Breaking Bread with the Korean Vegan

Quinn (00:00:07):

There's nothing quite like breaking bread with family or friends, new family or new friends, anyone. By mid 2020, we'd have all taken the opportunity to break bread with just about anyone. Enemies. It doesn't matter. Imagine this though for a moment. Who did you most want to share a meal with that you couldn't? What would you have made and why? Why that meal with those people? What stories would you have inevitably told about how it's all going? What memories might you have revisited of the before times? Family stories, nights out, failures, college stories, glory days. We can do it more often now, of course, but just do this little exercise with me. Imagine that feeling. Why does it feel so good? So right? Why is sharing food and memories so integral to who we are? Why is it one of the most important parts of our shared history?

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Why is breaking bread, why are stories, why are recipes and the stories behind those some of the most enduring parts of each of our cultures? Now holding onto that feeling, ask yourself this. How can we be more intentional about cooking food more often? Food that makes us all feel good, that tastes good, that's good for the planet. Food that nourishes others and we're proud of that allows us to let our guards down for a moment and share our joys and struggles.

(00:01:34):

Welcome to Important, Not Important. My name is Quinn Emmett, and this is science for people who give a shit. In our weekly conversations I take a deep dive with an incredible human who's working on the front lines of the future to build a radically better today and tomorrow for everyone. Along the way, we'll discover tips, strategies, and stories you can use to get involved and become more effective for yourself, your family, your city, your company, and our world.

(00:02:00):

One thing I never make enough time for that I love doing is hosting others and feeding others. And that's why this all came to mind. Besides my kids who I love to feed. They never stop feeding and so it's relentless and that's another story altogether. But some of my favorite food to make right now is from my guest today, Joanne Molinaro, The Korean Vegan. Joanne is a runner, attorney, blogger, podcast host, the author of the James Beard Award-winning Korean Vegan Cookbook named one of the best cookbooks of 2021. But you may know her best as the chef and storyteller behind the wildly popular Instagram and TikTok accounts where in just 60 seconds or so she makes a delicious plant-based Korean dish, and at the end when she's done, you and millions of others are laughing or crying, or both. Because Joanne infuses her food with stories about her life, about her family's incredible journey from what is now North Korea. Her stories are heartbreaking and compassionate and at the same time vulnerable and empowering as hell.

(00:03:01):

Joanne's stories and food have infused me with a desire to be more intentional about my food and my choices, to feed more people more often, and to better understand the many ways you and I can both affect the world. Because man, we've all come so far. We've all suffered recently. We've all felt alone. And I can tell you sharing some spicy garlic tofu around a round table packed with friends ... Now that's just the antidote to just about everything. Joanne, welcome to the show.

Joanne Molinaro (00:03:35):

Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

Quinn (00:03:37):

We'll see how long that lasts. Joanne, I like to start with one important question. It's a little bit silly, sure, on the face of it, but also it does tend to set the tone for what we're doing here, and I usually end up getting something thoughtful out of it. So instead of, hey, what's your entire life story, which I'm very aware is your whole business, I like to ask, Joanne, why are you vital to the survival of the species? And again, it's ridiculous, but I encourage you to be bold and honest.

Joanne Molinaro (00:04:06):

I would say if I had to be bold and honest and accurate, I'm not vital to the survival of the human species. I just am not. I'm only one out of several billion people on this planet. And while I like to believe that I'm doing my part to make the world better than it was the day that I arrived on this planet, I think that to be honest, there are probably a lot of people who could do what I do and do it even better than what I do. That doesn't, however, excuse me from doing the best that I can do while I am on this planet.

Quinn (00:04:38):

Oh, that's really good. I think we can just stop, right? I'm pretty sure that's it.

Joanne Molinaro (00:04:42):

Yeah. We're done. Okay. Back to the rest of our day.

Quinn (00:04:45):

Have a great nap. Sorry to get you up at eight. That's fantastic. I feel like half our answers are people going clearly I'm not but also, here's what I'm trying to do and I love that. I think that's very important.

Joanne Molinaro (00:04:55):

I think that's awesome.

Quinn (00:04:58):

I'm going to tell you a little bit of a story. I met my wife long distance. We met at a Caribbean wedding. She writes romantic comedies. The whole thing was preposterous.

Joanne Molinaro (00:05:04):

Wow.

Quinn (00:05:05):

I go out. We did long distance for a while. She was in LA, I was in New York. And about a month after we met ... And I flew in on a sea plane. Again, just ridiculous. I go out to Los Angeles to surprise her for her birthday and she's having a big party. She likes to have parties and they had gotten catering for this little house. We ended up living together up in the hills. And it was drop off catering. All Mediterranean food. Amazing. We wake up the next morning after everybody leaves and there's literally just hummus everywhere. There's so much food all over the place. And we're like, "If we're going to do this, we're going to have to do it better next time." And I promise this is going somewhere.

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The next year, same crew, same house, 2009, we thought, "Hey, you know what's the new cool thing? Korean barbecue food truck." And so pulls in the driveway. They're not happy about driving up in the hills. But pulls in the driveway, barely fits. Everybody makes food. It's amazing. It's the hot new thing. Truck leaves, no hummus everywhere. Everybody wins.

Joanne Molinaro (00:06:00):

Yeah.

Quinn (00:06:01):

It's been ... Oh my God. How long has that been? 12 years, 13 years. Joanne, I don't even know at this point. But in that time, two things have happened. You have made this space for yourself during this time. You've carved this thing out. But in that period, I feel like the last 10 years have been driven by a diminished capacity it seems like for empathy among folks. The more we're all connected on all these social things, the more it seems like we can be driven apart and we are driven apart. But also by a Korean barbecue food craze. It opened everybody up to Korean food.

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But I imagine, and correct me if I'm wrong here please, that it also immediately flattened the cuisine and the culture a little bit. Pros and cons, a little bit. I want to hope and believe and participate in however I can in this idea that there's the opportunity for a deeper understanding of food as a cultural experience, as an empathy device. And I wonder how all of these things since then, after everything you've done, if you think that that is true, if it can be true, and what we can do to improve on that mechanism and to lean on it as much as we can. Does any of that make any sense at all? You can say no and hang up.

Joanne Molinaro (00:07:20):

I'm going to hang up. No. I think so much of that makes sense. And what I love about the way that you described it is that some of them are contradictory. And the idea of course is that we're complex human beings. We live in a very complex world where there can be a lot of contradictions that continue to coexist and create tension even at our own dining table. And there's opportunity in that tension. There's opportunity for continued division and tribalism and lack of empathy as you say, but there's also opportunity for overcoming that to arrive at something that's far more beautiful and profound and compassionate.

