This week’s topic: How Going for Major Career Change can Lead to Inner and Outer Success with Joanne Molinaro
Hi loves, welcome back for our Monday interview show. I am so excited for our very special guest today, Joanne Lee Molinaro, who is the author of this wonderful book, The Korean Vegan Cookbook. And Joanne is actually originally a lawyer, which we’ll get into today. She has a very interesting journey. She is the daughter of immigrants from Asia, like myself or my mother. I’m half immigrant, Asian born. And she is the amazing energy and personality behind the Korean vegan on social media. So Joanne, thank you so much for being here with us today. We are excited to speak and to share more about your amazing philosophy and book.
Joanne Molinaro Best Selling Book
The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes from Omma’s Kitchen
Topics Covered:
00:00 Introduction: Joanne Lee Molinaro’s Journey
06:26 Finding Your True Voice and Authentic Self
35:25 Accurate Information about Soy: A Valuable Protein Source
46:14 Future Books: Whole Food, Plant-Based, and Oil-Free Recipes
About Joanne Molinaro
With over 5 million fans spread across her social media platforms, New York Times best-selling author Joanne Molinaro, a.k.a The Korean Vegan, has appeared on The Food Network, CBS Saturday Morning, ABC’s Live with Kelly and Ryan, The Today Show, PBS, and The Rich Roll Podcast. She’s been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR, and CNN; and her debut cookbook was selected as one of “The Best Cookbooks of 2021” by The New York Times and The New Yorker among others.
Molinaro is a Korean American woman, born in Chicago, Illinois. Her parents were both born in what is now known as North Korea. Molinaro started her blog, The Korean Vegan, in 2016, after adopting a plant-based diet. In July 2020, she started her TikTok (@thekoreanvegan), mostly as a coping mechanism for the isolation caused by the global pandemic. She began posting content related to politics and life as a lawyer during quarantine. However, after a single post of her making Korean braised potatoes for dinner (while her husband taught a piano lesson in the background) went viral, Molinaro shifted her attention to producing 60 second recipe videos, while telling stories about her family—immigrants from what is now known as North Korea.
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Transcript:
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
Kimberly Snyder (00:00.772)
Hi loves, welcome back for our Monday interview show. I am so excited for our very special guest today, Joanne Lee Molinaro, who is the author of this wonderful book, The Korean Vegan Cookbook. And Joanne is actually originally a lawyer, which we’ll get into today. She has a very interesting journey. She is the daughter of immigrants from Asia, like myself or my mother. I’m half immigrant, Asian born. And she is the amazing energy and personality behind the Korean vegan on social media. So Joanne, thank you so much for being here with us today. We are excited to speak and to share more about your amazing philosophy and book.
Joanne (00:43.035)
Oh, thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here.
Kimberly Snyder (00:46.5)
So I love your story and I love how you were a lawyer and you just had this passion inside of you to expand. I have a similar, you know, I feel like I started in food and nutrition actually, and now I’m really more into this holistic lifestyle, which includes food, but also spirituality. So I love how we can see we don’t have to be pinned into a box, but rather we can just keep evolving as humans and this creative energy inside of us can go in different directions.
Can you share a little bit about your unfolding journey from being a lawyer into food and then of course plant-based?
Joanne (01:22.93)
Well, I love how you set that up because I think there is something inherently scary about evolving, if you will. I think there is an instinct of ours that’s like, no, I’m comfortable. I kind of like where I’m at. I want to keep the status quo. I’m good here. And the idea of growing and evolving and changing can be really scary and intimidating to a lot of people. And it certainly was to me. As you noted, I was a lawyer. So-
I was conditioned to be about as risk averse as you could possibly imagine. And I think it wasn’t until I started to view evolution as a form of liberation, if you will, as a form of, oh, I’m freeing myself from this status quo that isn’t really doing me a lot of good at the moment. That’s when…
Kimberly Snyder (01:54.702)
Yes.
Joanne (02:16.03)
evolution started to look exciting and enticing and invigorating and all of the things that you really should be seeking as part of a life-affirming view. And eventually I decided, hey, this food thing with the Korean vegan, it’s an artistic opportunity for me. It’s a way for me to channel my creative side and do something that is personally fulfilling while also making a living out of it.
And I decided to just basically dive head first once my book came out.
Kimberly Snyder (02:51.012)
Wow. Well, as I mentioned, my mother is Asian. She’s from the Philippines. And her immigrant mentality was, you know, we want to do better than the last generation because she grew up, you know, quite poor in the Philippines and she came over in a scholarship. So academia was really pushed in my family. And I went into college with a partial science scholarship and one point I was going to be a doctor. So when I decided to go backpacking for three years, Joanne, you can imagine.
Joanne (03:18.688)
Um.
Kimberly Snyder (03:19.92)
how my parents, it didn’t start three years, but it just kept evolving. And so for me, there was this period of, a bit of a rift where I felt like I was trying to be pushed into something I wasn’t, there was such an emphasis, you’re wasting your education, especially for you as a lawyer all the years beyond college of going to additional schooling. So there’s quite a leap from that into.
Yes, I’m just following my creative calling. How was your family supporting you through that? Or how did you really find the courage and the voice to cross over?
Joanne (03:58.046)
Well, I think what you described is actually very brave. I would not have had the courage to do that. Like three years backpacking against my parents’ approval. Like, you know, I waited until I was in my 40s and a little bit more gravitas and, you know, a little bit more hair on me to like, you know, tell my parents, no, you’re gonna listen to me. I would not have been able to do that in my 20s or even in my 30s. So kudos to you for doing that.
Kimberly Snyder (04:09.015)
Yes.
Yeah.
Joanne (04:27.594)
Because my parents were exactly the same way. They were both extremely poor when they were in Korea. They had to go through a war. They had nothing. So when they came to the United States and built this life for us, it was exactly what you described. Everything was positioned around school and academia. I wasn’t allowed to pursue music, even though that’s what I wanted to do, because that wasn’t going to be a financially secure career for me.
They had everything planned for me, but I wasn’t a very obedient child, I think. I was very much like, no, I wanna be an English major. Well, what are you gonna do with that? I don’t know. But, so I was always finding ways to compromise with my parents. Okay, fine, I won’t be vocal performance, which is what I really wanted, but I’m also not gonna go into medical school.
