Youngmi Mayer Transcript
Kerry Diamond:
Hi, everyone. You are listening to Radio Cherry Bombe, and I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. I'm the founder and editor of Cherry Bombe magazine. Where am I this week? I am in Portland, Maine. I literally went from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine. Technically, I am on summer vacation but working a little bit. Lots of you know how that is. I love Portland, Maine. I just hit the Tandem Bakery and coffee shop for a kimchi cheddar scone, a ginger cookie, and a malt iced coffee. Very malty. I didn't grow up drinking Ovaltine, but if you did, I'm guessing this would be a nostalgic drink for you. Tandem, in my opinion, is one of the best bakeries in the country. Briana Holt is the head baker. Briana, if you are listening, I'm so sorry I missed you, but I left a copy of Cherry Bombe magazine for you at the counter. And listeners, if you have plans to be in Portland, Maine, go visit Tandem.
Okay, today's guest. I didn't know too much about Youngmi Mayer before this interview, but I saw her perform at Padma Lakshmi's comedy showcase earlier this year in Brooklyn at The Bell House. It was a stand-up routine that leaned heavily on audience participation, and it was a wild commentary on DEI. Basically, Youngmi was looking for a white guy to replace her and somehow managed to get three of them on stage to audition. I hadn't laughed that hard in ages. I looked up Youngmi when I got home and saw that she had a memoir that came out last year. It's titled, “I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying.” I picked it up, and it was such a visceral read. As I tell Youngmi, the book wasn't what I expected, but I couldn't put it down. Without giving too much away, “I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying” is the raw emotional story of three generations of women in Youngmi's family doing their best. Some of you might recognize Youngmi's name from the restaurant world. She was part of the Mission Chinese story for several years and was married to Chef Danny Bowien. She covers that chapter of her life in the book, and we talk about it a little bit. She is also a podcaster and a mom. We cover a lot of ground, so stay tuned. Youngmi is a fascinating human. I would love for all of you to pick up her book and maybe even see her one-woman show later this year at Joe's Pub.
A little housekeeping. We have a few events coming up. There's our Summer Tastemaker Tour in Nashville on August 15th, the final stop on our tour. Tickets are sold out, but you should put your name on the waiting list if you want to come. Seats often open up. And the wonderful Jessie Baylin is performing. Then there's Jubilee L.A., which we are deep in the planning of. That's happening Sunday, September 28th. If you've been to Jubilee, New York, this is going to be a little different. We've got breakout sessions and lots of special things planned for you, and we can't wait to celebrate our friends in Los Angeles. If you're a Cherry Bombe member, be sure to check your email for special member pricing on tickets. What else? The next issue of our magazine is available for presale right now on cherrybombe.com. It's all about Italy, and we have a special guest editor, Fiorella Valdesolo, plus, two very exciting cover stars. The issue will be out in September. All the links for all these things are in our show notes, or you can head to cherrybombe.com. Enjoy my chat with Youngmi.
Youngmi Mayer, welcome to Radio Cherry Bombe.
Youngmi Mayer:
Hi, how are you?
Kerry Diamond:
I'm even better now because, you might not believe this, but I have a short list of people who I have not had the honor of interviewing yet, and it's Oprah, Michelle Obama, and you are on that list.
Youngmi Mayer:
When you said, "You might not believe this," and I was like, "Why wouldn't I believe that?"
And you're like, "Oprah."
I was like, "Okay, you know what? I believe you."
Kerry Diamond:
But it is true. I read your book, which we're going to talk all about, which was brilliant, and just from what I know about you, I know you don't walk around patting yourself on the back thinking, "I wrote an exceptional book." But when I bought it, it was more because I loved your stand-up. I didn't know what to expect, and the book was 100% not what I was expecting. I'm curious, why did you want to write a book?
Youngmi Mayer:
I think maybe... Well, I mean, I talk about this a lot in the book. I'm assuming that what you mean by it wasn't what you expected was, it's not like a stand-up comedian's memoir that's like, "Hey, kids." It's very sad. It just talks a lot about trauma but in a funny way, and I think how I would describe it is in a Korean way, because in my Korean family, that's how we discuss everything. When things get sad, we start joking even harder. The reason I say that is because I think deep down inside I kind of feel like I knew I had a knack for writing.
When you're a kid, they tell you what you're good at kind of, and they're like, "Oh, you're the kid that's good at painting and you're the kid that's good at football." And I think that was my thing, and it always came kind of easily for me. And in the book, I write about how I had to stop doing that because of how I was being perceived, which I think is a very common story for people that are socialized female and young girls. Basically, in the book, the stories that, as a teenager, I was like a slut in a good way. Complimentary. But if you are perceived by everybody as being a young woman, that is not what they want, right?
They're just like, "You are not smart. You can't be smart and also wear miniskirts or dot, dot, dot, and your eyebrows are pierced," or whatever. That had a very profound effect on me when people were like, "You're not smart enough to do this." So I was like, "Well, I'm not going to do this anymore because I don't want to step into a room and be attacked kind of." It felt like that. So I had given up completely for the rest of my life. It wasn't like, "One day, I'm going to show them." That didn't even exist in my mind. That literally just ended my dreams. Period.
And then, much later in life, I just so happened to speak to people who were kind of like, "Oh, do you want a book deal? If you want one, you can talk to somebody," and then it sort of fell in place. It sounds almost like this Phoenix story, rising from the ashes of a dream that was burned down, but it wasn't because I was so completely destroyed that I had even forgotten that there was a point in my life that it ever had been a dream. So I did it and then it came out, and then it was kind of like, "Oh, wait, I think I did want to do this at some point."
Now it's taken a long time for me to feel like coming out of this weird shell that I was hiding where I was like, "Wait, I did want to do this, and oh my God, I did it." And I didn't even realize I was doing it at the time. It had to come out and I had to settle into it, and it dawned on me. So I guess the answer to your question is, I have a dream of becoming a writer when I was very young, and I guess I made zero efforts or moves towards it, but somehow, life brought it back to me. And then after I did it, I remembered that it was my dream as a child.
