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So in 2018, she began posting stories about her family onInstagram, hoping to spark compassion in others.

Photo representing Korean tofu stew.

Joanne Lee Molinaro became vegan and gained a deeper appreciation of Korean culture.

At the time, Molinaro already had a vegan food-based Instagram account with more than 10,000 followers.

In one, Molinaro shares the time her grandparents nearly murdered her mom as a babyall while makingsmores.

Now Molinaro has a cookbook, three million TikTok followers, and even more appreciation for Korean food.

I started a relationship with my now husband, Anthony, in 2014.

Korean cuisine has plenty of veggie-centric food, but many dishes include seafood and ingredients like fish sauce.

I started by just learning about Korean food and then thought of ways to make them vegan.

I spent a lot of time in my moms kitchen asking her, How do you make this?

Why did you use that?

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One of the first things I veganized was sundubu-jjigae, which is a tofu stew.

So that one has a lot of sentimental meaning to me.

Miyuk guk, which is seaweed soup, is another special dish for me.

and How do you make the seaweed so soft?

I thought it would never come out, and I was about to throw it all away.

I remember dumping it into the garbage and noticing that it looked so beautiful.

I tried some and thought, Oh, now it finally tastes like kimchi.

How do you have pride in something if you dont actually know it?

So I did even more research.

I looked up why there are so many kinds of soy sauce, and why some were gluten-free.

I read about the process of fermenting soy sauce.

Now I can pick up the phone and ask them about anything.

They feel seen by their own daughter in a way that I never gave to them before.

In that way, our relationship is infinitely better than it ever was.

My mom, the women in my family, and I are all closer now.

My aunt used some kind of meat alternative instead of braised short ribs and it was mind-blowing.

I never even heard of anything like that before.

I have developed more pride in being Korean while also learning so much more about my culture.

I never would have learned what my grandparents went through and their escape from North Korea.

My familys stories would have been lost.