I’m not gonna be a lawyer. I said that until I was blue in the face. And eventually I found my way kind of internalizing their anxiety, notwithstanding, and then choosing law as a result of that internalized anxiety. Even though I grew up in relative abundance, something of their anxiety sort of seeped into me, notwithstanding, and I grew up very much aware of
Kimberly Snyder (05:21.628)
Ah!
Kimberly Snyder (05:29.296)
Mmm.
Joanne (05:45.026)
financial security being one of the bedrock values of my life, you know, for good and for bad. So when I ultimately decided, hey, I’m going to withdraw from partnership, a career that I have spent nearly two decades building, and, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in law school education and loans, I’m going to, you know, pull out of that. I’m going to…
go full force into something called the Korean Vegan, which I still can’t even really explain to my parents in a way that they can understand. It was a very unpleasant conversation. My mom was extremely unhappy, yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (06:22.017)
Yeah, I bet.
Kimberly Snyder (06:26.668)
You know, it’s funny because what I know of you and looking at your social media and reading your book, there’s so much heart in what you write and there’s this connection and I can almost, I’m getting goosebumps. I can almost imagine that being in that legal sort of job for two decades might have felt like you were in prison or something because it’s funny, my husband was a lawyer too.
And he is very creative. He’s completely tattooed. He’s, I mean, not that that’s anything, but just like out, he wears a gold grill in his teeth and no one would believe he was a lawyer and his dad was a lawyer. So he kind of went down that path and was miserable. He was only a lawyer for like three years, right? But sometimes we get, oh, this is the safer path. So what were those years like because you have this voice, right? Whether it was music or expression and now you’re channeling it into your recipes.
What did that feel like while you were in there?
Joanne (07:20.818)
You know, I hesitate that it was like prison because I do still love my firm. I, you know, I’m extremely grateful to them. And, you know, I have absolutely indescribable mentors at that place. And, you know, I’m very lucky and grateful. But at the same time, towards the end especially, I can tell you that the idea that I would be spending the rest of my life
doing that, showing up to the office and lawyering. Even on the best days, I was like, yeah, I was like, is this really it for me? Is this my life? And that, at a certain point, the despair associated with that kind of no bend in the road type of future began to outweigh the fear.
Kimberly Snyder (07:57.52)
It’s a herb. Yeah.
Joanne (08:18.274)
that I always associated with doing something different with that bend in the road. At a certain point, I became so desperate to see what was down that bend that I was willing to say, even if it’s a little scary, I’m gonna do it, I’m gonna turn. I’m gonna make a really, really sharp right turn here because I need to see what’s down that bend.
Kimberly Snyder (08:39.748)
So you say a sharp turn, Joanne, did you just go from one to the other? There wasn’t a transition where you started your channels and you started sort of, you know, warming it up. Or did you just, did you just cut ties and move?
Joanne (08:49.27)
That’s a great question. I don’t know about you and the three-year road trip, if that was a sharp turn, but that was not a sharp turn for me. I’m glad that you put it that way. I always view the day when I left the firm, I still technically work with the firm on an of-counsel basis, but when I withdrew from partnership, I do think that was a very sharp turn that was like, okay, I’m doing it. But you’re right. I knew of the turn.
many, many years in advance. Like I had sort of advanced warning, like there was a signpost, you know, coming, you know, every mile I’d see, okay, well, there’s a turn on the road if you want to take it, if you want to take it, do you want to take it? And so I think there was a part of me that, you know, first was just so like blinders on, I didn’t even see anything. And it wasn’t until I started the Korean Vegan in 2016.
Kimberly Snyder (09:18.126)
Yeah.
Joanne (09:38.518)
just as a hobby and actually at the recommendation of a mentor of mine who thought I was working too hard, I was like, oh, you need a hobby. I was like, okay, I’ll do this thing, you know? And it was a hobby for so many years. And then in a couple years, I was offered a book deal. And I think that was when I first saw a sign, if you will, on the road that said, hey, there might be a turn in the road coming up for you if you wanna take it.
And slowly I paid more and more attention to those signs. And slowly I was able to make preparations to turn down that bend if I really wanted to, like put money away at my savings account, start thinking of ways to monetize my blog, start paying very close attention to my expenses and ways to manage them if I became a solo entrepreneur.
These are all things that I started doing about a year in advance. And I think that is incredibly important.
Kimberly Snyder (10:41.228)
Mm. So were you always interested in cooking and food? I mean, you have a lot of stories around your family’s, you know, culinary traditions that you share, but was it something, you know, growing up you were excited about or did it come sort of later in life?
Joanne (10:58.794)
I was never really into cooking per se. I was always into eating. I love food. I love like airy food. And I think, you know, you probably have some experience with this for many immigrant families. Food is one of the few ways that families keep in touch with their homelands, with their native countries. And that was certainly the case for my family. We grew up eating Korean food. And…
Also, for countries and traditions and cultures that have experienced extreme poverty, which again was the case for my family, coming to eat together, the fellowship around food was incredibly important. I was not allowed to miss the dinner table. We had to come together. It didn’t matter if I was doing homework, if I was watching TV. There was no excuse I had to do it.
Kimberly Snyder (11:45.997)
Mmm.
Joanne (11:53.63)
I couldn’t have a book in my hands or these days, I guess, phones at the table. Like, no, this is a very serious time. We needed to be together as a family. So I think in that way, food always had a central role, but it wasn’t until I went plant based when I really had to zero in on the cooking part of it.
Kimberly Snyder (11:57.02)
Well… Yes.
Love that.
Kimberly Snyder (12:12.912)
So both of your parents were from Korea, right? So you had that shared sort of family. For me, Joanne, only my mother was from the Philippines. And so I grew up in a very, very white community. I was the only exotic one being half Asian. So when I started becoming aware of, oh, the foods I’m bringing to lunch are kind of weird for people. I was bringing Filipino food and my mom had been poor. So she kind of was ashamed of her accent.
Joanne (12:15.928)
Yes.
Joanne (12:21.783)
Hmm.