Kerry Diamond:
There you go. Let's talk about the title because we didn't talk about that yet, “I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying.” That has a very specific meaning.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah. So the story is that I wanted the book to be called “Hairy Butthole,” which, I know, stick with me here. There's a Korean saying that goes, “If you laugh while crying, hair grows out of your butthole.” It's like one of my first stand-up jokes that I ever wrote in 2018 when I started stand-up, and it's something that my mom used to say to me when I was crying because she would hit me for doing stuff. And then, she would tell me jokes and I would start laughing, and then she would say that and I was like, "Why are you..." It was like this whole thing that she was doing just so she could say that, almost.
But it's a very popular phrase in Korea. Adults say that to children a lot. I think it was just to make children stop crying, essentially. So I wanted to call it “Hairy Butthole” because I basically based the entire outline of the book on that premise, the two sides of a binary, which is a very big cultural ideology in Korea because a lot of it's based in Do, which is like Taoism. So I wanted to sort of input that Korean ideology into the book, this idea that two opposing things actually are fitted into one, and they kind of have to exist with each other. So I was like, "Oh, I want to call it that phrase, like the universe is a hairy butthole in a way," you know?
Kerry Diamond:
I also didn't think about the two things coexisting. That's kind of you-
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
... and your two identities. I mean, you have many identities, but on your racial identity.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yes. The first part of the book starts in that way. Oh, these two parts, white and Korean. And then at the end, I try to just tie both of them back together and show that they're kind of the same thing, and that's like the running theme in the book.
Kerry Diamond:
The book wasn't what I was expecting, but I think I was referring to how much of it in the beginning was about your grandmother and your mother.
Youngmi Mayer:
Actually, that was surprising to me too because I pictured the book just being my life. I had this idea of trying to tie the end into the beginning because that's a big theme in the book, and the end is basically me finding my voice. I mean, most of my adulthood until I was 33, I was like a stay-at-home mom. I was 33 when I pursued stand-up comedy. That was the first time I ever did anything. So I was thinking about that's obviously how the book is going to end because that's where I'm at now, and so then I was thinking of how the beginning would tie into that. And I remember I went back to Korea to sort of interview my mom to get the backstory of my family, and she had been telling me all these stories all my life, and I just went to sort of get the entire account in detail and record her so I got the stories correctly.
And she told me this one story about how my grandmother, her mom, her dream was to become a poet and perform pansori, which, in Korean, it's like a spoken word. It's poetry, but you sing it, and it's a performance. And I was like, "Oh, that's literally what I do as a stand-up comedian." Basically, her story was interrupted because obviously her parents were like, "You're really old now. You're 15, you have to get married," so she couldn't live her dream. And then I was like, "Oh, that's kind of like the beginning of my story." And then, even though I didn't know that about her, I kind of did what she wanted without even realizing. I thought that was a good way to start, and because I had to explain that story, I ended up having to really just explain every single thing that happened to her and then my mom.
Kerry Diamond:
A lot of family trauma.
Youngmi Mayer:
I mean, a lot of it didn't happen to me because obviously I didn't live through Japanese imperialism, but yeah, they went through a lot. I think it's a popular topic of discussion among people who, everybody, obviously, but I think maybe among people who are children of immigrants in this country, because they talk about intergenerational trauma. And even though you don't live through that, your parents treated you in a way that was directly affected by that. I think part of the reason I talk about my grandma and my mom is like, "Oh, my mom would always say this to me when I was a kid."
And I looked at that and I was like, "Why would she say something like that?" And then I tied it directly to what she lived through, and I thought that was really interesting. So I think there's a lot of that in there.
Kerry Diamond:
It's interesting that your mom talked about it, because we were talking earlier about Ireland, and you're part Irish. I'm part-
Youngmi Mayer:
They love me there.
Kerry Diamond:
My family's Scottish and Irish, and they didn't talk about the family trauma. They didn't talk about anything.
Youngmi Mayer:
So that is a big part of what I'm assuming. Well, this is what I hear from Korean-Americans whose parents are immigrants, and a lot of them don't really know a lot about Korea, and they always say the same thing. And I'm sure a lot of people, even if you're not Korean, just have your experience, right? And it makes sense to me because I'm sure the immigration story for the most part, I think for most people, is pretty traumatic. There's usually not a good reason that you leave. I know now, I mean, even back then, there was, but usually it involves some sort of trauma.
Kerry Diamond:
Right, like famine.
Youngmi Mayer:
I think, in a lot of ways, people are trying to protect their children because they don't want them to hear all this stuff, and probably trying to protect themselves, not wanting to relive stuff like that. And so I think it is a pretty common story that I hear from other Koreans that their parents just won't talk about it at all. And so I've heard from a lot of Koreans that they're fascinated that my mom was so open about it. And I'm not exactly sure, I think it's just her personality. She likes talking about stuff, and that's probably where I get it from. That's how she processes it, to make it funny.
Kerry Diamond:
How long did the book take to write? I mean, a lifetime, but aside from that?
Youngmi Mayer:
It's weird. It was kind of fast, though. It took 10 months. Yeah, but it was weird because I would go for like a month or two without writing anything, and then it would all just come out like in a day or five days or something like that. And I think I learned that it was just me processing and sort of putting it together, and then it comes out. But yeah, all in all, like 10 months.
Kerry Diamond:
Were you good about making your deadline?
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, because my deadline was a year, so I made my deadline. I was good about making my deadline. I was not good about scheduling writing time, which is something I learned about myself. I feel like now I'm such a big believer in not having to do that because I thought I was supposed to wake up 8:00 to 5:00 and write from 8:00 to 5:00 every day. That's a good writer. But then-
Kerry Diamond:
Right, like what we were told about Hemingway, things like that.
Youngmi Mayer:
Do you think he made that up to make us feel bad?
Kerry Diamond:
I don't know. I read that he would sit for a few hours and write, and he would leave. Or maybe this was Scott Fitzgerald. I don't know, one of the white guys. Yeah.
Youngmi Mayer:
One of those white guys. They all look the same. Just kidding.
Kerry Diamond:
They would stop writing mid-sentence so that when they came back from lunch and probably all the drinking, they could pick up where they left off. I thought that was interesting.
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh, that's good advice.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't think I could ever follow it, but I'm good about gluing my butt to a chair and writing when I have to.
Youngmi Mayer:
I'm not, and so then I did the thing that I said. I just wouldn't write for a while, and then I would feel guilty and cry. But then for a while, I was doing the thing. I got advice from somebody saying that apparently your brain gets into writing mode easily in the middle of the night, so you should set your alarm for 1:00 and then write from like 1:00 to 6:00. That worked, actually, weirdly.
