219: Emma Lovewell

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. One thing that was surprising was I thought I was going to be eating a lot more ramen than I did. Our guide was like, ramen's kind of like, like if you were to take a girl on her first date to ramen, that would be like taking her to McDonald's. And I was like, what? You're listening to The Taste Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Rodbar.

0:59Emma Lovewell is a star instructor at Peloton and a driving force for fitness and inspiration for millions. Now, Emma is our favorite instructor. Yes, I do rank my favorite instructors, and she's certainly number one. And we have a lot of fun with her in the studio talking about her gardening skills, what she likes to cook, and what she likes to eat before and after she teaches her classes. We also go over some of her favorite New York City restaurants. Lastly, we talk about her great new book, Live, Learn, Love Well, Lessons from a Life of Progress, Not Perfection. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Emma Lovewell.

1:39Emma Lovewell, welcome to the Taste Podcast. Thank you for having me. You know, I ride with you. I ride with you. I am like not, we were just talking off mic, I'm more into the running now. like in nature running. That's awesome. No, no, thank you. I appreciate you not being like, yo, get on the bike. Get back on the bike, Matt. Get back. As long as you're feeling good and you're moving your body, I think it's great. So my ranking is this Cody three, Toonday two, you one. Are you just saying that? I'm not just saying that because honestly, there's some like Jess King, I did a live ride, not my favorite.

2:12So I can say other people don't I don't vibe with, but I just love your energy. Your workouts are hard. And you're cool. Oh, thank you. Thanks. I'm paying him under the table for saying that right now. I just slipped him a$20 bill. No, and I've gotten to know you a little bit in the office, and you're really just as you are on mic. And I just want to get from the jump. Listeners are probably interested in Peloton, but I also want to talk about your book because your book, Live, Learn, Love Well, is your memoir. It is your story, and it's so well written. Thank you. So nice work there. Thank you so much.

2:45I appreciate it. It's scary having my first book out, but here we are. No. So, okay. So let me ask you just first, like how fucking cool is the job? Like working with so many like millions of people every day, getting into their homes and inspiring them to sweat their ass off. Well, let me say, I mean, I've had some pretty cool like gigs, I'll say, but this is the coolest job I've had. And it's also the most stressful job I've had, I have to say. Like it's high pressure, high stakes. and we all take it very seriously, but I get to work with some incredible people. My coworkers, fellow instructors are amazing.

3:24Yeah. They push me to be better. Like they're just the best teammates. Do you have like a favorite? No. I mean, I have like different relationships with anybody, but I can say, you know, we just, we had a instructor summit recently, so we all got to spend so much time together and just having all that energy in one room was so energizing and a little exhausting at times too because we have such strong personalities. But everybody's so themselves. And it's so cool to see. That's great. Let me ask you about the workouts because I think when we're on the bike riding, you know, it feels like it's an effortless thing.

3:57You're just like riding. But do you like write your workout? How does that work exactly? Yeah, totally. So, I mean, I teach strength classes as well. Exactly. Of course. You don't just bike. Yep. And cycling. So they look a little bit differently. But I'm big into music. I'm big into my playlist. So a lot of the times if I'm teaching like a 90s ride or 90s rock, I'm really focusing on the songs that I'm just wanting to play that I like, you know, oh, man, I forgot about this track. I want to throw this in there. So it starts with a playlist. If it's a music first class. But if I'm teaching like a hit and hills class, then no.

4:27Then I start with the program first. So that's why it's a little bit different depending on what I'm doing. But so, yeah, with the music first, I pick the music and then I try to fit the workout in to kind of go with the music. and then vice versa the other way around. Yeah. And so before you jump on, it's a live ride. I mean, do you know the beats and you like see the map ahead of time? So yeah, we have this great software. It's like a proprietary software that kind of looks like Spotify. We have music that we have licensed to that we can use. So it's not like we're picking music that we don't have the rights to.

5:01And we get to write in our notes. It tells us our BPM. We write in, I want to do, you know, intervals here, 30 on, 30 off. We're going to do a Tabata section here. This is a climb here. I write all of that stuff down. So I'm looking at it when I'm teaching class. So you write that like separately in like your notes before you hit the bike. Yeah. Now, are you ever like, nah, I don't want to ride today when you have a class scheduled at 11? Are you ever like 10? Yeah. Yeah, of course. I'm like, I don't want to do this. I would rather, you know, sit outside in the sun or like watch a movie. Or like be on your phone on the bike like before you hit play moment.