Quinn (00:08:03):

I love that. And it's a little bit like the lighthouse in the storm. Because all we hear is everyone's on Facebook arguing with each other or Instagram and body issues and this. And occasionally you hear the one positive thing that might be coming out of these things. The Facebook group that raised a bunch of money for X or the Instagram person who's come along and explored food or transgender rights or whatever it might have been. Any of these type of things. And I feel like one gets so much more play than the other. And sometimes that's important because it might, for instance, break democracy. Not so great in this country or any other. To back it up, when people subscribe to our newsletter, they get a little confirmation email from me. Hey, here's what to expect, yada yada. And then there's one question and it's, why are you here?

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And I get just the most incredible two words like I believe in science or want to help, or it's, "I'm a seventh grade science teacher and here's all my things." Or I'm a grandparent in this, or I'm an immigrant, or I lost three cousins to COVID. Whatever it might have been. And that is so empowering and it's important because it's all people going, "What can I do? How can I help?" It's hard sometimes to not look at Facebook broke everything or this or TikTok is possibly just harvesting your data for that. It's so important to focus on folks like yourself who are trying every day to carve out that place. Like you said, there's always probably going to be some tribalism at the dinner table.

Joanne Molinaro (00:09:28):

One takeaway that I've had from a podcast that I've listened to a lot, which is the Rich Roll podcast.

Quinn (00:09:34):

Love Rich.

Joanne Molinaro (00:09:35):

Yeah. I adore him. And he had a guest and I can't remember who it was, but this stuck out to me. And because it's applicable to my business, it's applicable to what I do every day and it's also just applicable personally, which is the human brain has evolved to respond 13 times more to danger and negativity than it is to something that makes them feel good or positive. And that makes sense. It's the flight or fight syndrome. Our bodies necessarily get into fight mode when we feel danger or risk so that when we see something on the internet that makes us angry ... Like we see somebody getting beaten up by cops, or if we see somebody dressed up like Hitler walk into a bar in Soho or something like that, then we're so much more likely to click on that.

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We're so much more likely to comment on that. And we're so much more likely to share that than if you see a woman making [foreign language 00:10:34], talking about let's be nice to each other. Oh, that's nice. But we're less likely to engage with that kind of content in a world that's incentivized by clicks, views, and likes. That's how big businesses make money. Through ad revenue and through engagement. When that incentive is in place worldwide across the world because of the internet and the business model that supports that infrastructure, then necessarily what's going to happen is that people are going to be incentivized to create more negativity, to create more division, more tribalism, less empathy, less compassion. Because those two things, empathy and compassion, are viewed as weak. Weak ways of operating in a world that's pretty much built on cruelty and indifference. We don't have time for empathy. We don't have time for compassion. We have to deal with the fires that are all over the world.

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And I think that's where we are. The reason that food can be such a powerful tool against that is because everyone needs to eat. There isn't a single human being who can be like, "Yeah, no, I'm just not going to eat." Okay. Everyone needs to eat and therefore it's automatically something that we can relate to and something that we all have vulnerability to. And then of course the act of breaking bread with someone, something that you and your wife are probably very familiar because you're having these weekly dinner parties, is one of the most vulnerable things that you actually can do with a person because you're putting something into your body in front of another person and that automatically creates this disarmament that happens at your dining table, at a party or wherever you are breaking bread with one another. And so these things that happen just by virtue of sharing a meal with a person, cooking a meal for a person can already help to dismantle that negative seeking propensity that we have built by virtue of this strange internet economy that we've created.

Quinn (00:12:49):

Thank you for such an incredibly thoughtful response. Again, I feel like we're just done here. That sums it all up. There's this thought and virology and epidemiology, which was, we're very lucky that in 2020 we had so many tools to immediately address it. We got rid of so much red tape for dealing with building vaccine trials. The stories are incredible. Within 48 hours the genome of the virus had been scanned and downloaded and was in labs across the world. That's incredible. And you were able to take what was a pretty popular blog and Instagram and things like that and go, well shit, now I'll try video. What might your mechanism have been 10 years ago if video didn't exist? How could you have tried to carve out a similar space without that particular tool? Tumblr? I don't know. I'm curious.

Joanne Molinaro (00:13:45):

Well, I did have a Tumblr actually. And that was my first foray into my internet persona. I would've said Tumblr if you hadn't said it yourself. I had a Tumblr. I wrote a lot. And everything is a continuum. There's no such thing as one day I woke up and became a TikTok star. That doesn't exist. There's always a step that led to that step, that led to the step that you're going to take. And I would say that the genesis of my creative side, if you will ... Because remember, I am still a practicing attorney, but I was a full-time practicing attorney for the past 17 years. At that time, in 2010 I think was when I started a Tumblr account, I was working full-time as I would say a mid-level associate. So I was really working hard.

Quinn (00:14:37):

There's full-time and then there's full-time associate at a law firm is no joke.

Joanne Molinaro (00:14:41):

Yeah. It was a really tough time. But that's probably one of the reasons I was excited to do something so different, which was to pursue something that used a different part of my brain. I was trying to be creative and exercise parts of me that had remained rather dormant for many, many, many years. And those came in the form of photography. I wanted to learn how to take better pictures with my new camera. I had a nice job that afforded me the ability to buy lots of nice things for my hobby, but I wanted to learn how to use them. So I started a Tumblr to share my photography. I was taking pictures of the lion in front of the art institute in Chicago, the Sears Tower. It was just-

Quinn (00:15:24):

Sure. Yeah.

Joanne Molinaro (00:15:25):

So hackneyed. And then I started writing poetry because I fell into a group on Tumblr called The Writers of Tumblr or something like that.

Quinn (00:15:33):

Awesome.

Joanne Molinaro (00:15:34):

Yeah. And I started writing poems and that's probably what I would've continued doing is carving out a little space for myself where I was writing a lot and also taking photographs. I never thought in a million years it would turn to food because there was no urgency around it. It wasn't until I became plant based in 2016 when I was like, "Oh wow. There's an urgency here now because now I feel like my identity is at risk." But before that, oh well if I want food, I can order out. I can cook something. My mom will make something for me. I could go to a restaurant. There was an abundance of the kind of food that I like to eat. It wasn't until the prospect of that being removed from my life that then I turned to, well, what am I going to do about this?