Kerry Diamond:
1:00 in the morning to 6:00 in the morning?
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
That didn't just mess up your life completely?
Youngmi Mayer:
A little bit, but basically, I think I was setting it for 2:00 AM and then writing until 6:00 AM. And then, my son would get up, I would take him to school, drop him off, and then take a nap until 2:00, or when I had to pick him up. It was fine.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, whatever you did, it worked because the book is fantastic.
Youngmi Mayer:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
How was the reception to the book?
Youngmi Mayer:
It has been very positive, actually. I think the reason for that is because the people that support me or know about me are already very familiar with my work, so they were sort of just very interested in getting it. I'm still kind of a pretty niche person, so if you're going to buy my book and read it, you probably have something very similar along the lines happening in your life. It will speak to you. But it's been very, very good. A lot of the feedback that I'm getting is from Korean-Americans and also other Asian-Americans. And the interesting thing is, the feedback that I'm getting a lot is that everyone's just like, "I did not know this about Korea."
I got feedback from this one journalist who was like a Chinese-American, and she was like, "I think because I grew up in America and we're always categorized together, it dawned on me reading your book that that is a different culture and I don't know anything about it."
And I was like, "I had that experience too, like in my twenties." At some point, I was like, "Oh, I don't know anything about China." I think when I first went there I was like, "Oh, this is a different country." I thought I knew everything.
And then I was like, "Yeah, I know what you mean. It's just weirdly familiar, even though I don't know what you're talking about, which is nice."
Kerry Diamond:
Has it opened doors for you?
Youngmi Mayer:
Yes. I have a one-person show that I'm very happy with. Right now, I have a residency at Joe's Pub. I'm going to be there in the fall, and there's all these other things coming up from the book. I do want to write another book, which I'm working on. It's taking forever. The book that I want to write is about dating and relationships, and for some reason, writing about people I've dated is just so much more embarrassing-feeling and hard than my parents or family. And so now I'm like, "How do I write this? I don't want anybody to know it's them, or I don't want people to figure out who this is." Yeah, it's just something I was thinking about.
Kerry Diamond:
I just finished that book, “Tart,” by someone called Slutty Cheff. Do you know about this?
Youngmi Mayer:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
It's interesting. It's not a pure memoir. I was reading an interview with her, and some of the stories, I think, are her friends' stories. I'm hoping to interview her and figure it out. But she's a chef, and it's about her life and working in restaurants and dating and sleeping with chefs and-
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh.
Kerry Diamond:
... a lot of identities changed apparently to protect the innocent, or not so innocent, in her book. But it's out August 5th. I bet you'll like it a lot.
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh my God, I want to read it.
Kerry Diamond:
But she's anonymous. She has a column for British Vogue.
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh.
Kerry Diamond:
I'm sure if you go on Reddit or something, people have figured out her identity. She wrote it under the name Slutty Cheff, and Cheff is C-H-E-F-F.
Youngmi Mayer:
See, that's the way to do it. I feel like this is so embarrassing.
Kerry Diamond:
It's too late for you now, though.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you on the apps?
Youngmi Mayer:
Not right now. I mean, sometimes I look at them. I'm just not a big app person. It's just that sometimes it works out, but it's a lot of energy.
Kerry Diamond:
So you meet people in the real world?
Youngmi Mayer:
I would say only half and half. I do meet a lot of people that are, I think, through Instagram. I don't even know how to explain it. People that are adjacent to people I know, kind of. That happens a lot, I think. It feels really embarrassing that somebody's going to figure out. I don't know why. That's mean.
Kerry Diamond:
Or when the book becomes a big hit and people are trying to figure out who's who.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I could see the New York Magazine article right now.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, I don't know. It's like a weird feeling. And then I heard my friend, oh, this is a juicy gossip story, she wrote a book. It's fiction, but it's based loosely on her ex-somebody. Obviously, it takes so long to write a book and for it to come out, and they broke up, but in the interim, he met someone and got engaged. And then, the week before they were going to get married, his fiance read the book and broke up with him.
Kerry Diamond:
Ooh.
Youngmi Mayer:
So I was like, "Ooh, that's power." I love that.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh, that is power. All right, a few more questions about the book because I have a friend who's a documentarian and Korean, big fan of your book. And she was posting about it yesterday, and I said, "Oh my God, I'm going to interview her tomorrow," so she sent me a few questions. So she said, "As a documentarian, there's always a part of me that gets anxious when someone releases their story out into the world because it can come with unforeseen circumstances. What were the unforeseen circumstances of releasing your memoir, good or bad?"
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh my gosh. Unforeseen circumstances?
Kerry Diamond:
Like something you just were not expecting.
Youngmi Mayer:
There must be something. What did I know that-
Kerry Diamond:
Did you give it to people to read?
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh, before it came out?
Kerry Diamond:
Before it's out, yeah.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yes. I gave it to my friends and they all liked it. Oh, I guess, I don't know if this is unforeseen, but I did realize at one point, again, this is related to dating, somebody that I was seeing said something like, "Oh my gosh, I saw you had a book and I'm going to pick it up." And then a few weeks later, we were talking about something. I asked them if they had read the book, because I was like, "Do you know about this part of my life?"
And then, that person was like, "Oh, actually, I didn't read your book yet."
And I was like, "Okay," because now I realize that when you're in not just a relationship, but when you meet somebody new, you can decide when you tell your story or a hard part of your story, or some trauma or something like that. But if you have a book and everything's in there, you lose the ability to control when you can tell them. I guess, even though I kind of knew that, I didn't really think about that that deeply. So that was an unforeseen thing. And so I think in that situation, I told the person, "Do you mind not reading the book, and I'll tell you when you can? Do you mind?"
And he was like, "Yeah. Yeah, I don't care," you know?
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, that's interesting. All right, next question. She also asked, "How was the reception in Korea?" Was the book published there?
Youngmi Mayer:
No, the book was not published in Korea. I wonder. There are some people that live in Korea that they DMed me and told me that they purchased it, but no, it was not released in Korea. Hopefully it will be. I don't know how it will be. I wonder.
Kerry Diamond:
Lastly, she asked, "Do you know people are reading your book and sobbing in front of strangers?"
