'It's feel-good food': Olivia Rodrigo flexes lumpia cooking skills
She cooks, too!
For one afternoon, Filipino-American singer Olivia Rodrigo swapped the microphone for a chopping board to make chicken lumpia on Vogue's Now Serving series on YouTube.
"It's just feel-good food," Rodrigo described the Pinoy favorite dish. "My grandma used to make them for Thanksgiving every year. So that was probably my first introduction to lumpia."
"They're really delicious, and savory, and kind of greasy in the best way," the good 4 u singer added.
Giving a bigger glimpse into her kitchen skills, Rodrigo explained that cooking is a challenge for her. But she's working on it.
"I'm an okay baker. But cooking is really hard for me because I have terrible cutting skills. When people taste soup and they're like, 'Oh, it needs a little bit more rosemary,' I'm lost. If it's not on the recipe, I don't know what's going on," Rodrigo said.
As she cut onions, shaped the lumpia, and made an accompanying drink, Paloma, Rodrigo talked about her upcoming album, which is reportedly dropping in a few months.
"I really want to figure out a way to write about joy in this album. I feel like my last two albums are very, rightfully so, angsty and heartbroken," the singer said.
Rodrigo added, though, that it's sad love songs that get her going. "In music, my favorite love songs are love songs that are a little bit sad or have a little bit of wistfulness or mourning or fear."
Rodrigo has released two studio pop albums so far: Sour in 2021 and Guts in 2023.
As she spoke, she kept her hands busy. Soon, she was shaping the lumpia.
"I'm just trying to shape them as uniformly as I possibly can, but it doesn't always work out that way. But it's okay because it's made with love," Rodrigo said.
Rodrigo is known for the songs Driver's License, Good 4 U, Deja Vu, Traitor, Brutal, among others. Prior to her singing career, she was an actress, having risen to prominence in Disney's Bizaardvark and High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.
In October 2024, she had her homecoming trip to the Philippines for her GUTS concert.
"I had just never been to the Philippines and I wasn’t born there. I don’t speak Tagalog very well. I kind of had a chip on my shoulder like, 'Oh gosh, I hope that they accept me and they see me as a Filipino and I’m a source of pride for them,'" she said in an interview with ELLE Magazine. "I always wanted that to be the case. And then being able to go there and visit and just see how warmly they embraced me and welcomed me, it really meant so much to me."