Quinn (00:16:23):

I love that. And I know you've shared this a bit before, however many times, in the 7,000 interviews you've done. But correct me if I'm wrong here. You didn't actually cook too much. Is that right? Before this. Before your then boyfriend was like, "I'm going to go vegan." And you were just like, "Fuck you man." And you had to veganize. By the way, my wife can have a very long conversation with you about the entire exact experience she went through and she was just like, "Jesus, this guy. Oh God."

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I've had almost 150 of these incredible conversations and it's someone going, "Well, I grew up and my aunt was blind and so I decided to work on blindness." Or, "I grew up in a place that has already been hit by sea level rise. And so you're asking why I work on this, why I have to do this? Because I have to, but also because that's my people and because I have this lived experience that all these other people don't. And so I know the best way to address this for the sense of place, but also the people." You felt like your food and your culture were going to be threatened for you, but at the same time weren't just like, "I've been making pork my entire life." Not as much. Right?

Joanne Molinaro (00:17:30):

That pretty much sums it up. I did feel like my culture was being threatened and that was because my boyfriend and now my husband, Anthony, is white. He had almost no understanding of my cuisine. Of Korean cuisine. He'd tried very, very little of it up until that point. He didn't really show much interest in it either, which I think was a big problem for me. We were new in our relationship and I've written about and talked about a lot of the unique challenges that face interracial relationships and we've definitely come a long way. But at that point I was like, who are you to demand this of me? You don't even know what you're asking me to give up. And of course for many immigrant families, food is incredibly important to their cultural identity because it's one of the few things that they're able to continue doing as an homage to the places that they've left.

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And in my case, my parents are from North Korea so there's no possibility of them ever going back to the places they were born. Food is one of literally the few things they have left of the homes that they can never return to. To take that away from somebody is threatening. Now, obviously I'm not from North Korea. I was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. I had my fair share of spaghetti and McDonald's and all of those things growing up. But still the notion that a white guy was asking me so blively to give up the things from my childhood, it rubbed me the wrong way. But at the same time, like you said, I wasn't so far along that I was going to be like, I will never give up pork or I will never give up [foreign language 00:19:11] and things like that. I think one of the reasons in retrospect is because I love animals so much. I've always loved animals. And there was a small part of me that said, well, I am a little different in that I know that my love of animals is very, very powerful and perhaps that this is an opportunity for me to live a life that's a bit more consistent with my values. And then of course I watched Cowspiracy. And I was like, there's so many reasons to do this.

Quinn (00:19:46):

I always tried to ... As my wife has kindly put it many times in the past, I have the unique ability to be the bummer in any conversation.

Joanne Molinaro (00:19:54):

Thank God.

Quinn (00:19:56):

Here, it's incredible. It's fall. Everyone outside, they're like, "Yeah, it's pretty warm today." I'm like, "Don't say it. They're having a nice time. Don't ruin this for them." When someone asks something about climate or very early on in COVID in talking to epidemiologists and scientists about these things, I do like to preface people and say, on a scale of one to 10, how much of this conversation do you really want to have? Because it can be difficult. And watching those documentaries can be the same thing. There's really no way to unsee some of those things, which is the point. But it obviously can be very triggering. But if you're also a little bit on the way, like you said you loved animals, but hey maybe this could be a little more intentional. Those can really set you on that path.

Joanne Molinaro (00:20:36):

I think that's a really good way of putting it. I think I was open to the idea. Even 1% open. But that's all it takes. I say that about so many things that I do now with my current career, which is my job is to open the door by 1% because that's all it takes for me to get a toe in. And once I get my toe in the door, then I can be very strategic about just wedging it open a little bit more and a little bit more, a little bit more until I get my whole body through and we're having a conversation. That's really all I want to do. And I think that you're exactly right. When I saw Cowspiracy, there was already a little bit of a toe in that door. And then when I watched it, it just flew open and I was like, "Well now I really have no excuse. I just need to figure out a way to make this work."

Quinn (00:21:34):

When I did my first marathon, I was in fine shape, but I was like, "I'm going to get old at some point. Let's maybe run with a little less meat on our bones shall we?" So I decided to drop ... This was again 2010, 11. I don't know. The time means nothing. I decided to drop meat and dairy. And my wife has a great story of three days later coming home and I'm just tearing apart a rotisserie chicken. I just planned wrong basically. I hadn't thought about where I was going to get my food that day. And even in Los Angeles in 2010, not a lot of options to do it right. And I was trying to really stick to it and I just fucked it up. And she was just like, "Jesus, it looks like a T-Rex in here."

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I guess that's wrong. I'm 100% blocking out pain here I'm sure you're familiar with. One of my best friends had just died from cancer so I was then still a bit of a depression for sure. Little drinky drinky on the bottle. And I had just read a controversial book now. It is what it is. The China Study. And essentially they were like, if you eat meat you're going to die. And that's the sum of the 700 pages or whatever. And I was in a place of, oh, then I guess I have to rewrite my whole life because he got this cancer that is usually 70 year old people who smoke all their life and he was not that. He was 29 years old. So I thought, I got to go as healthy as I can. So dropped meat, dropped dairy. The point is it was to run a marathon.

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It wasn't because of animals, it wasn't because of this and that. But now, however many 13 years later, and especially with kids who ask questions like, "Hey dad, is the chicken we eat different from the chicken, the animal?" And you're like, the next 10 seconds aren't going to be great for you. It's interesting how much more intentional I try to be for myself and how much more of a factor that plays. Not unexpectedly, but like you said, it was like, oh I guess I've always given a shit about animals and now I'm driving around like, what are we doing? Why?

Joanne Molinaro (00:23:23):

It's amazing. That was what I call one of the unexpected byproducts of going plant based. I try to use the word plant based intentionally only to make it clear that my original decision to go remove animal products wasn't an ethical one. At least not in the way that's traditionally described. I went plant based largely for the environment and for my own health. That was it. My father who was diagnosed with prostate cancer right around that time when I was ruminating, do I do this permanently or not. And that had a large compulsion to me. I was like, oh, now I am compelled to remove meat. My dad getting cancer literally while I'm thinking about these studies. Probably the same ones that were in The China Study. I was like, "This is a sign for health. I have to be a good role model for my father."