Youngmi Mayer:
I'm so sorry. I was hoping that you'd be laughing and crying, not just crying. Yeah, that's hard for me to imagine. Obviously, I know that some of the stories are sad. I cried writing it, a lot. I think there were parts where it was so difficult, the times where I took like a month breaks probably after a difficult passage, but I think it's very moving that people are reading it and it's touching them because I know it's touching for me because it's a personal story. But I feel if I'm able to convey those emotions and somebody else is feeling it, I feel like I did my job, I think. So I'm very touched that people are touched by the stories. It's weird because it's like, I don't want people to cry.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, sometimes that's cathartic.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah. I hope it's a good cry, I guess.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. It's such a powerful book. I just want to thank you for writing it. It was a great read, and like I said, even though it wasn't what I expected. It was beyond what I expected.
Youngmi Mayer:
Well, thank you so much. I'm also just always flattered when I hear somebody read it. I'm like, "Oh my God, thank you for taking the time." It means a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, let's talk about restaurants.
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh no. Just kidding.
Kerry Diamond:
So I don't know if you know, but I owned restaurants and dated a chef.
Youngmi Mayer:
Wait, who? Are you the Slutty Cheff? Oh my God, I figured it out, people. We got to the bottom of who the Slutty... You're not British.
Kerry Diamond:
I am not the Slutty Cheff. I was not a chef. This person actually was a chef. No, I'm not British. Yeah, I fell in love with a chef.
Youngmi Mayer:
Wow.
Kerry Diamond:
He was like, "Let's open a restaurant." And I was like, "Sure. How hard could that be?" and then got my ass kicked for years.
Youngmi Mayer:
Can you say who it is? I'm sure I won't know, right?
Kerry Diamond:
I won't say his name. It's not that hard to look up. But I had Seersucker and Smith Canteen, Nightingale 9, and Wilma Jean. 10 years later, heartbroken-
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh.
Kerry Diamond:
... financially broken, all the things. Cherry Bombe came out of it, so that's the gift, because I really had no idea about the industry and women in the industry and all of that. That's a whole separate conversation, but I can relate with the parts of your story about falling in love with a chef and how hard the restaurant industry is, and just the aftermath.
Youngmi Mayer:
It's rough. Okay, I've gotten this one time and it just really confused me, but I guess it made sense. My friend, who was single, a comedian friend, she was like, "Do you know any chefs that you can hook me up with?" And she was like, "I just fantasize about dating a chef. That's so cool. And he'd cook for you."
And I was like, "Oh my God. You in danger, girl." I was like, "Run. What are you talking about?" I've never fantasized-
Kerry Diamond:
Was this pre-“Bear” or post-“Bear?”
Youngmi Mayer:
I think it was pre-“Bear,” which makes it more... It was like right before “The Bear” came out. I don't remember.
Kerry Diamond:
But I could see the appeal.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, I guess, looking from the outside. And I'm like, "What?"
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Youngmi Mayer:
I was like, "I don't know."
Kerry Diamond:
I mean, it's an interesting profession. You think they'll cook for you all the time, and sometimes they do, but I think it's the restaurant component. That is the part that is so hard and complicated.
Youngmi Mayer:
Horrible. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I am amazed that people still open restaurants.
Youngmi Mayer:
Me too. Sucker is born every day, like they say in Vegas. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Vegas has great restaurants, by the way.
Youngmi Mayer:
They do.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah.
Youngmi Mayer:
I mean, I've never been there, but I've seen-
Kerry Diamond:
And a really good commitment to hospitality.
Youngmi Mayer:
I've never been to Vegas, but it seems way fancier than I imagined, just through the internet videos.
Kerry Diamond:
Yes.
Youngmi Mayer:
But they have all those fancy, fancy restaurants there now, huh?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, sure, but it's like anywhere else. There's off the Strip. This will turn into a Vegas ad because I love Vegas. There's off the Strip, which has lots of fun places. They have a Chinatown, a Koreatown, Filipinotown off-Strip. And yeah, on the Strip, there are plenty of fancy places, but plenty of their food halls and non-fancy things too.
Youngmi Mayer:
Maybe I should go to Vegas.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, go do some stand-up.
Youngmi Mayer:
Ooh. Okay.
Kerry Diamond:
Why'd you say, "Ooh"?
Youngmi Mayer:
I don't really do stand-up anymore.
Kerry Diamond:
What?
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, I didn't know that. So, the Joe's Pub performance is this summer where you're a one-woman show?
Youngmi Mayer:
Yes. It's the one-woman show based on the memoir. So this is the thing. I don't like one-person shows. I don't know what to call it. I find them to be kind of boring a lot of times. Some of them are very good. When they're good, they're amazing. And then a lot of times, it's just you sitting there, watching someone talk for an hour, so I try to make it a little bit more exciting. But it is funny when I ask people, "Do you want to come to my one-person show?"
And my stand-up comedian friends are like, "I don't know."
I'm like, "No, but it's fun. It's a good one."
But the stand-up thing, I was doing stand-up, and then COVID happened, and then I couldn't do stand-up. And then something happened, I think, with my brain during COVID. I think when I got back into performing after the lockdown, I couldn't stand doing stand-up because it was boring. It was just me standing, talking, and it just felt like I was at church or something. The dynamic I didn't like anymore and I just needed things to be extremely fun or something, and so I started doing these live shows that were like game shows where I would just drag people on stage and force them to do these embarrassing things and funny things.
At the time, I was doing that with Brian Park, my co-host for Feeling Asian, and every time we had a show, it's sold out immediately. People were going nuts. We sold out The Bell House immediately, which I was like, "What?" The energy was so intense, and I think it was because a lot of people were coming off of being cooped up, and they just wanted things to just be like, "Ah!" I think after that, I sort of focused all my sets on things like that where it was written for audience participation.
And they are written out, but almost like a mix of improv because I know what I'm going to say, but I have to work with the people. That's kind of like the wild card. The one-person show has that dynamic because I have an audience participant who is the main character, and they don't know it yet, but throughout the show, they are the comedic relief. And then at the end... Oh, I'm not going to say what happens at the end.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. But you're just picking a stranger?
Youngmi Mayer:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
This isn't a plant.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yes. No. People always ask me, "Oh, is that your friend?" I'm like, "I don't know who that is. It's just the Asian person that was drunk enough to agree to sit on the stage the entire time." And it works every single time-
Kerry Diamond:
That's so funny.
