Sophia Roe is serving food for thought. A James Beard award-winning chef, writer and Emmy-nominated TV host, Roe’s aim is to bring diversity and inclusivity to the world of food. When she began working in the culinary world over a decade ago, she found herself standing out in the white male-dominated space – which still remains the case. Looking for alternative avenues, she went online and created Counter Space, a multi-layered, community-based channel filled with wellbeing tips, tantalising recipes and decoded cultural discussions – slicing complex topics such as climate change and sustainability into digestible chunks: one episode hones in on food as a tool of protest, while another discusses systemic racism across global food networks. Working out of her Bushwick loft – which she’s named Apartment Miso – Roe’s voice is a rarity in the culinary world: fun, accessible, equal. With this comes a diverse crowd of fans and viewers, one of which is highly-acclaimed Swedish musician Lykke Li, whose practice mirrors Roe’s; two artists building worlds with a sense of freedom, self-expression and artistic discovery.

Sophia Roe: Where are you right now?

Lykke Li: I’m in my living room. It’s pouring down rain and I just dropped off my oldest son – I’m in life mode.
SR: I get it, I just braised some cabbage. [laughs] So the Grammys just happened, do you care about them?

LL: No, not at all. My value is art, not commerce so much. But we did watch it. When I watch it, I’m really like, “Ah, this country, it’s commerce for real.” If I was a big artist, I would definitely boycott it.
SR: A lot do – and we saw that. To your point, I think it is a commerce situation. I consider myself very much an artist, not a chef, chef is just in there. I’m always think ing in food, you know? Is it the same for you with music?

LL: I think about beauty in the sense of… I spend a lot of time just laying on the floor, looking at angles. I think a lot about creating worlds. That’s what I’m doing when I’m making music. It’s this world that has to be beautiful. But I’m also obsessed with food.
SR: I love to hear that. Beauty is so much a part of food, too. I guess I’m always thinking about fantasy. So much in food is different now post-2020, I think people are finally letting things not make so much sense. In the past, there was a way you make your mayonnaise and a way that a cake should look, and that is so bizarre to me. Also, food is the only art you hope disappears – you want it to be gone. You serve it to someone hoping that you get brought back an empty plate, so why not make it as fantastical as possible? I think there are some challenges with that sometimes because the industry of culinary… the sort of oligarchs of the culinary world hold very stringent ideas of what constitutes a cake, what it should look like and how we should eat it. You know what I mean?

LL: It’s archaic.
SR: I guess it’s changing. Do you feel like that in your industry? Do you feel like it’s getting better? Do you feel like you have actual control of what you make?

LL: I don’t really see myself as being a part of the industry. When I was maybe twenty or twenty one there was a potential for me to become commercially successful. But I kept on going left. I really only do what I want, and that’s always kind of been the case.
SR: That’s so great, I feel the same about myself. A lot of people wanted me to come out with a cook-book three years ago, and I’m fucking so glad I didn’t because my perspective was not what it is now. I’m a regular at not doing what my team wants me to do, but it’s because I’m not ready or I want to do it differently or I’m trying to do something that maybe they don’t understand. Did you ever reach a point where you were like, “I’m actually not trying to have anyone understand, I’m just going to do what I’m going to do and I don’t care if they don’t get it?”

LL: I’ve always been like that but, as we all know, the older you get, you understand why commerce is a ‘thing’, because when ideas get bigger and bigger you need budgets to do them. You need to provide for your children. That side of it is complicated, we all need some level of success to get by.
SR: There are so many things I want to do that cost money and I can’t wish really hard to get $50,000 dollars to publish a zine. [laughs]

LL: When I went on tour I bought this huge mirror and a turntable [for stage scenery] which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. I remember my account was like, “Are you sure?” I know it didn’t make sense but this was the show I wanted. I’m finding myself at a crossroads because I feel like I’m levelling up as a visionary but now the industry is different, it doesn’t add up in this simulation. [laughs]
SR: Sometimes I think I took too long to get to this place of being comfortable with making art, it feels like things move really quickly and I just need more time.

“I’m trying to figure out what I’m on the hunt for, what is my new favourite ingredient? What’s the new thing I’m obsessed with? I think I’m seeking to not be in a comfortable place.”

LL: I need a lot of time too.
SR: I need time to sit with a project. The time it takes to make a really tight, proper good recipe… I’ve been working on this one stupid type of caramel that’s chewy and ginger flavoured but it has a crackly texture once it dries – it’s a very specific type of thing. It takes bags and bags of coconut sugar, and hundreds of dollars to make this one gorgeous tight recipe that someone makes once or twice, and then they’re like, “Where’s the next one?” Every once-in-a-while I think I might be obsolete. [laughs] Do you ever feel like that?