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And then also, like I said, Cowspiracy had such an enormous impact on my view of my job as a human. I can't leave this place more horrible than it was when I walked into it. I always say when you go and stay over at someone's house, you never want to leave that guest bedroom looking worse than when you walked into it. That is your job as a guest. And that's the same way I view this planet. I'm a guest on this planet. My job is to leave it looking even a little bit better than it did when I walked in.

(00:24:50):

But what it did was, like I said, I'd always had this love of animals and as soon as I eliminated animals from my dinner plate, all of a sudden I was able to allow that part of my heart to just swell in this really amazing way. And I just embraced it because now I could do it without these hangups of cognitive dissonance. I didn't have to have that conversation with myself. What is the difference between the chicken on my plate and the chicken at the zoo? None. I didn't have to have that really difficult conversation with myself anymore. And that was just the most liberating feeling ever. And I just dove into it. I was like, I can do this now. And that's when we began the process of obviously eliminating animal products from everything, not just our food.

Quinn (00:25:40):

I love that. And same Grinch style. My heart has swelled and now I'm the dad who we're driving along and I'm like, "Let's stop for five minutes and look at the family a deer and what do you think?" And the kids are like, "We're late for swim practice. Can we please get going?" And I'm like, yes. However.

Joanne Molinaro (00:25:55):

This is important.

Quinn (00:25:57):

It is such a release. Isn't it? It's incredible to just be like, oh ... It's a little bit of letting your flag fly a little. We were just like, everything is beautiful and incredible. Why not? Why not? I understand eating meat was an important part of our evolution and I understand what an important part of so many cultures it can be and things like that. But at the same time ... And I loved this part of your conversation with Rich Roll. Huge fan of his. The part of conversation where you guys were talking about your experience talking with the Buddhists who have been eating this way for so long. Where a label like vegan quite literally means nothing to them. It's part of the values. And my longtime listeners, poor people, understand that I am two things. I am religious studies major and also a pagan atheist monster.

Joanne Molinaro (00:26:46):

Makes total sense.

Quinn (00:26:49):

Right. Exactly. But one of the things I feel like I really cherish because I think it helped kickstart a little bit my empathy machine was understanding that for so many cultures and peoples around the world who can't even be defined by one culture, much less nation state borders, the everyday way that you make your home, your relationships, the food you eat, the way you honor your dead or bury them if you do. So I wonder if you could talk a little bit, and people can just listen to the Rich Roll convo with you if they like, about all those concerns you had about losing your identity and your culture. What it was like to then connect with them and find out there's a part of it that's very, very different. Did that give you comfort and confidence?

Joanne Molinaro (00:27:34):

I think one of the things that you said at the very outset of this conversation was with the popularity of Korean barbecue and Korean cuisine also comes the attendant inevitability of flattening and two dimensionalizing that cuisine. And that is absolutely a drawback anytime you have mass proliferation of cultural aspects. And we see that a lot nowadays even with Korean dramas and Korean pop culture, BTS, and certainly with Korean food. And the interesting thing about that of course is the diasporic aspect of that. How much of that flattening is actually happening at the hands of Korean diaspora, IE, in our case Korean Americans? As a Korean American, I grew up thinking that Korean barbecue was Korean food. I thought we were a very meat centric culture. Of course, it completely ignored the fact that for most of my childhood we were eating mostly vegetables because A, my parents are refugees so they still believe that meat is something you only have on very rare special occasions.

(00:28:42):

And also because my family were farmers. That's what they traded on was vegetables. So we always had a wide array of beautiful vegetables from our backyard, which my grandmother tended because that's what she did. She was a farmer. Even though I had this rich lived experience of surviving on mostly plants, I completely ignored it and agreed with everyone else that Korean barbecue was and is the only real major understandable form of Korean food. So when I went to Korea in 2019 and I was given the opportunity to meet with Jeong Kwan Seunim. She is a Buddhist monk. Korean Buddhist monk in Korea and she has been featured in the New York Times. She is a good friend of Eric Ripert who is a very famous chef in the United States and written about as one of the most exquisite cooks in all the world. And I found out that she was plant based and vegan, if you can call it that. Vegan. I was like, "Oh wow. She's the OG Korean vegan, I got to meet with her." I had this chance to meet with her in 2019. I remember being so proud of my Instagram account."Seunim, look at my Instagram account. I call myself The Korean Vegan." And I remember she had this like, I'm trying not to roll my eyes. She was so polite. But she was trying really hard. And then later as we were saying our goodbyes, she grabs my wrist. I remember she said, "Vegan, not vegan. What does that even really mean?" And she wasn't doing it in a derisive way. She was doing it in a way that she wanted to plant something in my heart to leave with. And she said, "We've been eating this way for over a thousand years. It's not about some label that people use to describe themselves. This is just how we are. Why do I eat like this? Because I don't want to harm anything." She said, "My whole life's purpose is to try and do the least amount of harm."

(00:30:46):

She said, "When you pull something out of the ground, you're doing a little bit of hurt to the earth, but that's the least amount that I can do in order to sustain my own life." And then she said something that was so beautiful. She said, "Anytime you hurt something, you're hurting yourself. So when you hurt a person, you're doing so much damage to yourself. When you hurt an animal, you're hurting so much yourself. The least amount of harm you can do is to pull a little chute out of the ground, a root out of the soil, and even then make sure don't do any chemicals. Make sure to do it as naturally as possible." And to your question, yeah that comforted me a lot because I was so much about policing who I was, what I was, whether I was Korean enough, whether I was vegan enough, whether I was this enough. And for her to describe it in such a beautiful way was, again, liberating to me because it allowed me to create of my own boundaries of what it meant to be the least harmful person I could be.

Quinn (00:31:49):

When you were talking about this idea of the least hurt I can do is to pull out the chute and be thankful for it and eat it, it reminds me this wonderful quote that I'm going to butcher from Robin Wall Kimmerer. I'm not sure if you're familiar with her. She's a fantastic Indigenous author. It's this idea of never take the first plant you see so that you're never taken the last one basically. That's not complicated. It's not hard. And I know it can seem, I guess foo foo to some folks. It actually mattered. I really appreciate you sharing that. Thank you. That just stuck out to me so much in the conversations because she didn't say it in a derivative way, but there's nothing like being scolded by history going, you have it all wrong. It's so much more beautiful and complex like that and it's okay and you can turn it around. And then she leaves you with that thinking thing as you're getting on the plane.

Joanne Molinaro (00:32:33):

It was really amazing for her to leave me with that thought.