Youngmi Mayer:
... because I think I practiced writing it so it would work.
Kerry Diamond:
We're going to jump around a little bit. How did you get involved in restaurants? Tell everybody the Cliff Notes version.
Youngmi Mayer:
So, when I moved to San Francisco when I was 20, I was just working in restaurants. That's the only job I could get, basically. And then I met Danny, my ex-husband, because my roommate at the time was working at the restaurant he was working at. We started dating, and he and I are very different where that was his career. He was a chef, and even at the time, he was only 26 but he was on the rise. People sort of were taking note. I think right after we met, it wasn't just that he wanted to be a career chef. And people were like, "Oh, he's good at it."
When I met him, I was like, "Oh my gosh, this person is really good at this." And I think when you meet somebody that is a true, I hate all these words that we use to describe a true artist, genius or whatever, but just somebody that you can see is really good at something, there's this energy that's really hard to explain.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, they're doing what they're kind of meant to be doing.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah. Something clicked with them and they're great at it. I mean, that wasn't obviously the reason I was dating him, because who cares when you're 22 or 23? But I remember that energy around him. And when he was like, "Oh, I'm a chef," I was like, "Oh yeah, this is very exciting to be around somebody that's really in their lane." When we were dating, he was a line cook, and then we got married. And then around the same time in San Francisco, there was this thing called Mission Street Food, which was a pop-up run by Anthony Myint out of a food truck. He was a chef at a very fancy restaurant called Foreign Cinema.
Kerry Diamond:
I like Foreign Cinema.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, it's delicious. And basically, Anthony was a fancy chef that, on his day off, rented a food truck, made fancy sandwiches for like $8 for drunk people. But obviously, this is right when Twitter started, and all those tech guys were like, "Ooh, this is secret. And it's like a gourmet sandwich, but you can get it for $8 and nobody knows but me." That kind of vibe. And you only knew where the truck was via Twitter, I believe. Some of this might not be accurate. And then they got shut down. I don't know why. And then they had to move into a Chinese restaurant on Mission Street, and it was just this to-go American Chinese restaurant where people get sesame chicken, things like that.
And so then, once a week, he was doing a pop-up where he brought really famous chefs from around the Bay Area to cook whatever they wanted to cook, and they could charge whatever they wanted to charge, and then they would just keep the profits after giving the owners of the restaurant, it was 200 bucks or 400 bucks or something like that. And then the pop-up became extremely popular because obviously people wanted to go and eat food from the chef from French Laundry or Chez Panisse in a takeout Chinese restaurant on Mission. The concept was really fun. They would tell you who's coming on Twitter. You had to find out everything on Twitter.
Kerry Diamond:
Right. This was pre-TikTok, so before everybody knew everything.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah. It was this trendy, fun thing that young tech people or young people like to do in San Francisco. And then, I think Mission Street Food was open for maybe two, three years, but Danny had a night because at the time, he was working at an Italian restaurant. It was very popular. And then, I think Anthony also really liked working with him, and he was really tired of doing this whole thing where he had to get a new chef every week. It was a lot of logistics. So he was just like, "Why don't we just do one concept here, and we can open up three days a week or something?" And they decided on doing Sichuan food at the time. I remember we went to go eat it at this restaurant called Spices II in the Richmond, and I was just like, "I've never had food like this."
I had never had authentic Sichuan food, and I was like, "That's so weird because I've had all this types of food, but why have I never had this?" Obviously, at the time, I think Sichuan food was blowing up in New York City. This is 2010, right? Those in the know kind of knew about that. They just came up with this idea together, "We're going to do very authentic mala hot pot-flavored Sichuan food in the Mission, and we're going to take over the Mission Street Food place, and people are going to come because they remember." And Danny is Korean, he's adopted. Anthony's Chinese-Malaysian, I think. I'm sorry if that's wrong, but not that that matters. I don't know why I'm telling you all the races of the people involved like I'm a 65-year-old. Your racist uncle at Thanksgiving, "They're Chinese." No one cares about that.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you get pulled in?
Youngmi Mayer:
Basically, I was married to Danny. I was working at this restaurant for brunch service because I suck so bad at being a server, so they would just give me the war chef's brunch. I was like, "Thanks. Can I have the dinner?"
They're like, "No, have to deal with the hungover people." And so then, after we got married, Danny was just like, "Can you come?" I mean, in the beginning, nobody was there. He was like, "Can you just come be the one server?" And so I was the one server, and then it very quickly became very popular. We hired our friends from other restaurants, but then immediately after, I was, quote unquote, fired. Danny hates it when I say that. Danny fired me.
Because if anything happened, chefs like to yell at people, but I would just be like, "Danny!" I think the power dynamic wasn't working for Danny, so after a few months, he was like, "Just go. Just go home, go back to your other restaurant job." Yeah, so after a few months, I stopped working there, and that was my involvement with Mission Chinese for years. And then, obviously, the restaurant blew up, the San Francisco spot blew up. We moved to New York City. I had my son, and so then I was essentially a stay-at-home mom and then Danny ran the restaurant. So, that's my involvement. Very brief.
Kerry Diamond:
Why is it that restaurants get in people's blood the way they do? It's one of those things, it's like the mafia. It's like you try to get out and you're pulled back in. People say to me all the time, "Would you ever open another restaurant?"
And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, no." But then there's that little thing in the back of your head where you're like, "Mm," or have you been totally cured of it?
Youngmi Mayer:
No. I mean, I work at Mission Chinese now. I went back during COVID. They have a pop-up now that I work at. I don't want that answer to sound too sad, but if I'm going to be honest, I think it's like this weird trauma. You know those movies where it's Bruce Willis? Or what's his name, Rocky? What's the guy? Sylvester Stallone.
Kerry Diamond:
Sylvester Stallone.
Youngmi Mayer:
And he's smoking a cigar in The Bahamas, and they're like, "Agent Tony Smith, we have one more mission for you."
And he's like, "I can't. It's been years." But he misses it, the adrenaline, and then he ends up going back for one last job and gets blown up. But it's like that, you know? You miss it.
Kerry Diamond:
Or survives for another sequel. Come on.
Youngmi Mayer:
Or survives.
Kerry Diamond:
Slutty Cheff, I keep talking about Slutty Cheff, but I obviously just finished it like two nights ago. A lot of it's about adrenaline.