LL: Yeah for sure, but also the thing that is so beautiful is to be immersed in the process. I’m grateful that I feel very awake, alive and inspired in the process. When I was 25 my boyfriend at the time was way older and kind of a genius filmmaker, he was always like, “It’s about the process.” He put that in me, you just keep circling around the same thing, you make another circle and then another circle and that in a way is the work. I’m grateful I feel that way about something because not being immersed in something that’s meaningful to you is quite sad, I know people who don’t have that thing and it can be very disruptive.
SR: That is true, I have friends who are like, “Gosh, you’re lucky to have a purpose.” I do feel so purpose-driven.

LL: When you see the Tibetan monks who do the Mandala sand sculptures in all the different colours, they do it for weeks and then they just wipe it off and start over. I think it’s beautiful.
SR: I do know what that’s like. I think people should share that more because sometimes I’m like, “Am I the only person who failed at every recipe I did this week?” I know I’m not the only one to fail in the universe, people fail all the time.

LL: We’re in the bubble, but I think we have to look east and I’m sure there is someone walking by foot for forty-five hours up on a mountain, it all depends on who you’re comparing yourself with.
SR: Tracee Ellis Ross was talking about how she ran track in high school and she said, “My coach would get mad at me for looking left and right because by doing that, I was slowing myself down.” You can run in any lane you want, you just have to not pay attention to the people running next to you, which is easier said than done for me.

LL: Success and happiness are so vastly not connected.
SR: That’s true, I guess it depends on what your definition of success is. The older I get, the more I want to be a mum. Being a mum doesn’t have anything to do with this idea of fiscal, or financial success, if anything it probably takes from that. More and more I’m thinking about success looking like I have kids.

LL: I have two kids and sometimes I think about how there used to be a day when I was on the covers of magazines, and I’m like, “Am I even successful?” But back then I was so depressed and felt like I really wanted a family but thought I’d never have that because I’m an artist and I’m a woman on top of that. You think you can’t actually have it all, but now I have kids and it is difficult being a mother and taking care of children but you’re so immersed. It’s a fucking pain in the arse, I’ll tell you that too. It’s the opposite of being in your own artist brain world of solitude and dreaming, it’s really slow.
SR: How old are your kids?

LL: One is six months and one is eight years old.
SR: Oh my gosh, six months – that’s so little.

LL: Now he’s trying to eat, I’m making puree and there’s puree everywhere. It’s so slow.
SR: The pace is not your pace. The thing no one talks about is the impact that has on your physical body, literally just the having a baby part. [laughs]

LL: It’s so intense. I was so young the first time.
SR: Was it different this time around?

LL: Very different. People say the body has a seven-year cycle, so it was a different body, a different psyche and different hormones.
SR: They do say that – I feel like that tracks actually because if you think about being 7, 14, 21, 28, 35 and so on, those are times. [laughs]

LL: So, you want children?
SR: Yeah, I do want kids and I’m already 35 so that’s the other anxiety. I have a good career, I’m happy with it but I’m starting to feel unfulfilled and I’m wondering if it’s less career stuff and it’s just because I really want to have a kid. I have a partner who really wants to have a kid and there’s never a right time.

LL: What are you waiting for?!
SR: I really don’t know. [laughs]

LL: It’s time to dive in.
SR: Do your kids inspire what you make differently?

LL: Oh yeah, it’s insane. I had one kid and somehow managed to get back to work and have a life but at the thought of two I was like, “Woah, this is where it gets dangerous.” I was trying to read a lot of literature about how to combine artistry and being a mother, there aren’t a lot of positives out there. As artists, we’re always looking for deep transformation and I read something from an artist who said, “I’ve done so many things in my life but the one thing I know will change me is having a child.” It’s so true, I was so hungry for a transformational experience and it’s been psychedelic, it’s a deepening, an opening, it’s wild what it does to you.
SR: I ask all my friends who are parents about it and they’re like, “Words fail me Sophia, I don’t know.” They’re always trying to explain it to me.

LL: It’s not easy. I guess it would be like if you were cooking with four ingredients, now there are twenty and it’s a mess but it’s still an opening.
SR: I’m trying to figure out what I’m on the hunt for, what is my new favourite ingredient? What’s the new thing I’m obsessed with? I think I’m seeking to not be in a comfortable place. Food is the only thing I’ve ever done, it’s the one thing I know I can do, there are times I feel intimidated if I’m cooking for a particular person, but I trust myself. I know when I walk into the kitchen it isn’t going to be a total fucking disaster, maybe that is the problem, it becomes a little mundane.