Quinn (00:32:36):

I would love to talk a little bit about, besides the food, is you have, the beginning of our conversation, a place that is so intentionally vulnerable for people. And you have done that by modeling it. By talking about your marriage history, by talking about your family and their immigration story and your struggles with their relationships. But also about running and body dysmorphia and body issues. So from my side, I went from a ridiculously vain two sport college athlete ... I was a swimmer. I spent my entire life in spandex. To heavy desk job. Just sloth. Eating chicken parm at 11:00 PM, 14 inches long when I got off, to frappuccinos at 7:00 AM. Coffee, not so much.

(00:33:22):

And then this moment where I was fully depressed from the death of a friend and moving and new life and drinking to going, maybe I'll run a marathon. I used to be an athlete. My body being like whoa, let's be a little careful with how we're doing that. Struggling to plan around it. Eventually being marginally more intentional about not just what I eat and when I eat, why I eat, where I eat. It all plays together. Why is it so important to build this place in the beginning of this pandemic where you especially and then hopefully other people behind you, and they have, can be so vulnerable and why do we need that so much?

Joanne Molinaro (00:34:01):

It's largely to address the fallacy that became reinforced during the pandemic that we are alone and that the universe doesn't care. I have been working through a lot of these issues myself intentionally in a public way through now my podcast and the videos that I do. And what I think I've come away with understanding is the immense despair that comes with this, again, lie that the universe doesn't care. That we are indifferent. And I think many of us felt that very keenly during the pandemic because we had so little control over this disease that on every single score was giving no quarter. It was killing people. Thousands and thousands of people every single day. Requiring us to remove ourselves from the pillars of love, security, safety and that was our family.

(00:35:08):

The reason that the messaging that I had created on The Korean Vegan was so received during the pandemic was because there was a hole there that required filling. The stories that I shared though, the vulnerability, that had been something I'd been doing for many, many years. And that started in 2017. And that was directly a result of the 2016 election here in the United States. I created The Korean Vegan in the beginning because I needed vegan Korean food. I was like, "There's nobody else doing it. There's a problem. I need to solve it. So I guess that's just ... I got to do it." So that's why I started it. And then in 2017 after the election, I was like, "Nobody else is talking about what it's like being an immigrant family in a non angry attacky way so I'm just going to do it." Because that's always been my style. I'm a trial lawyer. My whole job is about advocacy and persuasion and there are some who do it really well by bullying you and by just drumming it and drilling it into you and making you feel like a total idiot unless you agree with them.

(00:36:19):

That's a style. And sometimes that works. That's not my style. That's never been effective for me because I just don't believe it. My style has always been let's find some common ground. What can we agree about first? And then let's work on the things that maybe we don't agree on. And that was what I wanted to do was to build that foundation of common ground by sharing stories. And the only way to do that is by being vulnerable. I know you have felt loss. I know you have been hurt before. I know you understand what heartbreak is and I do too. So let's start there. And from there we can build on things that may be a little bit more complicated, a little bit harder. We can talk about our differences. We can talk about the things that we haven't lived through together. But from that common ground we can elicit compassion and empathy. So that habit of vulnerability was something that I had developed. It was just now done through video during the pandemic, which of course automatically added another layer of vulnerability.

Quinn (00:37:28):

I was grabbing a sandwich for lunch at 3:00 other day. My whole goal these days is eat before the clock turns to 3:00. It's not going ... It's not great. I'm talking to my buddy and mentioning something about my wife who's the most incredible human on the face of the planet and her writing. And this gentleman steps up. We're in a fairly touristy area here. Colonial Williamsburg. So no idea where he is from, what his story is. And he says, "Hey listen, I couldn't not step over and say ... You said something about a writing career. I have a hundred poems I wrote and I work in construction. How do I publish it?" And my heart was just like ... Because to write poems for yourself takes ... Especially as typical dude. And don't want to judge him or identify him in any other way. But just the way we usually are. Especially in this society, which is a big part of the problem, which is you don't do that. To do that for yourself is such a leap. To walk over to a stranger and say, "Hey listen, here's my deepest secret. I got a hundred of these things. I want to share them with people.", is a huge leap.

(00:38:40):

And I was like, "One, publishing is nightmare. Two, there's all these incredible services that can make them a book you can share with your family and you can also self publish on Amazon. All this different stuff. We have the tools that we've never really had before to do these sort of things. But also just go get them, man. That's incredible." And I feel like you have carved this space where, like you said, we were so impotent at the beginning of this thing and physiologically so. This was a relatively unique novel thing. None of us had a thing. And so the only answer was you have to separate from each other for as long as we can, even though that's the things that tie us together. And that's very difficult.

(00:39:16):

And yet it is almost unarguably, at least for our generation, the most common experience any of us have ever had and will ever have. A space like yours is like you said, you can look people in the eye for the first time really and say, "I know you have experienced something like this because we're all doing it right now. So let's talk about that and then we can move on to more complex things." And that just matters. And all I can think about is these moments of how we haven't really ... So many people forever couldn't mourn, they couldn't go to the hospital even or now they couldn't have a funeral or now we just keep racing ahead. How do we come back to this common denominator in a place like yours? Or there's this wonderful Twitter feed now and app and a website called Goodable, which I think you would love. It's fantastic. Run by this Canadian war journalist who's just like, I'm just going to put good out every day. And it's fantastic. Just to come back to these things matters so much because we can't build something better and more equitable and more just for everyone unless we take these huge terrifying things and say we were all here. Let's go from there.

Joanne Molinaro (00:40:20):

Yeah. That raises such an interesting quandary. This Goodable that you talk about. I always wonder is it a function of packaging or is it more than that? How do we inspire people to be more intentional? However easy it is to say let's make the world a better place, the truth of it is it's hard. It's hard. It's not easy to make the world a better place. It's simply not easy to make this world a little bit prettier than it was when you arrived on it. It takes work. It really does. And there's so many people who are like, "Dude, do you know how much work it takes for me to just roll out of bed every day?" And by this I mean literally. It can be physically difficult for people to just get out of bed, to pay their mortgage or their rent, to get food on the table for their kids.

(00:41:17):

These exigencies that crop up for people, these are just their lived daily lives. So the notion of something as lofty as make the world a better place, honey, I'm just trying to pay the rent. It's hard. You have to be super intentional about it. So when you hear about large places like Goodables or some other internet presence that's really just about creating a safe, warm, positive space that reminds us all that the world can be good and therefore it is not hopeless, again, sometimes I'm like, okay, how do we package that so that it reaches as many people as possible? That it truly inspires as many people as possible to be a little bit more intentional to say, hey, keep fighting that good fight. Your hard work is not in vain.