5:35it no but i i i have a process like okay i was talking to ali love this morning about it was like we only have one button it's the go button there's no option to like not do it so you just do it yeah yeah and um you you make it work and i so i have you know a routine of just like having my bottle of water i put electrolytes in it like i do a little like breathing moment kind of getting myself centered before i get in there have a little bit of an idea maybe what i want to talk about in pre-show and then during the class like having a theme um but yeah i mean there's sometimes where i'm tired i'm not feeling great or whatnot but you we just do it you just do it and then you end and then so you feel as good as we feel on the bike yeah yeah i love that and then sometimes my best classes are the ones where i felt like crap but then they ended up just being super fun or i made it really hard because i was like yeah not feeling good for some reason are Are you guys competitive about how many active riders are on the rides?

6:33Not really. I think, you know, the majority of people take everything on demand. So in my mind, the amount of live riders is not. It doesn't. I mean, it's cool to know, like, you know, we have, I think the highest number was in Robin's Turkey Burn ride. I think we had like over 50 ,000 live riders at the time. I think that might be the. That's cool. But like when it's like historical, you can see how many have taken it. That's cool. That's cool to see. It is. You're at like the top. Me? It seems, yeah. Okay, thanks. All right. We got to talk a little bit about food because we obviously talk, that's our show, but we have introduced a lot of guests who maybe aren't in the food world.

7:10But upon reading your book and just like knowing your website, we'll get into the recipes that you create on your website, which I think are dope. But like before you're riding, you talked about the electrolytes in the water. Is there any like food routine? Like are you hitting a bar? Are you not eating anything before you ride? I'm not eating before I ride because. I mean, listen, I have, and I can tell you from firsthand experience, I don't recommend it. You know, but it's personal preference. Like Cody Rigsby eats like three tacos before he teaches a class. Cody's Tamar, my wife, who's a, I think it's Cody, I think it's Cody, you, Tunde, and then probably Dennis for her.

7:48Yeah. She likes Dennis. Oh, yeah. Yeah. People love Dennis. They love all of them. You're taking this so in stride when I'm like actually ranking people. I'm sorry. You can't do that. But they're all amazing. You're being very cool about it. And it's really dependent on the person because – I know. You know what I find interesting too is when somebody tells me who their favorite people are and the way they group them. Because if someone says like, okay, you and Cody, I get it. I'm like, okay, we have – we teach a very different class, but we have – You're like New York cool. You're like New York cool.

8:15No, but then when somebody says, I like your classes, Matt Wilpers, and Bradley Rose from the UK. And I'm like, okay, what does that say about the person? Like, I think somebody needs to do, like, a test that's, like, this is what it says about you, depending on, like, which three instructors you pick. If BuzzFeed has not done that, they must have done that. No, I think they need to. Yo, let's get it. All right. Shalee, I'm putting you on the spot. Do you have a top three? So, oddly, that is my top three. No way. What I just said? Yeah, it's, like, you and I do, like, Power Zone with Matt. And then, like, I love, like, Bradley because he introduced, like, a bunch of, like, indie rides.

8:55And he's so sweet. No, that is my. That's so funny. I just randomly picked those three. Yeah. So if you figure out what that means, please get back to me. No, it's cool. So back to the food. So you're not eating before. Okay. But maybe like a banana. If I, because sometimes. That banana's good. You don't want to have like too much liquid. You don't want to have like smoothies. Not. I mean, listen, like pandemic. I'm like having smoothies before rides yet. Not good. No, not great. And then also not like, I don't know, a salad is like. It just like sits in your stomach. I don't know. There's like certain things like like a yogurt's probably cool.

9:30Yeah. Yeah. Yogurt's cool. Now, when but when you're done, I mean, you're out in Hudson Yards. Do you like have I want to get into some favorite restaurants in New York. We'll get to that when we get to the New York section. But just after a ride, you have a routine where you eat something. Yeah. Well, actually, my amazing assistant is here and she made this is a new thing because I was like, I am so hungry after a ride. And so we've like it's in my calendar now. where like she'll send me like avocado toast or like an egg wrap often in the morning or like a chicken wrap sandwich so that immediately after class I have sustenance.

10:08And honestly, it's like the best thing that I've ever added into my daily routine. Shout to Emily for making that happen. For making that happen. It's like so small, but so important because what happens is you teach class and you end up getting pulled into something else and then you're on your emails and you're answering and they're like, wait, I haven't eaten. It's been an hour and I need to like, yeah, I need to replenish. You're getting hangry, dude. No, I totally, I get very hangry. So now like today, for example, I got pulled into a meeting, but I had my sandwich with me. And so I was like, y 'all, I'm going to take this meeting, but you're going to watch me eat.