Youngmi Mayer:
That explains the addiction and dot, dot, dot, which also falls in line. I must say that, you know how a lot of performers and entertainers work in restaurants? I think part of that is because it's such a similar gig. Going in for a dinner shift feels a lot like heading to the comedy club, I must say. Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Interesting.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay.
Youngmi Mayer:
It's abusive-feeling.
Kerry Diamond:
But we all still love restaurants.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah. I like working in a restaurants still.
Kerry Diamond:
You do?
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, I like it.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. What do you like about it?
Youngmi Mayer:
Maybe it is just how my brain works, you know? It's the same reason I love performing. It's just like, these things make sense to me and I'm good at this. It comes to me naturally and it's enjoyable. Also, it's really, really horrible, though. It's very extreme-feeling. It's really great, it's really horrible, but it's fun, you know? Always something to think about.
Kerry Diamond:
At one point, you decide you're going to do stand-up, and you basically put yourself through stand-up boot camp.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
You performed in all the lousy places every night, got a babysitter.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
Why did you decide stand-up was the next chapter for you?
Youngmi Mayer:
So, this is going to feel so abstract, the book conversation, which I feel like was so loosey-goosey, but it was one of my dreams as a kid. I think writing and stand-up, even though I fully can't say I even let myself be like, "This is my dream," it was one of these things where I saw. And I think part of me knew that I would inherently, not be good at it, I knew that I could do it because that's how my brain kind of works anyway.
When I was a kid, I would watch stand-up and be like, "I want to be a stand-up comedian." I never said it to anybody because I thought it was embarrassing. I always felt like it was embarrassing to admit that I want something, I think, as a kid, or admit that I was going to try at something, so I never admitted it and I never tried. I think when you look at stand-up, it just seems like, how do you even do that? How do you start getting in that field? It's not very clear.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, there's no LinkedIn for comedians.
Youngmi Mayer:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
I noticed you're not even on LinkedIn.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah. I don't know how to, I've never written a resume. I think I signed up for LinkedIn.
Kerry Diamond:
I think you're on there, but there's nothing on there.
Youngmi Mayer:
Should I make a LinkedIn?
Kerry Diamond:
I was like, "She's too cool for LinkedIn."
Youngmi Mayer:
I'm going to try. I should. I don't know how well this is going for me. I'm kind of broke. I should make a LinkedIn. What do I put on my LinkedIn? There's nothing.
Kerry Diamond:
I can help you if you want to call me.
Youngmi Mayer:
Okay. Oh my God, please. Yeah, I had no idea how to start. I think in the book I write about how I had this epiphany in therapy where I just went from being told all my life that I have to live for somebody else, and then one day I was like, "No, I don't. You know what? I want to do stand-up." That's the thing that popped out because it was getting pressed down all my life so hard. And it sounds very midlife crisis at 33. I'm like, "I'm getting a divorce. I'm doing stand-up," but that's what happened. And so then I just Googled it, and people were like, "Oh, you have to do these open mics." You do, but then, I don't know, part of it's kind of a scam. And so then, I just went to open mics. Literally, just never stopped. I was like, "I'm going to do this," you know? It was horrible.
This is what I always tell people. Not that I like to give advice, but I think a lot of people now because they hear my story of not living the life that you want, and then one day you changed it and it was a little too late, quote unquote. Because most people are like, "If you don't do it when you're 18 or 21, it's over for you. You're done. Become an accountant," you know? I think a lot of people live like that. They're sad about not doing their dream. And so people ask me, "What happened that you started kind of, quote unquote, late?" And yeah, it's embarrassing to be a single mom at the fricking comedy club with 21-year-old dudes from Staten Island that live with their mom. You know what I mean? I was like, "Don't hit on me."
Kerry Diamond:
Watch out, I'm from Staten Island, but that's okay.
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh, sorry. No, I love Staten Island. I'm here with this guy, college kids, you know? When I look back at what had to happen for that to happen, it wasn't any external thing. It was all internal. I just had to decide, and I know it's the corniest Gwyneth Paltrow advice, but it's like, once you decide, then nothing can stop you. You know what I mean? It's like something has to shift in your brain and it's just like, "I want to do this. I'm going to do it," you know?
Kerry Diamond:
I'm super happy you're sharing that because I think it is really easy to get stuck and to sometimes feel like you're on this one path and there's absolutely no way to get off it, even if you're unhappy.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, and people say all the time, you hear about people that have a later start in life, they're just like, "You just got to do it." And it's useless advice because it has to happen for it to happen. I can't tell you, but for me, what was motivating was that I was like, "Well, I'm so unhappy in my life," right? And the worst feeling that I had in my life was this suffocating feeling of anytime I saw somebody doing comedy or something, I would just feel so deoreopge. In Korean, it's like a dirty feeling. That feels so bad to me that there's nothing that is worse than that feeling, you know?
Kerry Diamond:
Was it jealousy? What was it?
Youngmi Mayer:
I think it's jealousy, but I think jealousy is also a layer that's covering something deeper, you know? First, it's jealousy. You have to be like, "I'm so jealous." And you hear a lot of people being like, "Oh, she's not that funny. Why is she a comedian?"
It's like, "Well, you want to be a comedian, obviously. Just go do it, Derek." First it's jealousy, but then deeper, there's this grief, this mourning, and you don't even know no one's holding you back and it's you holding you back. And that feeling of just, "Oh, I'm never going to do that thing and I'm going to die without doing it," is such a dirty-feeling feeling that I think when I started doing stand-up. And I was obviously failing for years. For years, right? Whenever there was a setback, I had a show in front of two people, only two people showed up and nobody laughed, and that sucks.
But that feeling is nowhere near close as shitty as the feeling of living in a high-rise luxury condo with your husband who's paying for everything, and he just bought you Chanel's leather sandals for your vacation in Greece, and you know you don't fucking want any of that. You know you want to fucking do stand-up. The two people at the comedy club that didn't laugh and they were drunk and they called you racist slurs, that is way better than sitting in the fanciest mansion in the world knowing that you want to do this one thing. And I know that sounds really corny. And now that I'm completely broke and I'm struggling financially, I was like, "Okay, I made a little bit of a mistake there, but maybe I was wrong. Wait." But no, in all honesty, I would rather die poor and just not having to feel that feeling again. It's such a bad feeling, you know?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Well, we love little corny advice here at Radio Cherry Bombe, so you're in the right place. You know what I mean?