(00:42:14):

And sometimes comedy is a really good way of packaging this. Because we see now comedy videos on TikTok doing so well is a dance. Like, hey, I'm all about it. If dance is what's going to get out there, a really funny dancing video, fine, do it. I'm always stymied by that human instinct to react more to the things that frighten us, that do fill us with despair, that do fill us with rage and anger than we are the things that make us smile and the things that make us happy. The challenge remains all right, maybe we just need to package this a little bit differently so that the messaging still gets across.

Quinn (00:42:54):

The marketing betters, right? It sounds so ridiculous, but you made a s'mores video about one of the hardest stories a human could experience or tell or even listen to no matter how many times removed. Sitting there telling my parents, eating dinner with my kids last night and I was like, oh, and this and that and I can't wait and they've eaten the food and all this. I was like, "I got to tell you this. One of them. Literally this 60 seconds." And they were like, Jesus. Marketing matters and clearly you understand that. How we package these things matters because everyone's like, why is she making a s'more? And then the chocolate matters.

Joanne Molinaro (00:43:29):

The interesting thing about that is I actually created that video for a bunch of Fortune 100 companies that were sitting in a bootcamp on how to create better TikToks. Because I was like, all right. You want to know how to do good storytelling. If you want to sell your cars more. If you want to sell your makeup. These are very recognizable names that I can't say for confidentiality reasons. I was like, "I'll show you. I'm going to tell you one of the most difficult stories of my family's genesis. Their origin story. And I'm going to do it while breaking apart a s'mores." There's so much thought that goes into reeling people in when you know you only get them for a second or two before they swipe up to that next story. Yeah, you're right. Marketing matters, packaging matters, delivery, presentation, all of that needs to be thoughtful if you're going to emerge from the morass which is so loud and overwhelming,

Quinn (00:44:26):

It is. And I try to acknowledge for folks. So we've got this newsletter that's like, hey, here's all the big shit that happened this week. But more specifically, here's what you can do about it. We've tried over time through this process to put every one of these action steps as we call them through this pretty specific ringer of is it actually going to move the needle? Is it measurable? If it's a piece of legislation, does it actually have a shot? If it's a candidate, do they have a shot? Are they going to do the things they say they're going to do? If it's a charitable organization or an NGO ... A lot of these things are arguable, but is it arguably one of the most effective way to address this problem? Whatever it might be. Because like you said, especially now for so many folks, it is just fucking hard to get out of bed.

(00:45:09):

My goal is to say, here's what happened. Here's two lines on how to think about it. And if you smash your finger against this button in a couple clicks, you can do something that at the very least helps you feel a little bit better. And at the same time, it'll also contribute to this greater systemic thing. And I know it might not seem that way some days, but it can. And I just want to give people that little opportunity to be like, look, you did something today and now you can roll back in bed because I get it. And the more we start with that understanding, I feel like the more effective as a whole we can be. It's just recognizing the trauma but also the good intentions.

(00:45:44):

Again, people sign up for the thing. No one willingly reads about climate change. Jesus. What a nightmare. But they do sign up because we have these big bold letters and it's ridiculous. And it says science for people who give a shit. And there's so many more people that give a for so many reasons than ever before because the technology behind what we're doing to solve climate change is incredible. Maybe you're a founder or a scientist or someone who's inventing the new JUST Egg. You're welcome.

(00:46:08):

Whatever it might be. Again, it's someone who's a doctor who's like, "I have to quit. I've been doing this for three years and I can't do it anymore." They come here for different reasons, but at the same time they do give a shit and what do they want to do? And people are coming to you going, "I have pain, I love food. What is she going to share with me today that's going to help me feel like I can nourish myself, whether through food or something else, but also in a greater way?" Because food is the social network. That's it.

Joanne Molinaro (00:46:31):

I love what you just described because I think that as creators, podcasters, writers, however you want to describe what you and I do, sometimes there is this temptation to think that we're injecting ourselves into this abyss that nothing else comes back. But I think what you said is that there are a lot of people who give a shit right now that even if they feel like they're flailing around, not actually directing their energy at something useful, the fact that they care enough to want to know, "Hey, what can I do? Just tell me what to do." And I love that. When I first started going plant-based, I was like, "No, I don't need a 50 item list of things I can do. Can you pair it down to five?" What are the top five things I can do to actually make a difference on climate change? If you give me 50, I won't do any of them, but maybe if you just give me five, I can knock off three and feel good about myself. Feel like, oh, I'm making a difference here. And I think that that instinct is one that needs to be leveraged in a really smart and strategic way in order to create long lasting change.

Quinn (00:47:49):

I guess subjectively, objectively, however you want to measure it, it can seem ridiculous to say, buy the cookbook and start eating this way and you're going to help climate change. People are like, all right. Easy. But it's true. It's 100% true. Addressing the western diet and building empathy and doing these things is one of the most fundamental pieces we can do literally when it comes down to carbon emissions on top of everything else.

Joanne Molinaro (00:48:11):

100%.

Quinn (00:48:12):

But it just matters. I do want to get into this for a minute before I start to get you out of here because you've got 7,000 things to do, which is the point of this question. You're welcome for the segue. You have 7,000 interviews. No one had more jobs and things to do than you for quite a while. And then you also went for a run. I did a race this weekend and I probably ran three times in the month prior. And my buddy was like, "Are you going to make it?" I'm like, "Well, we'll find out." The point is it's a lot. And I had this wonderful therapist for a long time who was like, "Hey buddy, your load and your limit can't be the same thing every day." And that is, again, as someone who's immensely privileged with healthcare, but I choose to write a term paper about existential dread every week and tell people how to fix it. And then I've also got three kids and a relationship and all those things.

(00:49:00):

But how have you ... And I know you've moved from full partner to counsel but you're still in it because I assume you still love that in some way. You're writing manifestos against Trump in the Atlantic over the years. Have you made any progress against this, yes, I can be intersectional, I can bring all these people in because of all my different life experiences, but at the same time you can only do so much.

(00:49:24):

How are you managing this? Because I think this is also one of the things where people go, "Listen, I give a shit but either I have to because I live in Florida, my home's gone, or because my family wouldn't get the shots and even though I did, it didn't matter because that's how herd immunity works." They have to, or they've tried and they're just like, I'm spent, I can't do all of these things. How are you managing this both on a day to day basis, but now strategically going forward? Because I think that conversation really matters.