10:40You're going to watch me eat an egg white and an avocado wrap. You get that like protein halo feeling after a workout when you just hit some protein. Yeah. I mean, I it's, you need it. Now, we will get to the restaurant part, but I want to back up and talk about your garden. Gardening, and you write about this in your book, your mother is a gardener by profession. She's a professional gardener. And we're approaching spring and summer. Just high level first, like why gardening? What draws you to the garden? Yeah. So I talk about this a little bit in my book, too. It's just my relationship with gardening has changed over time because definitely as a kid, I was a little bit embarrassed by it or just thought it was weird because not all my friends did it.

11:20But my parents were like thrifty and like to live off the land. We went fishing for our food, for seafood. You know, we went clamming and crabbing. And my parents were like, we're growing vegetables. Like this is, you know, Martha's Vineyard is expensive. Yeah. And so we would grow our food and we would compost and we would do all the hippie stuff. And then as I got older, I started loving it because it was nostalgic and reminded me of home and it gave me some comfort. And now, you know, there's different types of gardening. Like there's definitely like a bougier type of gardening you can do. You can hire a gardener to come and just like, you know, and my mom's a gardener.

11:56So, you know, there'll be people that are like, I want when I come to the vineyard in August, I want a ripe red tomato growing from. And your mom is in charge. She like will handle. She's like, sure. this will be perfectly ready for you. It'll be August 16th and it'll be a perfectly ripe cherry tomato for you to pick. So then you feel like you, this is your garden and you grew up. So she does this professionally for clients. She has like, she manages. Mostly flower gardens though. There are a few that want like herbs and stuff, but it's mostly flowers. But anyway, so now I garden and I love it.

12:28And there's just, it's so therapeutic for me to like put my hands in the dirt, to just put my phone down and just like listen to the birds and nurture something and watch it grow. And I swear the vegetables that you grow yourself, when you eat them, there is nothing that tastes more rewarding than vegetables that you grow. I had a garden for a couple of years on a farm and you get the first cherry tomato. It's super bomb. Now, you live now in more rural part of New York. So you were in the city for a while. So when you had that first garden, what was that like? So yeah, I was living in the East Village.

13:02Shout out, we'll talk about that. Yeah, we had this, I looked out my back window and there was this empty cement cement area with like the trash cans, you know, but I was like, this has great sunlight. And I just went down there and I was like, I started like plotting. And my partner, Dave, we had we were like newly in our relationship. And I was like, I kind of enrolled him to help me. And he was like, sure, I'll help you. And we built these garden boxes. I got you know Poland spring gallon or 10 gallon bottles and cut the tops off and like filled those. So you were doing all like water can style.

13:39There's no. Yeah. No. So then there was no. So I didn't realize that at first. We like set up this whole thing and I was like shit there's no hose. So I was walking up two flights of stairs carrying buckets of water up and down. But it was cool. I have pictures like it's it's a it's funky. It's like, you know, tomatoes are growing up the fire escape. And, like, it's just, it's cool. So when you're there in the East Village, are you yielding anything? Yeah, yeah. Are you actually cooking for it? So we got a bunch of peppers. It was hot. So the cement made everything so hot. So I'll say tomatoes, peppers, basils, like, thrived.

14:13Super hot. It was so hot. Yeah, hot house style. Now let's talk about the East Village, though. Like, you're living there. I live there as well. Like, I mean, are you, like, there for a while? Are you like part of the neighborhood? Yeah, I loved it. I loved these. I had two different apartments in the East Village. So I lived there for probably, you know, you move apartments like every year or two in New York. So I probably lived there for three years-ish. Where were the spots? Oh, so I loved Minka for Japanese ramen. That was really good. There was a place called B &C Cafe. I don't know if you ever went there.

14:46I don't know if it's still there. Great breakfast. Yeah. Just like potatoes and eggs. Avenue A? Avenue A. Yeah. Yeah. I know it. Yeah. And then Tompkins Square Bagels. You just get a bagel. You know what? I love that place. That place doesn't get that much press. No, and they don't toast the bagel. So if you ask, they're like horrified. They're like, we do not toast our bagel. Yo, what's your bagel order? What are you doing? Oh, okay. For a long time, it was everything bagel, scowling cream cheese with a tomato on it. Excellent. Without toasted. So it's all. But it's not toasted because it's warm.