Kimberly Snyder (12:41.536)
and she was trying to assimilate us. So there was this weird push pull of, yes, my mother’s from the Philippines, but almost trying to hide it a little bit or just feel like I just wanted to fit in like a lot of kids do. I don’t wanna look different. I don’t wanna seem different. So for you growing up, did you experience any sort of shame around your roots or in the particular neighborhood you grew up in? Because I know a lot of immigrants do wanna keep the culture, but at the same time,
coming to America is a big deal as an immigrant. And so you want your kids to be successful. So it’s a really interesting push-pull.
Joanne (13:18.29)
It is an interesting push pull and I love the way that you described it, especially kind of with that food. Um, cause I think many immigrant children have experienced that moment when they all of a sudden realize, wait a second, there’s something different here. And for whatever reason, as young people, we are conditioned to believe that different is not good.
Kimberly Snyder (13:33.685)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (13:40.93)
Yes.
Joanne (13:41.046)
Different is dangerous even and I think that again is an internalized anxiety. We inherit from our parents My mom was the same way, you know My mom made it very clear that I had to learn English without an any accent I you know had to Write in English exactly the way that my teachers taught me You know, and we were told to speak English at home
because she wanted me to show up to school being like all the other American kids. And eventually all those lunches that were a source of shame for me were replaced with ham sandwiches and Cheetos and juice boxes. You know, so like they were very attendant to this anxiety that we all felt as a family. But at the same time, like you said, it was a push and pull because at home, my grandma only spoke Korean.
Kimberly Snyder (14:18.773)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (14:22.726)
Oh no!
Joanne (14:35.99)
So I had to speak Korean. We only ate Korean food at home. And there were a lot of ways that my parents tried to make sure, well, yes, we want you to be successful as an American, but you can’t ever forget that you’re also Korean.
Kimberly Snyder (14:36.065)
Right.
Kimberly Snyder (14:40.188)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (14:51.064)
Yeah. You know, Joanne, as you’re speaking, before we get deeper into your book and the Korean vegan philosophy, which is fascinating because I actually was in Seoul for three weeks and I had a very challenging time being plant-based in Korea. We’ll talk about that in a sec. But one thing is you’re speaking, you know, you’re talking about, you know, your expression and singing. There’s a real softness, like this feminine, this gentleness.
Joanne (15:06.186)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (15:16.108)
And I wonder along your journey when you were, you know, sort of focusing on academia and being a lawyer, was there ever a time where you felt a bit hardened, like you were moving away from your true self and now you’re in this fullest expression of cooking and creating and it sort of cracked open that armor? Or were you able to keep that real gentle, seems like a really authentic part of who you are along the way.
Joanne (15:24.406)
Mm.
Joanne (15:41.334)
That is such a great question. And I’ve never actually thought of that. I think that there’s like this latent part of me that understands that what I get to do today, telling stories in my way, in my voice, is the thing that I can do. Like that I can do really well. And that is like my superpower. But before, the thing that I was doing was sort of like, meh.
Kimberly Snyder (15:46.236)
I can hear it in your voice.
Kimberly Snyder (16:01.29)
Mm-hmm.
Joanne (16:09.37)
You know what I mean? Like I was putting on this persona for myself and for everyone else, mostly my clients and my colleagues. And I was okay at it, but it wasn’t the thing that really lit me up. And to your question, I distinctly recall having a phone call with one of my older colleagues. He was a man and he said, Joanne, you’re too nice.
Kimberly Snyder (16:10.457)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Kimberly Snyder (16:34.908)
Wow.
Joanne (16:36.767)
you have to get in touch with your inner bear. And he started growling at me on the phone, like, grrr, come on, make that noise with me, Joanne, grrr. And I was like, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation. This is so bizarre. Did you just growl at me? But that’s, I will never forget that because I remember that, wow, this is who I need to become. I need to become this person that I don’t like, that I actually don’t wanna hang out with. And that was always a problem for me at work.
Kimberly Snyder (16:44.035)
No.
Kimberly Snyder (17:02.114)
Yeah.
Joanne (17:04.83)
I never found really many women, if any, who I could look up to and say, not only is she a effing badass lawyer, she’s actually somebody I want to hang out with at the end of the day. That was very difficult.
Kimberly Snyder (17:16.494)
Yeah.
Wow. I mean, that’s the guy trying to growl. That’s hilarious. Sometimes I think about all these amazing, you know, the archetypes, especially in the yoga tradition, which I love so much, where there’s that Kali, there’s that fierceness where she’s also said to be the most compassionate. There’s also the, you know, the gentle, the Saraswati is the creative. And so there’s, we have to be who we are, even though we have all these different aspects. And I think when we have to wear these masks and we get put into these.
Joanne (17:22.73)
I don’t know.
Kimberly Snyder (17:46.16)
positions or environments or jobs because it is the safe way or because we think that’s going to create some sort of security, it never feels natural. And as my dear friend Deepak Chopra and co-author said to me, he said, you’re not going to stay in a situation for long that feels really unnatural. Right? So we can make it work, whether that’s a relationship, right? Or this is a safe relationship or a safe job. Something inside of us just feels like, oh, it’s like a sock that doesn’t fit right or shoe, right? It just…
Joanne (18:15.094)
Yeah, yeah, it does grind away. And the sad thing about it is, you know, I get the point about you’re not going to stay in it for long, but sometimes we stay in it for a lot longer than we need to, you know? And it’s just for whatever reason, we’re like, well, what if the next sock is even worse? That’s the thing that like keeps us from like taking off the sock that’s like grinding away at your feet. Like just take it off, walk barefoot for a while if you need to.
Kimberly Snyder (18:15.973)
Rhymes away.
Kimberly Snyder (18:28.289)
That’s true.
Kimberly Snyder (18:36.346)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (18:43.108)
That’s right. I mean, I didn’t have the courage, I would say, or the strength to really walk away from my last relationship, Joanne, until my mom passed away really suddenly. Because it was sort of this disruptor, like, wow, anything can happen at any time. Like life is here right now. So then I was like, whoa, this isn’t it. But if that didn’t happen, and I think about this sometimes, my gosh, what if it just kept drifting and drifting along? And how many of us kind of accept?
So so.
Joanne (19:14.318)
Yes, I used to say this a lot, like, especially to women, because I think women tend to sort of adopt this mentality that our inheritance is suffering, needless suffering. But I always say, I was living at 70%, 80%, and I used to think that was all I deserved, that all I deserved was 70, maybe 80% on a good day.