LL: I think you’re ready for motherhood. [both laugh]
SR: I do want to ask you, do you have a person who inspires you? Maybe it’s someone that always has or it’s a new person.

LL: What inspires me to make art? On the side I do a lot of psychedelics and in those moments I find a new archetype, so it’s really inside of myself I find different versions of myself.
SR: I’m quite a mushroom girl so I feel you on that. [both laugh] I think that’s why sometimes I don’t feel pressured by the social media machine. How do you feel about social media?

LL: It has a terrible influence on me and I kind of hate it. I’m not super into it but I’m on it and sometimes I find myself looking at things that make me feel quite bad about myself. Sometimes I see things that are beautiful like places or recipes.
SR: What makes you feel bad?

LL: Maybe it’s changing a little bit, but everyone’s life looks so easy and beautiful and everyone is so beautiful.
SR: It’s true, I feel that so much. I had to do a big round of unfollowing. I’m like, “Is everyone immune to ageing?” I feel like I actually look older and I’m getting older because I’m 35 – is no one else 35?! What’s going on?! [laughs]

LL: What it does to beauty standards for women is horrifying. When you hit 35 and older, all of a sudden you have to think about ageing so much. Any time you meet women over the age of 35 we all just talk about this stupid shit, it’s a thing that permeates, you have to have a relationship to ageing and think about which road you should go on. It’s really complex but interesting too because you have to take a stance, have you read Motherhood by Sheila Heti?
SR: I haven’t, let me write that down though.

LL: It’s the most amazing book about motherhood and it’s about how it doesn’t matter if you become a mother or not, you still have to think about it all the time in a way that also is motherhood, because you’re always thinking about if you do or don’t do it. It’s a thing you always need to relate to, and it’s similar to ageing, it’s very sad we all have to spend so much time thinking about this.
SR: It’s true. I feel like I’m awesome and my brain is awesome, it has a lot of really cool shit going on in there and I spend less time thinking about the cool shit in my brain. All my friends are cool, amazing women and we’ll literally be sitting at a dinner talking about how we never used to have jowls and now we do. We’re all doing amazing shit, I have a friend who just finished writing the most beautiful book which is now being made into a movie and we’re sitting around talking about grey hairs. [laughs]

LL: Sometimes I wonder – is it up to me, you, and our generation to be like, “Fuck this, we’re just going to be ourselves,” and take that torch?
SR: I don’t even know if it is up to us, we didn’t invent that shit.

LL: We still have to fight the system somehow.
SR: We do, I try to say the same thing but I have friends who are dating and they tell me men say they don’t want a girl who has a tonne of make-up on, but then won’t pick that girl. They say they want one thing, but they really want another thing, I don’t know that issue because I’m very happily committed, I’m not dating or experiencing that in real time. I do feel like there’s this weird male supremacy shit that exists especially in America where the male gaze is the gaze you want to appeal to.

“I feel a great responsibility because I am on the internet and there are a lot of young impressionable minds there, and the last thing I want to do is make a twenty one-year-old feel weird if she has a grey streak in her hair or a pimple.”

LL: It should just be like, “Fuck that.”
SR: I couldn’t give a shit. I’ve literally had men walk up to me on the subway and say, “You should really stop stressing, look at that grey hair.” I don’t even know these people – it’s insane. That’s just a small example of something that a man felt comfortable enough to walk up to a stranger and say. I don’t let that shit get to me, but I can imagine some women would. I feel a great responsibility because I am on the internet and there are a lot of young impressionable minds there, and the last thing I want to do is make a twenty one-year-old feel weird if she has a grey streak in her hair or a pimple. I notice that younger kids are more insecure than I remember being, I don’t remember being twenty one and insecure. Were you an insecure kid?

LL: I was pretty insecure, I just didn’t feel like I fit the mould of what beauty was.
SR: I want to tell you, everyone I went to high school and college with completely disagrees with that and thought you were the hottest thing ever. [laughs]

LL: I learned my angles but I’m incredibly insecure, I only photograph from one side because one side of my face in my mind is different.
SR: I’ve got that too.