15:22It just came out of the oven. Scal, everything. It's got texture and allium. Love that order. Yeah, it's a good one. Sprinkle a little salt on the tomato. Salt on the tomato. I'm into that. What about bars? That's like a great bar neighborhood. Yeah, no, there are a lot of bars. There's the Ace Bar that's got a bunch of games and stuff. You can play Duck Hunter. Yeah, that was a good one. I can't remember. What else? Yeah, we're going into East Village, you know, archives here. Now, I just have to ask back to upstate where you're living in New York, the garden, how's the garden looking right now?

16:00I mean, we're basically approaching like spring planting season. So have you put anything in the ground yet? Yes. So I've been amending the soil. I've been composting for the last year. So I'm hoping the soil is happy. And I put snow peas seeds in the other day, spinach seeds. and yeah I'm just waiting for it to get like a little bit warmer before I put more things in but I'm like gearing it up it is you never eat literally it could snow at any moment I know and like then you're it's like sad town so yeah so you've got the snow peas in now what's the game plan for the year then I mean are you gonna are you playing around with anything new this year oh anything new um I know nothing I don't think what are the goat cucumbers I love like the Japanese cucumbers that have like small seeds in them and all you know yeah um I love making like an Asian cucumber salad yeah um and and so I have these like trellises in my garden so I'm hoping to like grow the snow peas up the trellis and then string beans up the trellis so you walk under it and then you can just like yeah pull off you know it's a very like a Super Bowl ad for something related to a garden?

17:11I was, yeah. I'm like remembering Scott's lawn care. It was like me, Martha Stewart, and Low-key. Low-key. Best. I know. Like, wow. You and Martha doing Scott's? That's cool. It was cool. We didn't get to meet each other, though, because we didn't film on the same day. So I'm just going to put this out there. I'd really love to hang out with Martha, so if you're listening. I gotta believe she has a bike. Do you think so? I don't know if she rides it, but it's definitely, I mean, because she's the kind of person She has aesthetics and I think if she had any kind of workout gym, she had to have a Peloton.

17:43That's true. In the corner. That's true. Like it would not be right for her. Right. No, you're right. Yeah. Do you have any celebs on your phone or on like who you know like ride with you? I mean like there's some great athletes that I know ride like Michael Phelps rides. You know, Russell Wilson rides. Like, you know, there's some amazing Olympians. But yeah, there's a ton of musicians. I love when I like play an artist and then they reach out to me and they're like, thanks for playing my song. Oh, my God. Give me one example. There's got to be one that comes to mind. I mean, OK, well, Debbie Gibson, if you're like in 80s.

18:20Yeah. She we're like besties now. We message, you know, back and forth every once in a while. Does she do it by Deborah or Debbie or Deb? Debbie. Yeah. But we like did an Instagram live together. That's fun. She's so sweet. And that's like my childhood right there. I was like, what? Oh, I mean, absolutely me too. Were you a NaNo2 and O fan? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we're that – that's like my witness. That's like where you are in the culture. I was probably like a little young to be watching it, to be honest. Is this cool? I know. We're like the geriatric millennials. Yeah. We can vibe like that. All right.

18:53I want to get into your newsletter because there's a component of it that I really connect with, which is the recipes. Yeah, thanks. Yeah, you're welcome. It's because, you know, you think about someone who's very busy, you know, you got a newsletter, and then you can maybe do like one recipe every month. but you are actually doing a lot. I love the tamarind chili. That was cool. Thank you. How do you get inspired to write these recipes? Yeah. I don't know. So 2015, I started my website, live, learn, love, well.com. And I started it because I decided to not eat sugar for a month for some reason.

19:23I was just like, let's just do this weird experiment. And I want to write about it. So I'm just going to create this blog and just start writing. So that's where it started. That's cool that you just like started a blog. I mean, you just wanted to get writing. You know, at the time, it was like blogs were the thing. And I was like, I'm just going to do this. And then it's totally evolved. So now I have tons of recipes on the site. I have travel, like lifestyle tips, shopping guides, all these different things on it. But so I tried to, and then I started my newsletter. It's probably the most consistent thing I've ever done in my life is like send a newsletter once a month for the last like seven years or something.

19:54It's a great feeling when you have that consistency, right? Consistency is everything. Yeah. As a fitness professional and a human, I can say that this is true. It's so true. Like definitely what you say to your followers. Yeah. Inconsistent. Yeah, having a practice. So I was doing it by myself for a long time, but now I have a team. As I said, my assistant Emily and I have a great other writer, Thomas, who helps me specifically with my recipes. And so what it looks like is we'll get on a team call and I love, you know, just paying attention to, yes, personally, what am I eating and also what's in season?