Kimberly Snyder (19:25.881)
Mm.
Joanne (19:40.81)
And I never let myself believe that I deserved 100% and what that even looked like. And everyone has their different wake up moment. And I eventually woke up and I was like, wait a second. I will, who said that I only deserve 70 or 80%? Am I saying that to myself? Cause that’s just not true. I deserve all of it and I’m gonna go after it even if it’s hard.
Kimberly Snyder (20:06.316)
What prompted that was it sounds like a kind of a spiritual epiphany. Was it one day or was it sort of this buildup, as you mentioned earlier, sort of something in your heart coming up?
Joanne (20:16.074)
Yeah, I talk about this in my own podcast and it’s kind of embarrassing. I read this book called Twilight. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. Yeah, it’s the vampire.
Kimberly Snyder (20:26.26)
The tween book? Oh, I never read those books. I’ve heard of the movies. I have not seen the movies or read the books.
Joanne (20:33.79)
So I read this book and I was like, oh my God, like this is like, you know, it’s not that I wanted a vampire boyfriend, but it was like, why not? Kind of like that mentality, like what she had in that like love story was like, sort of this unbridled passion, finding somebody who really lit you up from inside. And I think that.
That was when I had a taste of like, oh, there’s this whole world out there that I just like totally not participating in because I’m telling myself that it’s dangerous. It’s too dangerous to want anything beyond what you already have. And that was when I started questioning things, but it was a bit of a slow buildup. My last relationship sounds like yours wasn’t healthy for you. Mine was the opposite of healthy for me. And eventually…
Kimberly Snyder (21:05.077)
Bye bye.
Kimberly Snyder (21:17.209)
Yeah.
Joanne (21:28.898)
You have to do that hard thing and you have to take that risk and say, I’d rather be on my own than be in this.
Kimberly Snyder (21:34.288)
Mm-hmm. Mm. So then you started feeling this, you know, want to express the creative energy inside. Just wanted to come out. And you mentioned earlier, you were interested in music. So how come food, Korean food, instead of pursuing music, when you were looking for your, you know, your big shift.
Joanne (21:50.751)
I’m sorry.
Joanne (21:56.474)
I think part of it is physically, it’s not like a piano or a violin where you can get it tuned up or even buy a new one. Your vocal cords are your vocal cords. Once they go unused for a couple decades, there’s not much you can do at that point to maybe change how it was used and practiced or lack of practice. And also, I was very realistic.
Kimberly Snyder (22:08.312)
Yeah.
Joanne (22:25.45)
you know, you have to be the best of the best to succeed in that. And also I wasn’t willing to make the sacrifices to pursue a career in music, but I purchased my first camera in 2010, I think, long before I went vegan and I learned how to use a DSLR and always found that to be kind of fun. And when I started my food blog, I was able to just shift my lens from people to food. And it was a…
Kimberly Snyder (22:31.163)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (22:42.044)
Hmm
Kimberly Snyder (22:53.212)
Did you take these pictures, Joya? All of these pictures. My goodness, they are gorgeous. I did not realize that. I thought the recipes were yours and then you worked with a food photographer. I mean, there’s a real, there’s a very distinct, this almost feels like food fashion. It’s dark, a little moody. It’s not, you know, the very bright that, you know, that you see, but it’s incredible.
Joanne (22:55.425)
Yeah. They’re all mine. Yeah.
Joanne (23:00.79)
Thank you.
Joanne (23:05.102)
No, I worked with myself.
Joanne (23:13.312)
Yeah.
Joanne (23:19.138)
Exactly. Thank you. Yeah. So if you look at my portraits of people before I started taking food photographs, I think you’ll probably notice, oh, okay, there’s a thematic consistency here because I was already experimenting with sort of moody and kind of artsy portraits of human beings and self-portraits.
And then it was like, oh, well now I’m gonna do a food blog. So I guess I’ll just take everything I learned and apply it to food and just evolve as an artist that way.
Kimberly Snyder (23:53.232)
So as I mentioned, it’s gorgeous. As I mentioned, I was in Korea for a while. I was working on a film. My life before I had children, I would work on films and help the actors. I’m not an actress, but I would help them with their wellness, with meditation, with their food, with their diets. And I just said, wow, this place is really tough for vegans. And there was this one restaurant in, I forget, I think it was in Insadong or one part of the city.
Joanne (23:58.92)
Mm.
Joanne (24:21.114)
Mm, mm. Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (24:23.048)
Um, restaurant, and it was at this time, it was one of like three vegan restaurants. And I used to spend so much time getting down there and I would love this restaurant, but it was tough. And so your, you know, your trailblazer here, Joanne, as far as, um, you know, shifting these very traditional recipes and flavors and taking out the fish sauce and all the different elements. So first of all, um, why, why plant-based? Why this shift? And how long have you been plant-based?
Joanne (24:51.67)
So I went plant-based in 2016, but before I answer that question, can I ask when this was, you were in Korea?
Kimberly Snyder (24:58.192)
So this would have been around 2014, I believe. Yeah, you may be, I hope now it’s much different. Yeah, this was around, yeah, I would say like 2015, 14. Ha ha.
Joanne (25:03.858)
Oh yeah, that would have been ridiculously hard. I’m surprised you even found three vegan restaurants. Much different.
Joanne (25:15.422)
Yeah, that is really hard. And I mean, that’s consistent with why I started the Korean vegan. When I adopted a plant-based diet in 2016, mostly for health reasons, I couldn’t find anything. Like there was nothing. There were no blogs. There were no recipes, like nothing. There’s certainly no restaurants even in the United States and Chicago where I lived. And my own family was like, it’s not possible to be vegan in Korea. I mean, so it was very…
Kimberly Snyder (25:27.321)
Mmm… Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (25:41.572)
Yeah.
Joanne (25:44.886)
difficult at first. I went plant-based, my then boyfriend, now husband, he decided to go plant-based for health reasons. His father had succumbed to a number of autoimmune issues, which we suspected had to do with his consumption of dairy and meat. And so my husband’s like cutting this all out of my life now. And he did that pretty much like overnight.
Kimberly Snyder (25:50.873)
Mm.