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, and I guess I could give that advice because I actually did do it now. So for me, it's great, but then for other people, they don't want to do that, you know? They want to be comfortable, and that's fine. That's okay too.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to talk about motherhood just for a few minutes. Sorry, moms. I don't mean to give it the short shrift, but it is such a big topic in your book, and I know you are a bit of a fierce mama.
Youngmi Mayer:
Am I a fierce mama? I don't know.
Kerry Diamond:
In the book you talked about it.
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, definitely.
Youngmi Mayer:
Well, I don't know. I had all these thoughts. I should have wrote stuff while I wasn't pregnant and had a small child so I remember. But a big part of how I write about motherhood in the book stems from this feeling that I had, that I think a lot of people who have kids feel, that there are these topics that you're allowed to talk about, five topics, and then that's it. And then, "Don't talk about this." And it's really like that, and everybody says it to the point where now that's a cliche like, "Oh, I'm going to get real about motherhood." But there are definitely things that people just do not talk about.
So I think when I was approaching that, I really wanted to talk about those feelings, and I think part of it was that the reason why I wanted to do that was that I saw that. I think the reason why people are not very honest about motherhood is steeped in anti-feminist sort of ideology where it's almost like the last hurrah of performative female behavior that's done for the gaze of others. It's like taboo for that reason because it's so profound. It's probably the most profound human experience, and because of sort of anti-feminism, we're not even openly allowed to be like, "I think this is maybe the most profound human experience," because men will be like, "Shut up."
It's actually the feeling you get when the Knicks win, you know? You can't even be like, "I think motherhood is the point of everything," and not that it is, but it kind of is because we're all the children of mothers, and that is just so important. There's a lot of feelings like that around. It's almost like you can't be real about it because then it sort of reveals that it's the most important thing and it's so powerful. Do you know what I mean?
Kerry Diamond:
Mm-hmm.
Youngmi Mayer:
So we have to talk about it in this, "I got a doily nipple guard." Do you know what I mean? And it's like, "It's pink." It's just doing it such a disservice. And then, there's just all the stuff that's, quote unquote, for women. It's just made to be this very artificial thing. And so that's why I was kind of like, "This is like an animal thing." This is the first thing we are all created to do biologically, and it's a huge thing that's bigger than anything. It's the reason for living or something, right?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I'm not a mom. I have a lot of kids and family in my life, but I thought your writing about motherhood and your own mother were some of the most powerful things on motherhood I've read-
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh, thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
... and just provided so much insight into the human condition. I mean, it really felt like it was that profound.
Youngmi Mayer:
I mean, I also was writing at it, well, because this is the thing, I never wanted to really be a mom, right? I never thought that that was part of my life, and then I was just kind of like, "I guess I'll do it," you know? I'm coming at it also from this place of, "I didn't actually have to be a mom," which is so weird to say that after what I just said, where I was like, "It's the most important thing in the world." But I think that's tied into the duality thing of life, right?
Kerry Diamond:
Mm-hmm.
Youngmi Mayer:
It's like, the most important thing in the world is, it is the theme of the book, is actually not that important at all. It's like this idea of letting go. It's like this very Eastern Buddha kind of thing. It's like letting go is profound understanding or something. It's kind of like that. It doesn't actually matter, but it is the most important thing in the world.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, again, I recommend highly that everybody read your book. I'm going to throw just a few summary things out at you, because I don't know, there's all this crazy stuff going on right now.
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh God.
Kerry Diamond:
Are you following princess treatment?
Youngmi Mayer:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
You know what this is?
Youngmi Mayer:
No.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, good. Maybe I shouldn't even infect your brain.
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh no.
Kerry Diamond:
It's just women who want to be treated like princesses. It's so depressing.
Youngmi Mayer:
I mean, I would, except I still want rights. Is that included?
Kerry Diamond:
No, not necessarily.
Youngmi Mayer:
Right? Okay, then no.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, “The Bear.” Are you watching “The Bear?”
Youngmi Mayer:
I'm sorry. I'm too scared to watch it.
Kerry Diamond:
For good reason.
Youngmi Mayer:
I'm like, "It's so traumatizing."
Kerry Diamond:
I sobbed, I don't know, like the world was ending when I watched the first season.
Youngmi Mayer:
It just seems like it's so close.
Kerry Diamond:
I got up to episode three and I just started uncontrollably crying-
Youngmi Mayer:
See that? Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
... in the finale. I watched it twice. This is season one. I've watched all of it. But season one, the finale, I cried. I was sobbing so hard. The second time I watched it, I was watching it with my brother, and he was like, "Should we turn the TV off? What's wrong with you?"
And I was like, "No, it's okay." But that's good for your mental health that you-
Youngmi Mayer:
I might watch it.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, you are going to watch it now?
Youngmi Mayer:
I feel like it's time. Yeah, you sold me.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Well, call me if you watch it. Are you watching “And Just Like That...?”
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, I've seen some of it and I like it. I don't have any strong feelings. It's just like, for me, I feel like I'm with old friends. You know what I mean?
Kerry Diamond:
That's true. I think that's probably why I continue to watch it, but I am kind of hate-watching it, even though I love-
Youngmi Mayer:
I don't think I've seen enough to hate-watch it, but I kind of feel like I was on the cusp. I was like...
Kerry Diamond:
What are you watching? Anything?
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh yeah, I just finished the Meg Stalter show, “Too Much.”
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, “Too Much.”
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, which nobody else likes. I love, because I was like, "That's literally me."
Kerry Diamond:
I loved. I posted about it today.
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh. I mean, it's good, but I can see why. It is pretty sad.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, it's right there in the title.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
I feel like Lena warned you.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yep, yep.
Kerry Diamond:
The show is called “Too Much.” It's like the movie, “Materialists.” It's like, Celine warned us.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yep.
Kerry Diamond:
It's called “Materialists,” so if you think it's a rom-com, you might want to ask yourself why.
Youngmi Mayer:
I love Meg Stalter. I think she's so funny. She's one of the people that, watching her live, I'm just like, "This is genius." She reminds me of Chris Fleming, who I'm also a huge fan of, that kind of humor. Also, I know Lena Dunham right now, there's a lot of controversy, but you got to give it to Lena Dunham. She writes a good show. She has that brain that writes it good.