20:27What am I growing? If it's anything, what's kind of trending right now? I'm seeing a lot of, you know, cacio pepe, like people are loving this or like kale salads are like so big right now. You know, kind of going through the things that people are doing and then we'll try them ourselves. I love it. We did an article on Taste like a few years ago. It was called Cacio Pepe Everything. It's everything. Trader Joe's is cacio pepe popcorn. Yeah, totally popcorn. Yeah, it's definitely part of the zeitgeist. Can I say that I think it's really just adult macaroni and cheese? You are so right. I totally agree with you.

21:01It's the elder millennial being nostalgic for their 90s Kraft mac and cheese. Yeah, but we can't do it because we're a little too old. And we have a little more refined taste now. Definitely. So we're going to put a lot more pepper in it. Yeah, right. We can like handle the pepper now. When we were like seven, we couldn't handle pepper. No. Right. Nice call. Are you cooking yourself at home a lot? I mean, you're busy, but do you hit the stove a bit? I do. I kind of go through waves, though. When I'm really busy, I'll all of a sudden be like, wow, I'm not cooking a lot right now. Yeah. Do you feel bummed out about that?

21:31I do because I like cooking and I know it's good for me. And so then I'll go through a time where I'm like really cooking a lot. And it's usually because I'm like, okay, maybe I'll like cook a chicken. And then all of a sudden I have these like leftover chicken. So then I'm making chicken salad and then I'm taking the bones from the chicken and making the broth and I'm making soup. And so it's just like one thing kind of inspires the next. And I love that because then I get so creative with it. True. But especially in the spring when I have like in summer when I have fresh herbs and fresh vegetables and stuff, that is like so inspiring.

22:01It like makes itself sometimes when you pull it from the garden. I'm like, great, this is what I'm eating. Let's talk about Taiwan. Your mom grew up there and you write about it extensively in your book, which is part of your identity, you know, and I wanted to get into your travels through Taiwan and some of the food that maybe you've encountered in Taiwan. Oh, yeah. The food there is so good. Yeah, right. I mean, the island, it's just an island nation. Yeah. Just up the tip of China. Yeah. And it's in the news a lot. You know, there's a lot of geopolitics. It's like where most of the electronics are made.

22:27You went to a Peloton factory there. Yeah. So, yeah, this was a few years ago. And so my mom's from Taiwan, but we've never gone as a family. I had never been. And so we finally booked the trip. My mom, my brother and I, my sister-in-law and my nephew, who was nine months at the time, and just like stole the hearts of everybody, literally like flirting with every single waitress. And like everybody was just like swooning over him. And he was eating everything. So it was hilarious. like spicy, like anything. He was just eating it. Good young man there. Oh yeah. Yeah. So, um, it's split in half that Northern half of Taiwan is subtropical.

23:01The Southern half is tropical, just like straight up. You feel like you're in Hawaii, like volcanoes, like black sand and turquoise water. Um, but it's funny cause you know, culturally people don't just like go to the beach and lay on the beach. So we would like, we went surfing like the, I mean, I low key don't want to say this, but like the surfing is amazing in Taiwan. No, it is. And it's definitely like part of the culture there there's a surf culture and surf food yeah oh my god so we'd surf and then we'd get like bao buns and like a cold coconut and i'm like this is the best after surf snack you could ever oh so good um but then the fruit like tropical fruit was so good like yeah the dumplings you know bubble tea originated in taiwan so we got a lot of bubble tea but like the good stuff not like no the like more um chemically yeah tasting stuff like the really good stuff there yeah yeah uh beef noodle soup is a you know a big popular taiwanese dish um so yeah we we ate well yeah for sure did you go to taipei in the cities too so we went to taipei right and then we traveled kind of all the way around and then we went to tai chong where we had a a peloton factory and they were amazing they had like a huge sign welcoming me with my face on it that was like welcome wow and that's like perfect for like a photo op oh yeah i have a photo yeah Yeah, for sure.

24:17And like my mom was so proud. And, you know, in the culture, you really respect your elders. So my mom was like the queen, you know, like she sat at the head of the table. Everybody was making sure she was comfortable. She had everything she needed. So my mom was like totally glowing the whole time because she was just so proud. So let me ask you, when you're in the factory, are like the workers, do they know who you are? Are they like aware or is it just kind of like not really? I think they were told, but it was cool. And I have to say, speaking about gardening and the Peloton factory, the employees get a communal garden space on the top of the factory.