Joanne (26:09.75)
and he cut out meat overnight. And eventually I joined him when my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. And I had just watched a video that threw up a graph about East Asian men and prostate cancer and their consumption of red meat. And I was like, this is very strange that my father would get diagnosed with this cancer a couple of weeks after I, looking at this study.
Um, so I cut out meat with my boyfriend and we cut out dairy about two to three weeks after that dairy and eggs. And we were vegan ever since. And like you, I, I had a lot of trouble with Korean food at first, but then it just became like, well, then I guess you just need to learn how to cook, you know? So get on the YouTube.
Call your mom and your aunts and figure it out and you’ll be okay. And maybe you’ll even have some fun along the way. And that’s how the Korean vegan was started.
Kimberly Snyder (27:06.108)
That’s incredible. There’s so many pioneers in Thai vegan, right? Cause he said, oh, there’s so many vegetables and there’s so many different ingredients. And I know you say that at the beginning of this book too, there’s a lot of veggies in Korean food traditionally. And then you’re inspired by the traditional dishes and just saying, hey, well, maybe this ingredient instead of this and taking this and out and still be incredibly delicious without some of these ingredients that we don’t even need to use.
Joanne (27:34.602)
Yeah, I always think that Korean food is more about flavor than it is about, and texture combinations than it is about protein. And we also have a long and very loving history with tofu. Unlike so many other Western cultures where tofu is sort of sneered at as something weird or gross. I mean, tofu is like a really big part of Korean cuisine. So it was very easy.
Kimberly Snyder (27:37.357)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (27:48.604)
Amazing.
Kimberly Snyder (27:59.974)
Mm-hmm.
Joanne (28:02.282)
at the end of the day, once I figured out, okay, either I can just omit the fish sauce or come up with my own fish sauce for like kimchi and other things, or I can just like use tofu for all my protein sources, which I love anyway. And now it’s fairly straightforward. And I do think, you know, my food is very good. I really like why I just cooked a dinner party last night. And I was like, God dang it, my food’s good.
Hehe
Kimberly Snyder (28:32.152)
Like, did you have a dinner party for fun? Just for your friends? Oh, happy birthday, Olathe.
Joanne (28:35.934)
So it was my birthday and thank you. That’s one of the sucky things about being the only person who does what I do is on my birthday, I wanna eat Korean vegan food, but there is no place where I live in Southern California where I can get a good selection of Korean vegan food. It just doesn’t exist. And unfortunately, my mom is in Chicago, so there’s nobody who can cook Korean vegan food for me.
And I, so every year I, you know, pull out all the stops. I spend two days cooking all of my favorite Korean vegan dishes. And then I invite friends over to enjoy them with me.
Kimberly Snyder (29:16.632)
Oh my gosh. Well, you have to start a Korean vegan restaurant. I feel like that’s the next iteration to introduce. Yeah, in K-Town, right in the middle of K-Town.
Joanne (29:20.978)
I wish. It’s a part of my evolution. I think that would be very interesting, a little scary, but maybe that’s the sign that it’s scary, that that’s what I need to do. I know, it would be so good.
Kimberly Snyder (29:36.728)
I’m getting goosebumps. That would be incredible. I mean, because there is, you know, the Thai vegan world, but there isn’t that, you know, Korean vegan. And thank you for bringing up tofu, because I feel like there’s so much misinformation about it. And my good friend, Dan Buettner, who’s been on here several times from the Blue Zones, talks about tofu in Okinawa, where people are so healthy and the longevity rates.
Joanne (29:46.803)
No.
Kimberly Snyder (30:00.812)
And if people don’t have a soy allergy and they’re not eating like 20 pounds a day and they’re having non-GMO tofu, it is a wonderful source. And it’s not overly estrogenic unless you’re having, again, huge amounts, all the trypsinogen blockers. Some of the things we hear is, I think, blown way out of proportion because, you know, some of it comes from the meat industry. A lot of it comes from the Weston Price Institute in certain places, placing that out there. But traditional…
Joanne (30:21.459)
Exactly.
Kimberly Snyder (30:28.748)
Organic tofu is wonderful.
Joanne (30:31.674)
I completely agree. I think there’s so much misinformation that’s now been sort of usurped by the bros and the Jim bros who are like, let’s eat bacon breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I think there’s so much of that. I also think that the dairy industry, I think for obvious reasons, soy milk is a threat to them. And so anything they can do to demonize soy, I
is good for them and of course incredibly in my book racist against all the many Asian cultures that have always loved soy products and certainly tofu is no exception to that. I also think it’s important for people like you said to know like these are conversations you should have with your own doctors. If you are allergic to soy or if you do have other health conditions that may guard against eating 20 pounds of tofu, then those are conversations you should be having with your doctor, not with…
Kimberly Snyder (31:07.001)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (31:21.315)
Yes.
Joanne (31:30.946)
the man bro on freaking Instagram, you know what I mean? Like that’s not who you should be taking your health information from. Exactly.
Kimberly Snyder (31:35.045)
Right.
Kimberly Snyder (31:39.24)
exactly like the carnivore diet people that are feeding the fear of kale, right? Or the broccoli is out to get you.
Joanne (31:45.11)
Oh my God. Stop eating your raspberries. They’re bad for you. Oh my God.
Kimberly Snyder (31:50.668)
I know. I used to have a juice shop in the Four Seasons and people would say, no banana, because they’re scared of the sugar, but they would want triple the protein powder. Right? Because that’s sort of the snippets that they get picked up on social media, which can be really harmful as we know, because all sorts of things are being placed out there. And the other argument too, because as plant-based people, we know that it’s a lighter tread on the environment.
and deforestation that happens from cattle and clearing the land. And then sometimes, you know, carnivores will say to me, well, all of these, you know, the monocrops is really harming the environment, but the truth is all those GMO corn and soy fields are largely being used for, to feed animals that are being eaten. I know.
Joanne (32:37.458)
Exactly. That’s the part they never say, right?
Kimberly Snyder (32:42.648)
You know, people are not eating these huge crops. The amount of soy that’s consumed by humans versus the amount that’s fed to factory farmed animals is like, percentage. Yeah. So we want to look at the big picture.
Joanne (32:51.138)
Fractional. Yeah.
