just Korean, but it's also different from just a white American experience, which growing up in the '80s, that was really all I knew. So that's been very interesting to me personally.
I think in terms of this explosion, Korea was very strategic. South Korea was very, very strategic. They had a long game plan, and it started decades ago. They wanted to bring Korean food in particular into mainstream America. So they started putting feelers out there, what's going to be popular? What's going to work out there? A lot of the Korean businesses, the food businesses in particular, the big ones, they started investing in the United States, understanding their demographic, understanding their audience.
And then of course, you had TikTok, which nobody predicted. And the viral effect of Tteokbokki or Kimbap or any of these Korean snack foods really, who could have predicted that? I don't know that anyone did. But Korea was ready to capitalize on it because they had had these long-term plans already in action. And I think that was brilliant.
And I think food is such a gateway for so many other things that are part of Korean culture. And so now the doors are flung open with regard to Korean art, Korean media, Korean movies, Korean dramas, which we can talk forever about that because it's my favorite topic. But it was all there. And you know what they say, "Fail to plan, plan to fail." They had a plan and so they were able to capitalize on these opportunities when they arose.
Kerry Diamond:
One thing I appreciate about your content, there's so much I appreciate, is that you talk about the history behind the culture though, because Korea has had such a complicated history, and I like that you don't shy away from that. Similarly, it was one of the reasons I love Sarah Ahn's book earlier this year.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I love her book.
Kerry Diamond:
So many authors come on and they're like, "My book is so personal and combines my family history," and this and that. When you read it, not to take away from anyone's books, because I know how hard everybody works on their cookbooks, but sometimes that's just not in there. It's like a few lines in a headnote. And I know it's hard to get that stuff past your editors sometimes.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Yes, it is.
Kerry Diamond:
We experienced that with our cookbook, but I was so moved by how much of her personal family history, but Korean history, she wove into that book.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Well, her mother is uniquely talented at storytelling in this very Korean mom way, which is kind of no BS. "This is the way it is. And life is hard." The hardship that Sarah talks about and writes about in her book and shares in her social media content, I think is very relatable to many families, especially immigrant families. And her mother is this quintessential, again, hard ass in many ways, but with this lovely maternal nurturing sort of instinct that is ferocious. And I think a lot of us yearn for that.
And so the storytelling of their family is steeped in so much history that Sarah's mother is unwilling to bury. She wants it uncovered. She wants it there because it's part of her wisdom that she wants to share with the world and certainly with her precious daughter. And so to see that unfold in this magical way on TikTok, but also in this beautifully photographed all the little notes that they share in the cookbook with each other, with the readers, it's just so beautiful. And it really does feel like, should I even be here and allowed to read this? It's so intimate.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so personal. But I do want to thank you for the education. It's not even storytelling, for the education you do, because it's not easy to do that on Instagram. Sometimes people are like, "Ugh, I don't want to read four paragraphs about the history of Korea and Japanese occupation and all that." But you do it.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I think one of the biggest problems that we have right now in the United States is that we don't know enough about history, and we don't appreciate its significance in our present day. I think we have turned into a TLDR audience, and I know TLDR is very Millennial and nobody says it anymore, but we have turned into such a short attention span. And it is shrinking not just our attention, but it is also shrinking our ability to see ahead. I mean, we see what's immediately in front of us and what's immediately behind us.
We don't see what was 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 400 years ago. We don't see what lies ahead of us in the next 400 years with these very, like you said, put my finger out, which direction is the wind blowing kind of decisions. And I think that there's so much to be learned from history, not just about where we're headed or who we are, but the way we should treat other people. How we should be nice to people, how we should be kind, how underappreciated compassion is, because everyone comes from some kind of trauma. That's what I'm learning.
And food is a wonderful way to break bread, disarm ourselves of how guarded we've become with each other, and maybe just open ourselves up to a little bit of compassion. So I like to share the history because I want people to understand there's a reason, there's a reason why people get angry about this stuff. There's a reason why sometimes it's hard to eat this jjigae. It's hard for my mother to eat this jjigae because it reminds her of how homeless she was and how poor she was, and how she almost died because she's starving. That's why she doesn't like to eat it. Let's talk about that. Before you think that food is just, "Oh, which bagel am I going to get at the bagel shop?" There's so much more to food than that. Let's not forget that.
Kerry Diamond:
You must've been the best lawyer in the world.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh, you're so nice to say that.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my God. They must have quaked in their boots when they saw you walk into that courtroom.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
The small, little Asian lady. Most of the time, they didn't know what was coming. That was my specialty.
Kerry Diamond:
I could listen to you all day. I have goosebumps again. I don't know if anyone out there is thinking the same thing, but for a minute I was like, "Joanne Molinaro for president."
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
No, that's okay. I don't want that job.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, we're lucky we have you in the jobs that you do do. So before we totally run out of time, let's do a little speed round. I don't think I've done a speed round all summer because we keep running out of time. What's always in your fridge?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Gochujang. Always.
Kerry Diamond:
I just bought a new brand Queen. Do you know about them?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
No, I've never heard.
Kerry Diamond:
I'll show you the photo. I got it up at Onggi, the Asian Pantry and Fermentation shop up in Portland.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Those beautiful earthenware jars, the huge ones.
Kerry Diamond:
They sell those. It's up in Portland, Maine, and it is one of the most amazing shops. Amazing baked goods. Amazing matcha, amazing products. They had this kimchi corn soufflé.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh my gosh.