Joanne Molinaro (00:49:51):

Well, I would say that my management of that continues to evolve. Especially as a newly minted business person. I've never owned my own business before and that's how I view my current career. The Korean Vegan is now my business. It's how I make a living. I'm continuing to learn what it means to be an effective business owner as well as being a good human being. And I think that what I started to do in the beginning was I would just translate the way that I worked at the firm into the way that I should continue to work as a business owner. I was very much used to working between 10 to 12 ... Billing 10 to 12 hours a day. That was a pretty normal day. I was like, then I should be working about 10 to 12 hours a day as the Korean vegan.

(00:50:42):

And my days are very similar in that way in terms of just blocks. I still block all my time. I don't have to bill anymore, but I still think of my hours in that way. I don't know that I'll ever get away from that. I wake up, first thing I do is I go for a run. And that's what I did as a practicing attorney. And then as soon as I get back from my run, I bill, or I should say I work as The Korean Vegan, whether it's filming a video, writing for the podcast, writing for the book, all of those different things. But I've recently discovered two things that I think are really important. It was not sustainable for me. Like you, I was writing a term paper. I love that. I was writing a term paper every single week and sometimes it would take me 14 hours to write one podcast episode.

(00:51:28):

And it was like, I can't do this. This is not sustainable. And come up with a video for every single day of the week and have to write 100 recipes for my cookbook and prep for a marathon or whatever race I'm running. This is just ... I can't do this. I'm going to fall apart soon and I'm going to start fighting with my husband and I'm going to be a mean person and not fun to live with. And then the other thing of course was ... This was surprising to me. My videos weren't doing very well. I wasn't getting as many views. I wasn't getting the engagement that I was used to and I was blaming the algorithm and getting angry and upset and hating myself and hating the world. And then I decided I'm going to just go back to maybe three videos a week and be really intentional about those three instead of just churning as many out as I can in order to please the social media gods.

(00:52:20):

And as soon as I started doing that, all of a sudden my engagement went right back up to where it used to be. I think that what we sometimes trick ourselves into thinking is the more we do, the better we do. But the truth is oftentimes the more we do the shittier we do. So it's actually better for us. It's a win-win situation for our health and oftentimes our profit margins. And by profit, I don't mean just monetarily. I mean all the good things in your life. Our margins are actually better when we do a little bit less but put more of our heart and our thought into it. These days, I've actually had to curb this instinct of like, no, I got to be working 12 hours a day. No. You know what? Put in a good six hours of really thoughtful, intentional Joanne, and then go outside, enjoy the weather, take a walk, cook without a camera in front of yourself. Have a conversation with a friend. And it's been a lot better.

Quinn (00:53:23):

That's great. It's really hard to wrap our mind around being able to do this. First of all, so many of us don't have the ability to do what we do, which is like, hey, here's my blocks and I'm going to rearrange them and things like that. They're like, "No, I have to be at the office or at least on Zoom with some form of pants on." I understand that that isn't an option, but I think at the same time there still are things you can do to protect yourself frankly and that's where we are. You can't build something that's healthier, more protective, or more nourishing, unless we started to say, whoa, maybe I'm feeling pretty run down because of these things. What are the things we can change? As a parent, the first thing I always tell people is you can't control when your kids wake up, but you can control when you go to bed. I appreciate you sharing that. That dialing it back can actually make the work better and then help more people. Because that's the goal.

Joanne Molinaro (00:54:10):

I totally agree.

Quinn (00:54:11):

If we could talk specifically about ... Besides buy The Korean Vegan. It's fantastic. Not the person. Buy the cookbook. You can't buy the person. It's fantastic. I can't recommend it enough. Let's talk about specific things. Let's knock out your list here of things that people can do to support your mission, your work, and your style of being a human being in the world, which everybody should be. Go.

Joanne Molinaro (00:54:34):

The thing that always comes to mind is go for a run. I feel like it's so strange because I used to hate physical activity so much. I hated it. I hated moving anything. I would always say anything that requires movement I hate. But now it's like I can't start the day without it. And I think that it's a big component to why I am able to face some of the day's challenges with a mental toughness that is sometimes required. So I always say ... You don't have to run, but if you can start your day with some type of movement, even if it's 20 minutes of just plyometrics. Whatever.

Quinn (00:55:19):

Whatever.

Joanne Molinaro (00:55:21):

I think that's so important. And I think it just sets the tone for the remainder of the day and it makes you feel more confident about what you're able to do. Other than that, I honestly feel like I don't have a lot of other constants. I'm also constantly just like, okay, just how do I get through this and that and this and that? I will say time blocking on my calendar, that's a huge thing for me. I did that as a lawyer working for an employer, traditional employer and I do that now. Working for myself. First of all, I put my number of miles in my calendar. It's a non-negotiable meeting in my calendar and my assistant knows that. That you can't move that around. But I also block things like this. Our podcast today. I block, okay, after the podcast I have to shoot a video after that I've got to write tomorrow's socials and things like that. And I think that helps to keep me focused because otherwise, what I found myself doing before I started doing that was I'd literally wander around the house and be like, what am I doing now? Am I supposed to be doing something?

(00:56:27):

And I think that really helps. And then finally, of course I always say, try and call your parents as much as you can. And I'm bad about this. I think about my mom and my dad a lot, obviously for the work that I do, but I don't talk to them enough. And sometimes I have to really remind myself that our time on this planet is limited. It's very, very precious. And especially if you have people that you love who are older than you, you may not realize how few more opportunities you have to spend time with them. It's pretty much free to call somebody these days. Whether you use your FaceTime or whatever you got, get in some time with the people that you love. I don't know if that answers your questions.

Quinn (00:57:17):

No. I think it all matters because often the answer isn't about the work. It's about how we set ourselves up. And often setting ourselves up means doing these other things that nourish us. Literally just eat breakfast, right?

Joanne Molinaro (00:57:29):

Yeah.

Quinn (00:57:29):

If that's your thing. If you feel weak in the morning, start with oatmeal or there's a thousand different things you can do but just set yourself up a little bit. And that often involves literally just calling family. I told my kids the other day, I was like, "Can I tell you what? In middle school I used to call a girl in Pennsylvania and it was 50 bucks every 10 minutes." They were like, "What kind of world did you live in?" And I was like, "I know. And I didn't tell my parents. And so they'd only found out later." It wasn't great. And they were just like, "Can you FaceTime grandma on the hologram?" I'm like, "No, no." It does matter. And it means so much to them. And it means over time it can mean so much to you and just make it a habit. It's fantastic.