Yeah, I think that’s, you know, when you mentioned sort of the philosophy behind veganism, particularly Korean veganism, you know, I talk about in the book how I met with Jung Kwan-seon, she’s a Buddhist monk in Korea. And, you know, her philosophy towards spirituality, towards what it means to be a human being, what it means to be somebody who’s sentient on this planet right now. It’s steeped in…
you know, hundreds if not thousands of years of tradition and thinking, and it’s quite beautiful, which is very simple, do the least amount of harm while you’re on this planet. That’s all, you know? And it’s like a very simple credo. And the beauty of it is that it’s not like she’s defined that for everybody. She’s saying, look into your own heart, look into your own life. What are the things that you could do to lessen the harm?
Kimberly Snyder (33:33.965)
Yes. Mmm.
Joanne (33:55.01)
to the people around you, to the animals around you, and of course to the planet around you. This can be a very simple but powerful exercise that we undertake on a daily basis.
Kimberly Snyder (34:06.592)
I love that. And also the through line, as our uvata says, as is the micro, as is the macro. So when we’re talking about not doing harm when we’re eating plant-based or at least plant forward, we’re doing the least amount of buildup and congestion and harm to our body and our blood. And then it’s also the same pathway to creating more harmony and kindness, and less harm in the outer environment. So there isn’t this, it’s the same path there is in a…
Joanne (34:12.151)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (34:36.219)
conflict there.
Joanne (34:37.558)
That’s exactly right. Because she said exactly what you said. She said, the more harm you cause to the things around you, the more harm you cause to yourself. She said, there is always a cost to you, a psychic cost to you when you are harming even just a little bit. It’s like this, you know, it’s whether you call it physics, like the energy.
Kimberly Snyder (34:47.138)
Yes.
Joanne (34:58.962)
right, the energy cost of doing the things that we do, or you call it spiritual, a psychic cost that we, you know, incur every time we hurt somebody, or even a nutritional one, like you said, you know, what we put into our bodies as a result of stress, as a result of the food that we eat, any of those things. And I think it’s a really beautiful way, a holistic way of viewing the world and our roles in it.
Kimberly Snyder (35:03.233)
Yes, ma’am.
Kimberly Snyder (35:09.357)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (35:25.028)
Mm. And as I mentioned, Joanne, I started off, you know, really focused on food and nutrition and then it expanded into what I call the cornerstones, the four cornerstones because there’s body, there’s emotional well-being, there’s spiritual growth. So when you eat in a certain way, it can affect you spiritually. It can be really hard to sit and feel calm and feel spiritual, right? And when you sit and you start to meditate more, you care more about the whole. You care more about oneness. So it can influence your food choices. So everything affects everything else. There’s nothing outside.
Joanne (35:47.638)
Hmm.
Kimberly Snyder (35:54.896)
And I think as we continue this journey, we’re all connected. So our choices, how we eat, how we cook, how we live, how we speak, affects everything else. We are part of the one. We can’t get away from that.
Joanne (36:07.454)
Yeah, I think when you mentioned how you found the courage or the boldness or whatever it is that let you kind of walk away from that relationship after your mother passed away. I think that those sorts of disruptions and kind of our impulse to view the world in this linear way, like moving from one step to the next, moving down the line.
when somebody passes away or when you’re forced to stop and grieve over that loss, I think that the only answer is to believe that everything is connected. Otherwise, it’s too sad, it’s just too sad, you know? And there’s nothing harmed from believing that. There’s no hurt in believing that the world is connected in this way and that one energy moves to the next.
Kimberly Snyder (37:05.103)
Yeah.
Joanne (37:05.378)
And so why not try and make sure that energy is positive instead of negative?
Kimberly Snyder (37:10.98)
That’s right. And then, you know, the big thing for me too, Joanne was breaking this falsity that we can control things. Cause when you lose someone or something changes that’s completely out of your control, it’s like this huge wave hits you. And then it’s like no more playing safe because they’re trying to control and plan ahead like your whole life. It’s okay to make some plans, but we have to be flexible and go with the flow of life because we aren’t in control. There’s something much bigger.
Joanne (37:17.634)
Hmm.
Joanne (37:34.57)
Yeah.
Joanne (37:39.339)
Absolutely.
Kimberly Snyder (37:40.644)
Did you grow up Buddhist, Joanne?
Joanne (37:42.93)
No, my parents are like super Christian, very, very Christian, but like many, I think every Korean Christian still has like kind of Buddhist philosophy and traditions built into their identity. Like because Buddhism was such a big part of Korea’s history, a lot of the things that we do without realizing it are part of Buddhist traditions, even if, you know, my parents are devoutly Christian.
Kimberly Snyder (37:45.116)
Oh, okay.
Kimberly Snyder (38:09.184)
Yes. Hmm. Well, switching back to the book for a moment, which is gorgeous again. I feel like I love the gold and I love the black. This inspiration was just flowing. I’m just opening up to these. Look, the tofu stew. It looks absolutely delicious. Oh, at the dinner party? I’m going to make this. I cannot wait. And I love that it’s easy. So a lot of these are accessible and the ingredients you can find.
Joanne (38:17.922)
Thank you.
Joanne (38:24.758)
We had that yesterday, it was so good. Yes, so it was like everybody loved it.
Kimberly Snyder (38:37.652)
And, you know, locally, you don’t have to go to a specialty shop.
Joanne (38:41.662)
A lot of them you don’t. I do think that there are like three or four kind of standard ingredients throughout the book that I use a lot, which are like gochugaru, gochujang, and soy sauce, and doenjang. So those like, soy sauce you can find anywhere, right? Gochujang you can find pretty much anywhere these days. Gochugaru and doenjang you would need to either get online like on Amazon or wherever you get kind of more international ingredients.
Kimberly Snyder (39:04.22)
Okay.
Joanne (39:11.098)
or you would go to an Asian grocery store. But otherwise, you know, I don’t use like synthetic meats or, you know, like synthetic cheeses. These are usually just whole foods that you can pick up at the produce section.
Kimberly Snyder (39:26.076)
So after creating so many recipes, are you still as excited and inspired to keep creating more? Are you branching out into different types of food or are you just still focusing on Korean recipes? Well, you are the Korean vegan.