LL: You can see a photo of someone, but it’s a photo that someone spent a lot of time making look beautiful, that’s different from the real experience of having currency in the world.
SR: Beauty currency is crazy. I feel like one side of my face is just huge. [both laugh] I was at the dermatologist a year ago talking about that and he was like, “If we were all perfectly symmetrical we would look insane.” If you Google Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt symmetrical, it looks so fucking crazy. [laughs] That’s just what makes a face a face, but I do know what it’s like to look at a really nice image of myself and be like, “That isn’t even me. I don’t look like that!” [laughs] We’re all insecure but when I was younger I thought less about what I looked like in general. I have twenty-one-year-old interns who are constantly talking about what they look like.

LL: Were you in the public eye already at that age?
SR: Not at twenty-one, I was a fuck up.

LL: That’s the problem with Instagram because now everyone is in the public eye. People are so on point at twenty-one, everything is styled. Everyone is their own art director, they know their angles.
SR: I have this theory about period films – I love period films so much – and I think the reason why a lot of the casting in period films right now doesn’t look accurate is because so many people do things to their faces. No one was doing lash extensions back then, I don’t remember being in high school in 2005 and people getting microblading. I feel like now a twenty one-year-old’s face doesn’t even look like how I could imagine myself looking at twenty one. That stuff wasn’t even available.

LL: Back to ageing, I’m always looking for the hack or the guide, this is the answer to this torturous experience and I’m still searching for it. I want to read a book of wisdom.
SR: Me too, but I wonder if it’s a new construct. I don’t think my boyfriend’s mum was my age thinking about the things we’re thinking about, so the book has to be written by you. [laughs] I think it’s a new thing.

LL: Now I have to write a book!
SR: No pressure! [both laugh]

LL: We’re in a new time in the world.
SR: Remember when you were in school and there was no social media? Now these kids have Instagram in high school.

LL: We’re also working women in a way that we wouldn’t have been years ago, and it wasn’t even that long ago that being a housewife was the norm.
SR: That’s what I think about racism too, it wasn’t that long ago that I couldn’t have even been with my boyfriend because he’s white. There are still some places where that isn’t safe, I think about it all the time. Just because there’s now some bill of rights that says Jim Crow laws can’t exist doesn’t mean that they don’t still exist. Even just talking about housewives, there are still areas that believe the woman shouldn’t work, she should stay home and do whatever they think she should do. I do feel an incredible gratitude to have some autonomy, but every single day in America people are trying to take it away. The continued impact that has on our psyche… I hate to say this because I hate to think about things being fair or unfair but it’s just so not fair. My partner said something really interesting to me when Roe v. Wade was overturned, he said, “It’s so wild to me that you can’t go one day without thinking about your body. I don’t think about my body ever, I eat what I want, I go to sleep when I want, I never think about it.” That must be fucking nice, to just never have to think about your body. [laughs] I feel a consistent pressure to think about it, not just the way it looks but the way it performs.

LL: Especially after my second child, now I’m so interested in hormones. Hormones and how they affect us is so real, it’s a wild ride. Even just to be a body in such hormonal fluctuations every month is really intense.
SR: It’s so true. Don’t you think it’s absurd that we have to pay for pads and tampons? I think that is the craziest thing.

“I don’t want a restaurant that’s all my food, I really just want to make you what you want to eat – that’s where the joy comes in for me.”

LL: I’m from Sweden and I think it’s crazy that in America there is no real maternity pay protection. There are so many things wrong with the system.
SR: How does it feel to live here and have to be part of this system now?

LL: At the same time, there are so many things that are great about the system. Maybe it’s not the same anymore, but when you come to America there is the feeling that anything can happen, you can reach the stars. In Sweden there is a real ceiling because they’re containing society into this box, you have healthcare and daycare but you have to also stay in that box. There are pros and cons. Life in America – if you have the funds to have children and have a life – is great, but if you don’t I can’t even imagine what it’s like. It’s such a fine line, you’re balancing on a razor edge all the time.
SR: I think that’s why it’s important to remember where you came from. I grew up very food-insecure, I’ve been homeless with my mum before and my mum struggles with substance abuse so it was just a whole slew of issues. I don’t forget, it’s always in the back of my mind that that was my life at one point, I think that’s why I’m addicted to being productive because I don’t ever want to go back there.

LL: You can feel that productivity in America in a way that you don’t in Europe. The hustle is real. [laughs]
SR: There is no resting, no vacation at all, it’s not in the culture – particularly not in New York.

LL: I had to get out of New York because I couldn’t deal with that energy.
SR: I feel like 50 percent of my energy is spent on trying not to let that in.