Kerry Diamond:
There are so many good lines.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
And the character of Jessica, Megan's character, really is like the character of a lifetime. I mean, hopefully, Megan, she's young, she'll go on and have an amazing career, but that's-
Youngmi Mayer:
Definitely her.
Kerry Diamond:
... an amazing character.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah. And then I just finished “Sirens,” which I thought was interesting.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh. Haven't watched that yet, but people have told me to watch it.
Youngmi Mayer:
There's a lot of symbolism. I'm always trying to, because I love stuff like that, trying to analyze what it means.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, I'll watch that next. What are your readings?
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh my God, what am I reading? I just started reading something. Oh, I want to plug this book because I actually just finished it. Laurie Woolever, do you know her?
Kerry Diamond:
I do, yeah. She's great.
Youngmi Mayer:
And I was going to say, that sounds kind of like the Slutty Cheff story because it's about her-
Kerry Diamond:
Her memoir.
Youngmi Mayer:
... her memoir. It's called “Care and Feeding,” I believe, and she talks about being Mario Batali's assistant and Anthony Bourdain's assistant and working as a food writer, blah, blah, blah. But she also talks a lot about sleeping with a lot of chefs. I don't think I'm giving anything away because it's in the description. She had an affair and she did a lot of drugs and alcohol, and she talks about how that's baked into the restaurant industry, and I-
Kerry Diamond:
And a lot about motherhood.
Youngmi Mayer:
And motherhood, and I just love that because it's hard, even in this day and age, for a woman to openly talk about having affairs, you know?
Kerry Diamond:
Mm-hmm.
Youngmi Mayer:
We get stoned for things like that. So I thought it was a very, very fascinating, interesting book.
Kerry Diamond:
It's a heavy book.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, but it's interesting, and she makes a lot of very smart connections between things that we were touching on about drugs and stuff like that.
Kerry Diamond:
We barely talked about food. I often forget, this is a food podcast, sort of. Have you eaten anything interesting lately?
Youngmi Mayer:
I'll go on a little bit of a tangent. So, gopchang is one of my favorite things. Well, it's intestines. A gopchang restaurant is a Korean barbecue restaurant that's intestines. You can choose the offal that you're going to eat. The one that I like is called daechang, which is the large intestine. I don't know what this is getting. But the restaurants look like a regular Korean barbecue restaurant, but instead of getting galbi or pork, you order offal. Or you can get something else, right?
I just have a funny side story. BTS, the world-famous Korean pop band, went to L.A. a few years ago on their tour. When you're on tour, the manager's just like, "We'll eat here next. Whatever." They were in Koreatown, and they went to this chain of gopchang restaurants. It's called Ahgassi Gopchang, right? A fan asked one of them while they were interviewing after their show, "What's your favorite restaurant in K-town?"
One of them, "They don't know. They've never been there." And so he's just like, "I don't know, Ahgassi Gopchang." And immediately, that place was just packed, and it's still packed. So then they opened one in New York City because now they're rolling in it. It's like five-hour waits. And I went there and it wasn't that good. It wasn't good. The inside's really beautiful because it's decorated for K-pop fans, like 15-year-old girls, basically. But I'm like, "You got these girls eating intestines." Can you imagine? They're in there with their little bunny ears and they're like, "Well, I love this. If Jimin loves it, I love it."
And I'm like, "No, you don't." If you're a fan of gopchang, I highly recommend Gopchang Story, which is just around the corner from Ahgassi Gopchang in New York City, on 32nd and I think it's 5th Avenue. It's very good.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, noted. I'm going to have to check it out.
Youngmi Mayer:
Delicious.
Kerry Diamond:
I ate an intestine sandwich in Italy to impress the chef I was dating.
Youngmi Mayer:
Nice.
Kerry Diamond:
Because I just was like, "You know what? I'm just going to say yes."
Youngmi Mayer:
Did you like it?
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, I actually did. It was great.
Youngmi Mayer:
The Korean way, I feel like, is really good because they put spices. There's a certain kind of chive kimchi that they serve with it. It's so good. Cuts through the fat.
Kerry Diamond:
A chive kimchi?
Youngmi Mayer:
It's not a kimchi, technically. It's a baechu, which means it's like a quick kimchi. It's not fermented. They just toss it in the seasoning, so it's like a fresh chive, quote unquote, kimchi. It's so good.
Kerry Diamond:
Yum. Okay, let's ask you the last question we ask everybody. If had to be trapped on a desert island with one food celebrity, who would it be and why?
Youngmi Mayer:
All right, one food celebrity. Oh my gosh.
Kerry Diamond:
Could be living or dead.
Youngmi Mayer:
Okay, let me think. First I went to entertainment factor, but now I'm survival factor because we have to survive.
Kerry Diamond:
I don't know. Maybe you have friends in high places who'll send the helicopter to find you.
Youngmi Mayer:
Oh yeah. I would say Gordon Ramsay. I feel like he seems like he would just survive any... Don't you think? He survived a private U.K. boarding school, probably. That's tough.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. Well, Youngmi, thank you for coming on the show. I don't even know if you remember you wrote a story for Cherry Bombe years ago.
Youngmi Mayer:
Of course I remember.
Kerry Diamond:
You do? Okay, okay.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I was going to say thank you because that was in the early days, and I appreciate that. And I don't know, maybe we can do something together again.
Youngmi Mayer:
I would love to.
Kerry Diamond:
One day.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, I was so excited when I got that. I was like, "Wow. See? I'm a stay-at-home mom and maybe writer."
Kerry Diamond:
Folks, buy the book. It's a great book. Congratulations, and I can't wait to see your one-person show.
Youngmi Mayer:
Yeah, I'm excited. Please come. I'm going to be at Joe's Pub in the fall.
Kerry Diamond:
We'll see you then. Enjoy the rest of your summer.
Youngmi Mayer:
My gosh. Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for today's show. Don't forget to pick up Youngmi's book. I would love for you to give Radio Cherry Bombe a follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and leave a rating and a review. Our theme song is by the band Tralala. Special thanks to The Studio Portland. Our producers are Catherine Baker and Jenna Sadhu. Our editorial coordinator is Sophie Kies, and our talent guru is Londyn Crenshaw. Thanks for listening, everybody. I hope you're having a great summer. And don't forget, you are the Bombe.