Joanne (39:43.378)
I mean, here’s the thing, Korean food is always evolving too. And it’s exciting to evolve with it. I follow a lot of Korean YouTubers and content creators, South Korean content creators. And they’re speaking in Korean and they’re doing things with their foods that I’m like, I never thought of doing it that oh, that’s so cool. You know, like, I got to try that. So like right now, the big thing in South Korea is…
Kimberly Snyder (39:47.589)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (40:05.53)
Love you.
Joanne (40:11.714)
K-ram-mari, which is in the cookbook, is a Korean style omelet, but the twist is that it’s stuffed with Korean fried rice, which I was like, oh my God, this is so cool. So I had to try it. And so I tried it yesterday and I was like, oh my God, this is so much harder than I thought it would be. So I got to practice. So that’s always exciting to evolve with the Korean cuisine and continue to figure out ways to veganize it. But I also just like, you know,
cooking pasta or making a casserole or I love baking. I just perfected my sponge cake. These are things that I always love to do. And I, amazingly after all these years, I still get just as excited about.
Kimberly Snyder (40:55.888)
I love that. It just keeps coming. All the inspiration. You’re tapped in. So if someone has never tried Korean food before and certainly not vegan Korean, and they’re picking up your book, what are some staples, maybe a little bit on the easier side that people, that you would recommend?
Joanne (40:59.04)
Yes.
Joanne (41:12.726)
I would say the ones that come to mind are the one that you just pointed to, which is the sundubu jjigae, or the silken tofu stew. That is one of the most popular stews in Korea. It was the stew that I grew up eating. It’s probably one of my favorite Korean dishes of all time. It’s extremely easy to make. The recipe comes from my mother. It’s the first thing she ever taught me to make. So it was the first Korean dish that I ever veganized. And it’s absolutely delicious.
Kimberly Snyder (41:30.203)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (41:39.205)
Mmm.
Joanne (41:42.114)
Um, the other one is probably chapchae, which is a very popular Korean dish. It is a gluten-free glass noodles. So they’re sweet potato vermicelli and it’s with all of your, you know, antioxidant rich colorful veggies like red bell pepper, green bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, orange bell pepper, spinach.
Kimberly Snyder (41:53.278)
Hmm.
Kimberly Snyder (42:02.405)
Hmm.
Joanne (42:05.606)
onions and garlic and just dressed in a very light soy sauce and sesame oil and you know some toasted sesame seeds it’s quite delicious and it’s always very popular
Kimberly Snyder (42:17.708)
Amazing. How much time do you spend a day cooking for yourself, Joanne? Not making recipes. Let’s say it’s Saturday and you don’t have to make anything for your blog. Sometimes are you like, I’m just going to take a spoon of this almond butter. Or me, I love to whip up smoothies, right? I’m like, got so many things going on. Do you ever take the easy way or do you even in your quiet days, you’re in there creating?
Joanne (42:22.386)
Hehe hehehe
Joanne (42:31.608)
Yeah.
Joanne (42:36.032)
Uh huh.
Joanne (42:46.102)
I think that, you know what, there are days, it’s hard because as a content creator, you’re always like, no, this could be content. So it’s very rare where I’m allowed to just say, you know what, I’m gonna cook for myself. And when I do, I can lose four or five hours just cooking all my favorite things. But I think for the most part, my husband and I, especially in the past month and a half, were very dialed into our health.
Kimberly Snyder (42:55.192)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (43:04.02)
Yeah.
Joanne (43:16.062)
You know, we’ve been very keyed into longevity. We were very inspired by Dan Buettner’s work. We’ve been a fan of his for many, many years. And we’ve been relying heavily, I will say, on like not pre-packaged, but like, you know, very easily heatable lentils and pulses and particularly Indian food, because we love Indian food. And then,
Kimberly Snyder (43:20.324)
Mmm.
Kimberly Snyder (43:42.821)
Mmm… Me too.
Joanne (43:45.43)
You know, we’re Korean or I’m Korean, so I always have a pot of brown rice, you know, at all times, 24 hours a day. And then, yeah, so, and my mom, she’s taught me how to make a lot of very simple banchan, which is side dishes in Korean. And so we’ll always have, you know, boiled spinach, sweet potatoes, things like that. So meals come together very quickly, sometimes in less than 15 minutes, because all you gotta do is take the stuff out of the fridge, rice is already there.
Kimberly Snyder (43:50.456)
Me too!
Kimberly Snyder (44:09.125)
Mmm.
Joanne (44:13.354)
you know, put the thing on the stove top for five minutes, whether they’re beans or lentils or chickpeas or something like that. And you got yourself a beautiful rice bowl. And that’s what we’ve been eating, like almost every single day.
Kimberly Snyder (44:25.196)
I love that. I eat a lot of bowls too, Joanne. I love, we also have rice and then the veggies can be pre-prepared really quickly. We usually have sweet potatoes that are baked. Almost everyone in our family eats the sweet potatoes, so it’s easy to assemble. And that’s how we eat on a daily basis. And then the stews like you have here. We love the one pot meals.
Joanne (44:35.317)
Yeah!
Joanne (44:45.662)
Yeah, we love soups, stews and all that. I feel like those, for us, I mean, you make a whole bunch and then it can last like three or four days. And so it’s a great thing. And you know how like stews, they get thicker over time. So they start out with a lot of the soup and then three or four days later, you just take it, heat it up and throw it over your rice and it becomes like a gravy and it’s awesome.
Kimberly Snyder (44:55.267)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (45:05.848)
Yes. I love that. Wait, so is your husband, you say is he Italian? Will he eat a lot of Italian food as well? Or is that in the mix?
Joanne (45:16.282)
He loves his pasta and I’ve been trying to get him to like, I love pasta too. But I was like, you cannot eat pasta every day. It’s like, I, you know, we only eat brown rice pasta. So it’s, you know, it’s gluten-free and it’s brown rice. And I’m like, that’s better. Like the best would be just like whole grains, you know, if you can get away from that, like oatmeal and brown rice and, and things like that, like, you know, and so.
Kimberly Snyder (45:24.572)
I’m sorry.
Kimberly Snyder (45:29.276)
You know.
Kimberly Snyder (45:37.962)
Yes.
