It’s inevitable these days that a conversation with Lisa Loeb is going to circle back to food. Sure, she’s a once-and-perhaps-future pop star and, more recently, an actress and reality-TV maven who even opened up her search for love and personal fulfillment to E!’s unblinking cameras a couple years ago. But lately she’s been devoting more and more of her time to the pursuit of culinary bliss – both as a consumer and as a creator.
In 2004 she toured the nation sampling regional dishes with her then-boyfriend, Dweezil Zappa, for a Food Network series; this past year she showed off her talents in the kitchen to charming effect on the Epicurious website. A week ago she got married, to Late Night with Conan O’Brien music supervisor Roey Hershkovitz (whom she met after the aforementioned reality series, #1 Single, had wrapped), and the wedding announcement in the New York Times read as a history of their relationship from the food’s point of view – from the brunch where they met to the “sad shrimp quesadilla” over which they briefly broke up, and on to the black pasta and champagne over which he proposed last November.
Thus, a discussion of her marriage and impending move to Los Angeles (when Conan trades coasts next fall) quickly turned into a trade-off of restaurant recommendations and a discussion of our mutual love for Ethiopian food. It all seemed very far removed from the mac-and-cheese and salisbury-steak vibe of Reality Bites and Loeb’s biggest pop moment, the #1 single “Stay (I Missed You)” in 1994.
During this decade she has made as many albums of children’s music as she has proper studio albums (two apiece); last year she released Camp Lisa, a delightful set of camp-related songs that run the gamut from campfire sing-alongs like “Home on the Range” to original tunes about meeting new friends, rainy days and saying goodbye. (She even begins the set with “Ready for the Summer,” the theme from Meatballs.) Proceeds from the album are going to the Camp Lisa Foundation, which is helping to provide underprivileged children nationwide with access to summer-camp experiences.
Loeb currently has a number of irons in the fire for 2009, from a line of fashion eyewear (her cat glasses have always been a key element of her style) to several more kid-oriented projects, and even an album of music for grown-ups. Still, considering recent events, only one question seemed appropriate as an opener. (more…)