(00:58:05):

Well, I really appreciate that. The last few questions we ask everybody, and then we're going to tell everyone, TikTok, Instagram, buy the book, et cetera, et cetera. Joanne, what is the first time in your life when you realized you had the power of change or the power to do something meaningful? And that could be with a squad of people or on your own or something you did with your family, whatever it might be.

Joanne Molinaro (00:58:27):

I would say that it was when I started The Korean Vegan, which is a little embarrassing to me because I was in my late 30s at that time. But before then, I really didn't think that I had the agency to create any type of real meaningful change outside of my very small universe, which consisted of my parents, my brother, and my partner. So I really didn't think that I had the ability to impact people's lives until I started The Korean Vegan in 2016. And it started with, oh look, these people actually like my recipes. And then of course it became much more meaningful when people started saying, I relate so much to the stories that you share.

Quinn (00:59:09):

That's awesome. Best time is today. Who is someone in your life ... And we haven't even talked about the fact that your dad's basically a celebrity at this point. Who is someone in your life that has positively impacted your work in the past six months?

Joanne Molinaro (00:59:24):

In the past six months. Oh gosh. I feel like I've used this crutch many, many ... I don't want to call him a crutch, but I feel like it is now because I keep going back to him and that's definitely Rich Roll. He continues to inspire me so much because of the type of conversations that he has on his podcasts. But more than that, just his life story. It just is so profoundly impactful to me because it makes me feel like every time I'm second guessing myself, which is a lot ... Pretty much every minute of every day.

Quinn (00:59:56):

My whole day.

Joanne Molinaro (00:59:57):

At least there's a trailblazer right in front of me who is doing these things. That is having such a profound effect on not just me, but millions of people every single day, every time I listen to his podcast or read another chapter from his book or whatever it is, see something on his Instagram, I do feel like it has a direct impact on the types of things that I think and talk about on my own podcast or on my own Instagram or on my own TikToks.

Quinn (01:00:24):

It's really something else. And again, he's been doing this version of himself and what he makes for so long, it's very easy to say, "Oh, I don't know his story." I do encourage folks to do that because that's why this whole thing exists. And that matters again because we've all suffered in some way and we've all got some hole to dig out of. And the ways to address that for ourselves and then maybe help some folks along the way are manifold. It's incredible. Or like my friend put it, congratulations, now you write a term paper every week for the rest of your life, which sent me into a bit of a hole.

(01:00:57):

You have no time on your hands, but what is a book you've read this year that's either opened your mind to a topic or idea you hadn't considered before or has actually changed your thinking in some way? We throw them all up on bookshop.

Joanne Molinaro (01:01:07):

Well, I've definitely been ruminating a lot on James Clear and his book Atomic Habits. And there's a reason it's been the number one New York Times bestseller for-

Quinn (01:01:16):

For years. Yeah.

Joanne Molinaro (01:01:18):

Every week I'm like, oh, it's James again. And now I follow him on Instagram and so he's constantly doing these posts that are little excerpts from his book. And I will say, his ideas of failure, goal setting and what my husband calls the moving goal posts in my own life and applying, not science per se, but certainly the scientific method to understanding human behavior, even if it is on a somewhat anecdotal basis. I think that is very helpful because it's so concrete and it's also really soothing as somebody who's a little bit obsessed with avoiding and preventing failure. The notions that James Clear writes about and how to redefine success. So that failure actually becomes almost a critical component of that formula has been really mind blowing to me. It's something that I'm continuing to think about. I actually quoted him and David Goggins another person that I really enjoy following on Instagram and listening to, again, just because mental toughness is always something that I aspire to, but the way they describe it in a way that's much more accessible than I think people realize is really important.

Quinn (01:02:38):

I love that. And you're not the first guest to have brought up David Goggins. And I'm aware, and I can tell you my association there later, but again, it's easy to look at David's most recent Instagram videos and just be like, look at this person who shaped a perfect person is shaped basically, because they've carved themself that way and not understand his story, which holy shit, I mean talk about mental toughness, but again, overcoming something that's near impossible and that really does matter. And I appreciate you mentioning moving goalposts and all things like that because we're all dealing with it every day. It's just never good enough, but it is, and it can be. You just set yourself up for that and understand that failure is important. Again, something I try to impart to my children every day. Every day. When they don't pick up their clothing ever. Anyways. Joanne, this has been fantastic. Where can people find all of your things?

Joanne Molinaro (01:03:30):

Yeah. It's very easy. I go by The Korean Vegan basically everywhere, so you can find The Korean Vegan on Spotify and all the podcasting places. You can find The Korean Vegan on the internet@thekoreanvegan.com. And then of course, all of my social media handles on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter are @theKoreanVegan, so I make it very easy.

Quinn (01:03:54):

Well done. Our Twitter handle is importantnotimp, because there's not enough characters.

Joanne Molinaro (01:04:02):

Well, fortunately I picked a very descriptive handle.

Quinn (01:04:08):

I mean marketing 101. It's done.

Joanne Molinaro (01:04:11):

But yours is memorable.

Quinn (01:04:14):

It's very kind of you. Nice try. Joanne, we're going to get you out of here. Thank you so much for this time, which you'll never get back, and for all that you do. I really, really appreciate it. You have nourished my family and I and our friends and we're going to keep passing that on. And the space you have very purposefully and worked hard and been through a lot to carve out is very meaningful and helpful to a lot of folks so thank you. Thank

Joanne Molinaro (01:04:38):

You very much. It was such a pleasure chatting with you this morning.

Quinn (01:04:44):

That's it for today. Important, Not Important is hosted by me, Quinn Emmett. It is produced by Willow Beck. It is edited by Anthony Luciani and the music is by Tim Blaine. You can read our critically claimed newsletter and get notified about new podcast conversations at importantnotimportant.com. We've got fantastic t-shirts, hoodies, it's fall, coffee mugs and more at importantnotimportant.com/store. Twitter, it's called, until it dies, @QuinnEmmett or @ImportantNotImp. I'm also on LinkedIn and you can search my name or Important, Not Important. You can send us feedback or questions or guest suggestions or recipes to me on Twitter or at questions@importantnotimportant.com. And if you're interested in sponsoring the show, we have a high bar, but please go to /sponsors for more information. All that's in your show notes and your links. Thanks so much for listening. Have a great day.