Joanne (45:44.906)
He loves his pasta though. And we eat very simple pasta. We’ll literally just have pasta with red sauce and vegetables and that’s what we do. You know, right now we’re on a low sodium, no oil kick. And so it’s very healthy. But I’ve been trying to get him to, you know, be like, okay, let’s maybe pasta like once or twice a week. Not every single day.
Kimberly Snyder (46:10.957)
Italians without the olive oil. That’s a big move taking the olive oil. Wow.
Joanne (46:14.982)
I’m very proud of him. I mean, he used to add a lot of olive oil to even just his red sauce pasta, and we’ve removed it completely. We do not salt the water anymore. We rely just on the sauce, and it’s been great. We love it.
Kimberly Snyder (46:22.841)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (46:30.968)
Dr. Michael Greger was on here recently and Dr. Bernard, who have new books, and they are so big into the no oil, just cook with a veggie broth. And is your, your book is fairly low oil. I mean, there’s sesame oils and things that are needed.
Joanne (46:44.294)
Yeah. So I’m not, I mean, there are maybe a couple of items that are fried in there. Like, I know the donuts are so it’s not like I never marketed the Korean vegan as like, this is your guide to like longevity and losing weight. That’s not what it was meant to be. It was more just like an introduction to Korean cuisine. If you’ve never had Korean food and you’re plant based and you feel like you can’t have Korean food, well, I’m here’s the book for you, right?
Kimberly Snyder (46:49.076)
Yeah.
Kimberly Snyder (47:10.658)
Hahaha!
Joanne (47:10.95)
And I think that my next book will be very much in that vein. I think if I write a third book, which I’m supposed to, I will be writing a third book, it will likely be a whole food plant-based oil-free book. Because that’s, I’m in my mid-40s, my husband is in his 50s, and our mortality is racing towards us. And I think that there are people out there who require
Kimberly Snyder (47:24.14)
Mmm.
Joanne (47:39.09)
a little bit more structure around their nutrition. And I say this without any judgment, there are people who do require less sodium, people who do require no oil. And I don’t think there’s any reason you can’t enjoy Korean food even within that framework.
Kimberly Snyder (47:42.249)
Yes.
Kimberly Snyder (47:55.62)
wonderful and it’s just another way to channel your creativity into creating around those parameters and finding flavors to enhance. You don’t need tons and tons of oil and salt for things to taste good.
Joanne (48:02.134)
Yeah!
Joanne (48:06.706)
No, we’ve been able to do it without any. Sweet potatoes is a big key though, I will say, like, cause there’s so much flavor in that.
Kimberly Snyder (48:13.34)
Yes, I love that. At the Ann Wigmore Institute when I was there, they used to dehydrate celery and like pulverize it and sprinkle it on because there’s some organic sodium in the celery, but it’s balanced and it had that flavor, but it was a way not to use salt.
Joanne (48:20.079)
Oh.
Joanne (48:30.974)
Yeah, no, we’ve been trying all sorts of things. I know I bought Dr. Greger’s book. I love his book, by the way, How Not to Die. Like I’ve read it 17 times. I mean, I love that book. And we also bought his cookbook, the How Not to Die cookbook. And I noticed that he uses a lot of miso in lieu of salt, which I thought was so smart. So we do, I mean, again, I try to use low sodium everything. And even with doenjang, which is kind of like miso for Korean people.
Kimberly Snyder (48:36.903)
Yes, incredible.
Joanne (49:00.37)
I’m very judicious with it. I’m not pumping it into our food, but it’s just kind of cool to know that some of these very traditional and highly fermented ingredients can offer an alternative to just a regular table salt.
Kimberly Snyder (49:17.836)
I love that and have more nutrients and more different compounds. Well, Joanne, thank you so much. I could go on and on speaking to you. I just so appreciate your warmth and your kindness, first of all, and your authenticity and then also your delicious cooking. Again, your wonderful book is called the Korean Vegan Cookbook and James Beard Foundation Award winner. Congratulations. I didn’t even, I mean, I saw it, but then I didn’t even mention it or focus on it.
Joanne (49:22.23)
Absolutely.
Joanne (49:41.842)
Yeah, thank you.
Kimberly Snyder (49:46.576)
That’s amazing. And I love when vegan cooking wins these awards because sometimes it feels like it’s heavily skewed to the French, very traditional sort of sauces and meat-based cooking.
Joanne (49:58.91)
Yeah, it’s actually the past two years. So I was the winner a couple of years ago. And then last year, Hannah Che, who wrote, I can’t remember what it’s called, it’s like Chinese vegan or the vegan China, I can’t remember. But she also wrote an all vegan book, but for Chinese cuisine, it’s absolutely stunning book. She is an incredible writer and storyteller, and she has some serious culinary chops she spent.
Kimberly Snyder (50:19.694)
Huh.
Joanne (50:26.678)
months studying in the schools, culinary schools in China to learn from these masters of Chinese cuisine and particularly how to make them plant-based. So her book also won a James Beard, you know, in Plant-Based India, he was also nominated for a James Beard. And it’s just really amazing to see vegan food normalized and honored in this way, because I do think it helps so much to steer this conversation.
Kimberly Snyder (50:43.612)
Wow.
Joanne (50:55.614)
outside of the world of stigma that we often occupy.
Kimberly Snyder (51:00.024)
Well, I believe things are shifting and thank you so much for being part of that beautiful, beautiful change and for inspiring so many Joanne. So can you share with us more about where to find the book and where to find you and your amazing work?
Joanne (51:02.035)
Yes.
Joanne (51:07.956)
Oh, thank you.
Joanne (51:14.271)
Yeah, so you can find me at thekoreanvegan.com. That’s my website. And I’m at The Korean Vegan on all the social media platforms. And you can find my book pretty much everywhere books are sold. And it’s called The Korean Vegan. It’s very convenient.
Kimberly Snyder (51:28.154)
It’s very convenient. We’ll also link directly to Joanne’s site and her book on our show notes over at mysaloona.com. So thank you so much, Joanne, once again, for sharing your beautiful energy with us. We appreciate you so much. And thank you, my loves, for tuning in. We’ll be back Thursday, as always, for our next Q&A. So until then, take great care and sending you much love.
Joanne (51:42.586)
I had a wonderful time.
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