LL: Where were you from before?
SR: Florida, which is a pretty place but isn’t great. It’s a wetter, swampier California but I’ve lived in New York for twelve years and it’s no shock that I got into food. People were like, “Sophia’s a chef because she’s so passionate,” but I literally just needed a fucking job because I was nineteen and I had just dropped out of college. This restaurant hired me and I decided to stay in that field, I lucked into a career that I’m deeply passionate about and love and care for very much. It sucks because sometimes I feel like I’m not allowed to do anything else, and I really want to try other things.

LL: You’re allowed, you’re in America! [both laugh]
SR: True. I know that’s a cage that’s in my head.

LL: It’s hard because Europe can be very archaic, you can’t really mix and match there so much. That’s one of the good things about America, you can start over and you can change lanes. One day you’re selling luxury properties and then you’re the President of America. [laughs]
SR: It’s crazy. Do you have anything you want to do that you haven’t done?

LL: I also have a Mezcal company. I’m a third partner of Yola Mezcal – I want to send you a bottle.
SR: That’s so cool! I love mezcal, I love cooking with it too. What made you want to do that?

LL: That was like everything else in life, it just kind of happened. I went down to Mexico ten years ago and it was a complete accident. At the time when I was touring, I always drank whiskey but it always fucked with my voice, I was at a party and this beautiful woman was like, “Why don’t you just have some mezcal?” I tried mezcal and it gave me such a rush of energy, we ended up at this club and someone popped an E in my drink so I literally had this spiritual awakening on the dance floor. I was like, “This shit is crazy.” The next day, I became friends with Yola [Jimenez, Li’s partner in Yola Mezcal] and she told me about the farm in Oaxaca and her mission, she’s indigenous and queer. She pays women directly and focuses on how to change women’s lives. I was like, “I want to be a part of this.” So we put it in a bottle, called it Yola and started self-importing. We’ve been around for about seven years.
SR: That is so cool.

LL: Our third partner Gina [Correll Aglietti] is a chef too, so food is very much my world too.
SR: I love that, it should be. I always say cooking is a survival skill, when people say they can’t cook I’m like, “You need to know how to cook.”

LL: The person who knows how to cook is also such an important person in the community, everyone will gravitate towards them, and it creates connections. It’s beautiful and such a valuable skill to have.
SR: I feel so grateful and lucky. I wouldn’t say it came easy, I’m just addicted to practice.

LL: Are people always wanting to come over to eat your food? [laughs]
SR: All the time. But I’m also like, “Come over!” I love it, it makes the recipe testing easy. Food is so subjective but there is nothing more exciting than when I know a very specific person is coming over and they like a really specific thing and I can make something for them or make a recipe catered to their tastebuds. It’s really special, most chefs hate the idea of being a private chef but I actually love it because I like making food for a specific person. I think there are two camps, there are people who make food for the food itself and there are people who make food for the people who get to eat it. I don’t want a restaurant that’s all my food, I really just want to make you what you want to eat – that’s where the joy comes in for me.

LL: Do you cook for your partner too?
SR: Oh yeah, he has a real sweet tooth. He has a completely different palette to me. It’s interesting because I don’t usually make such sweet stuff.

LL: That’s a beautiful thing.
SR: He challenges me a lot. What do you like to cook at home? What do the kids like to eat?

LL: I love to do donabes and Japanese stews. Roasted vegetables with miso, tahini, seaweed, brown rice – all that I love. I love healing foods too, it sounds so boring and Californian but I love nourishing foods.
SR: Oh, yum. That’s not so California, it’s very much macrobiotic eating, so many of those foods are such spiritual ways to cook. I think almost every Asian culture has a stew that their community will start and the idea is that it never gets to the bottom, you just keep adding to it. So they’ve been cooking for hundreds of years with these same perpetual stews. There are indigenous cultures that have them also.

LL: If I had to eat one cuisine it would definitely be Japanese.
SR: Me too, it’s the best and the most nourishing. It’s delicate, sometimes in America we don’t have a good relationship with delicate food or flavours or nuance. Japanese food is so good at being slightly different.

LL: Everything is so beautiful.
SR: I also think, if there was one food I could look like I would want to look like Japanese food.

LL: We both look a bit like Japanese food, we have a Japanese food look.
SR: I’m proud of us for that. [both laugh]

Feature originally published in Heroine 20. 

hair REBEKAH CALO at NEVER MIND AGENCY using AMIKA;
make-up NICOLE BUENO at THE ONLY AGENCY using DIOR BEAUTY, HAUS LABS and MILK MAKEUP;
lighting assistant ANDREW BEARDSWORTH;
fashion assistant ZAKKAI JONES