- Do you guys have anybody that you go like,
"Oh, well this would be my love out there
and this would be mine."
'cause I think I heard a rumor
that maybe we might have the same
- Crush. - Person out there
in the world who really does it for us.
- I wanna hear, who?
- Is it Mr. Letterman?
Oh, my gosh. (laughs)
- For real? - Yes.
- No. - See, I told you.
- This is so strange. - Our third date,
I told him. - David Letterman.
- [Joanna] 100% David Letterman.
- So have you ever met Mr. Letterman?
- I haven't.
- Do you like wonder what Mr. Letterman
would think of Joanna Gaines?
- I don't know if he would know Joanna Gaines.
(Chip laughs)
- Emma, would you please roll the tape?
(Joanna gasps)
- Joanna, whoa, I'm overwhelmed by your interest
and attention in what I used to refer to as a career.
(David and Joanna laughing)
- See? - And thanks for watching me.
- I know. - You'd probably
be the only one.
- No. (laughs) - Anyway,
gosh, I wish I could be there with you in Texas.
I'm in Hawaii right now.
I'm learning to surf, (Joanna and Chip laughing)
having a lot of fun.
I hope to see you in person one day, Joanna.
Thank you very much for everything.
- Yay! (Chip clapping)
- That's a dream come true. - Yay!
What? - Drew and David in one day.
I'm done. - You rat.
- What, again, I'm talking like Oprah and Martha
and a very few select group of people
who have been able to achieve having your own network,
having your own magazine,
having, I mean, you guys are taking over the world.
You're doing it.
Congratulations. - Oh, thanks.
- And thank you (Chip and Joanna laughing)
'cause you have made the world a better place
from this town inside out to the rest of the globe.
- [Chip] Thank you.
- Did any of that seem like the goal?
- Ironically, you were in commercials,
so it's like there was some draw
for you in a way. - Well, I always thought
I'd be a broadcast journalist.
- Yeah.
- But not in a... - Working with Dan Rather,
- But not in a spontaneous, like
- Reality television. - Reality.
It was really, I want a teleprompter.
You need to help me with what I'm gonna say.
- Sure. - In that moment,
'cause I'm the type, at that news desk
if that teleprompter goes out, I have nothing to say.
I'm like uh, I freeze.
And so for me, a lot of just my past and being half Korean
like I built up a lot of walls
just being made fun of in the school room,
you know, stuff like that.
So what happened, is I would put up a lot of walls
and I would let the world only see this side of me
because I was like, maybe what's back here isn't good.
You know, I processed that
and dealt with that as a little girl.
So now I'm in New York City, internship,
and then when I started working at that real job,
I started realizing at the same time,
when I'd go back home in my apartment in New York,
I would start writing.
I would just write.
And all of a sudden what was coming out
are things from kindergarten, first grade, second grade
like all those moments of pain.
And I started playing this game with myself, like,
hey all those moments of pain,
how do we turn that into beauty?
And I kind of started this healing process
as a 21 year old woman in New York City.
I was so lonely.
I was doing a job, but I was like,
I don't think I wanna do this anymore.
But as I started doing that job,
but I would come home and work on myself,
by the time I left New York City,
I didn't wanna do that anymore
because I started really loving
who was coming out in that healing process.
- So the walls came down and the self realization
rose to the top - It rose to the top.
And I was like, wait, my story is incredible.
I love that I'm half, I love my mother's culture.
I started embracing it and saying,
"If you don't like me 'cause of that,
that's, I'm sorry, but this is who I am."
- And your mother is Korean.
- She's Korean.
- Your father met her in the war.
- He was stationed there.
- German and Lebanese.
- Yes.
- Do you, you know, that is your heritage.
Do you bring your children into it?
- Yes. - You found your pride,
your parents.
How do you honor that heritage?
- Well, thankfully my mother lives here in Waco with us
and so one of the things, anytime we get together,
she's always making Korean food.
And since all of my kids were tiny,
like 10 months when they started eating soup,
grandma's food was their favorite.
She would make all this Korean soup.
They eat seaweed.
Like they would take seaweed to lunch.
So, my kids don't look Korean,
but when you look at their lunch boxes,
you're like, wait what?
So, I feel like they love that side.
They love grandma and all that she really stands for.
So for me, it's so important that...
- I feel a cookbook coming. (Johanna and Chip laugh)
- I know, I wish. - You and your mom.
- I'm actually getting my Korean aunt.
- That's amazing, yes.
She did an episode with me here during the cooking show.
But I'm trying to get her to come back down
for two weeks and teach me all the things.
My mother wasn't, her mother was a really great cook.
And then my mom kind of was like,
"Oh, I missed a lot of that along the way."
So my aunt, I'm trying to get her here to teach me.
- But who better than you to take
your family's culinary heritage.
and matriculate it into a cook book.
Everyone would, - Come up.
- You know, open your horizons.
(upbeat theme music)