Kerry Diamond:
They had a matcha butter mochi that was so bouncy and fabulous if anybody is in Portland, Maine or near there, go visit and female co-founded, which we love. What's your most used kitchen implement?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Chopsticks. I use it for everything. I knead bread with it.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so funny. What are you streaming right now?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I am streaming the “Gilded Age.” Yeah, season three.
Kerry Diamond:
I couldn't get into season one.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh my God.
Kerry Diamond:
Do I just need to skip ahead?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
You know what I get why you didn't. But I think if you just kind of push through it comes through. It does. But I get where you're coming from because originally I was like, "I don't know if this is for me." But now I love it.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite snack food?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
My favorite snack food right now, I feel bad for saying this. It's guilty. I love Cape Cod Potato Chips. I have a bag that I stash way deep in my pantry that I have to literally get in my hands and knees to dig out. Because otherwise, I could just eat the whole bag. So yeah, I probably go to that more often than I should. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your favorite food smell?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
My favorite food smell is probably doenjang.
Kerry Diamond:
What was your favorite food as a kid?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
McDonald's french fries. I love french fries. I'm going to be honest with you, Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
They're vegan now.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
They are?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. They used to not be.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
They weren't. They were fried in beef tallow. So no, I did not know that. I will probably not partake because I do like my own fries now, but at the time, that was my favorite.
Kerry Diamond:
What is your favorite food film?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I really liked this one movie, it was about food trucks. Oh, I can't remember what it was called. I think it was called “Chef.”
Kerry Diamond:
Oh yeah, “Chef.”
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I loved that movie. I watched it at the theater twice. It's so random. But I really enjoyed that movie. I found it so heartwarming, and I also found the food stuff about it to be really intriguing and fascinating. It made me want to start a food truck.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my God. Korean vegan food truck. That would be, one side could be K-beauty, and one side could be food.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh my gosh. Wait, we need to start a K-beauty food truck. A beauty truck.
Kerry Diamond:
Your brand is D2C. No better way to be D2C, bring it right to the people. What's a dream travel destination?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I really want to go to Montenegro because one of my closest friends, he's from there and he makes it sound so amazing. So hopefully, I think he's there right now, actually. But yeah, I hope to make it there one day.
Kerry Diamond:
What's your kitchen footwear of choice?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I wear seullipeo, which is the Korean word for slipper, but it's a specific kind of Korean slipper. But usually I'm wearing slippers. There was a time when I was recovering from a foot injury and I would wear inside gym shoes, i.e. I only wore them in the house. I never took them outside. But otherwise I'll just wear Korean slippers.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. And last question. If you had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh gosh. One food celebrity? I really like Chef Shota from Bravo's “Top Chef.” Those are all my food celebrities because I'm obsessed with that show.
Kerry Diamond:
Have you been on it?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
No, I'm vegan. It would be hard for me to be on it.
Kerry Diamond:
Would be a special challenge.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
If they did a vegan challenge, I'm just letting everyone know. Bravo “Top Chef,” I'm available. I also love Kristen. I mean, I think she's amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
We just had her on our member meeting.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I know. I saw it.
Kerry Diamond:
The other day she was-
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I'm so proud of her.
Kerry Diamond:
She was so good.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I'm so proud of her on every level I'm so proud of her and everything that she does. I just watched a TikTok with her and I was like, "You are so hilarious and lovable at the same time." I love Chef Shota so much. If I could get to, I would have the two of them actually.
Kerry Diamond:
I think you would just laugh the whole time.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
That's true too, because they're both really, really funny.
Kerry Diamond:
You might starve because you'd just be laughing.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Just laughing. We'd definitely burn a lot of calories by laughing.
Kerry Diamond:
She's great. Did you read her memoir?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I haven't yet.
Kerry Diamond:
Listen to it.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh, really?
Kerry Diamond:
No. One loves reading more than me, but I listened to the book because I had to do it while I was commuting before an interview with her. She does such a good job. I feel like it's such a different experience because she reads it and there are parts of the book where she gets really emotional and they didn't make her redo it. They just let her emotions come through in the book.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Oh, I love that. I feel talking about parasocial relationships...
Kerry Diamond:
Of which we have many.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
So many. She's basically my best friend. I'm just kidding. I watched her very closely because she's Korean, it was just, again, seeing a face like hers on “Top Chef” was really important to me. Same with Chef Ed, all of that, every time I saw somebody who looked like me, I was like, "Okay, they need to win."
I saw her vulnerability in that show, so to see that she's leaning into that with her memoir, which obviously you have to. I think that's really beautiful, so I'm very excited to listen to it. It's on my list. It's been on my list for a minute, so I will download the audiobook.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you announce your book tour dates yet?
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
We will be in New York I hope you make it. I'm going to be at the 92 Y on October 15th. Everybody in the city, please come. I'm going to be with my friend Eric Kim. He's a columnist for the New York Times and a New York Times bestselling author of Korean American and we're going to have a wonderful time. I'll sign every single book. I will stay until 1:00 in the morning to sign all your books.
Kerry Diamond:
I can talk to you forever.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I know. Me too.
Kerry Diamond:
But I have to let you go. All right. Thank you for coming on the show.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
Thank you for having me. It was a blast.
Kerry Diamond:
I admire you so much. I hope you know that.
Joanne Lee Molinaro:
I reciprocate 1000%.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you for everything you do, and thank you for being on the show. That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to Joanne Lee Molinaro. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Joseph Hazan is the studio engineer at Newsstand Studios. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu. Our editorial assistant is Bridid Pittman, and our head of partnerships is Rachel Close. Thanks for listening, everybody. You are the Bombe.