Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Everything Chef Sophia Roe Eats in a Day | Food Diaries: Bite Size | Harper’s BAZAAR

- Hey I'm Soph, and this is everything I eat in a day.

So the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning,

okay, so a few things.

Sometimes when I first wake up in the morning,

first thing I do is go pee, like full transparency.

Second thing is I wake up per my alarm on my phone,

which means I'm scrolling through my phone.

I'm not weird about admitting it, it happens.

You know, I don't eat

first thing in the morning, typically.

Sometimes there's like, there'll be like a rogue day

where I wake up flipping starving,

but that doesn't happen all the time.

In fact, it's extraordinarily rare.

Normally I'll have some green juice.

If I do have a green juice,

it's like a cucumber, celery, lettuce, you know,

it's one of those general ones.

I never understood the whole, like only celery thing.

Like why would you only drink celery juice

when you could drink like

celery Swiss charred, jalapeno, green apple lime juice?

Right?

I, I mean, I don't know.

That's just how I feel about it.

So sometimes I have a green juice.

Sometimes I'll just have like a grapefruit or an apple,

but I really don't get hungry until later into the day.

I am a tea drinker, tea all the way.

However, I like coffee when I'm traveling.

Isn't that a, I don't know.

Am I, I don't know what that is,

but when I'm traveling, sign me up for a coffee.

I was in Portugal for almost a month

and I had coffee like every single day

and it was so weird 'cause I came back to US

and I was like, eh.

It doesn't really make sense, but I love tea,

all kinds of tea.

My favorite tea, Earl Grey splash of some kind of milk,

I really don't care, and just a little Stevia.

Oh my God, it's like my dessert.

I could drink it all day.

In fact, I do drink it all day.

Also love herbal teas,

love a little marshmallow root, good for the bladder,

but then I'm right into my computer

and doing whatever, emails.

If it's a series of recipes, I'm testing.

If it's, you know, something for my book,

if it's photos I need to take, you know,

I'm kind of doing that stuff first thing in the morning.

I'd say around 10:00, 11:00,

I'm starting to kind of get a little bit hungry.

So that's when I headed to the fridge and just see like,

what is going on in there.

I love to cook and also any opportunity to test a recipe,

I'm going to take it.

So say I've got, you know,

some pickles, some tomatoes, some romaine lettuce,

like I'm just the queen of just

throwing some stuff together.

I love to use teas to actually make rice.

So I love rice, lentils, quinoa, things like that.

I love to take some ginger tea or some coconut tea

and make some rice with the tea instead of water.

If you want to infuse flavor, that's a great way to do it.

Then I'll maybe stir fry some broccoli and some green beans

have it with that rice, and before you know it,

you just have this like delicious

sort of tea tinged rice with a yummy stir fry situation.

And I usually eat that around 11 and that's pretty good.

I love sauces.

I love to make sauces.

Sauces are my heart.

Honestly, my middle name it's sauce, Sophia Sauce Roe.

I kinda like that, it's got a ring to it.

Saucy Sophia Roe.

Oh, even better.

Sometimes it's some little coconut aminos,

little grape seed, rice wine vinegar, ginger, bam.

Love it.

Love a little bit of like fish sauce situation

with a little bit of a Tamari, love Aji-Mirin,

I love anything saucy.

Miso, Dijon mustard, emulsification.

It's amazing, I love sauce.

So that is my lunch anywhere from 11 to 12,

almost every day.

I am really consistent with my eating.

Like once I get into a groove with something,

that's kind of like the vibe.

You know, I do try and find time to work out.

Especially, you know, here we are

still in the middle of a pandemic quarantine situation.

A lot of it looks like me with a 20 pound kettlebell.

You want to know a killer workout I did one time

and I started doing this once a week?

Okay, okay, okay.

Are you ready for this?

Okay, so basically it goes every hour on the hour

that you're awake, you do a hundred squats.

So if you're awake for 12 hours, you do the math.

That's 12 hundred squats, baby.

Your legs are going to be burning.

You are going to be a newborn Bambi for the next three days.

I mean, it works.

Seriously, try it.

So a lot of times I'm in my house,

I go out to the farmer's market once a week

and I just grab my list of things that I need to test,

or need to work on, or videos I need to shoot, or et cetera.

Typically have to take three different trains

to get to my farmer's market

because I live in an area of New York,

I live in Bedstein, East New York.

I live in an area of New York

that doesn't have as farmer's market,

which really bothers me.

So, you know, food equity, et cetera.

Those are the things I care about.

Separate conversation, but you should know

we're working really hard to get a farmer's market,

a good, big, juicy farmer's market in my neighborhood.

But until such time,

I take three trains to get to the big farmer's market

in the city and that's some exercise.

That's about five thousand steps.

I try my hardest to get five to 10 thousand steps a day.

Even if that means I'm going outside with a mask

and you know, working out that way.

You know, I used to travel a lot.

I used to be in LA at least once a month.

I do a big solo trip for Christmas every single year.

Last year, I took my self to Mexico by myself

for three weeks.

It was incredible.

I did a whole road trip.

I drove all over Mexico, it was amazing.

Oh, my favorite food city.

Oh my goodness.

What is my favorite foods?

I love New Orleans.

It's probably one of my favorites cities

just in general in the United States.

What a great food city?

I love New Orleans.

Chicago is another incredible food city.

Just amazing food city.

Mexico, incredible food country.

Japan, also, my grandmother was Japanese so I get,

I feel that there's a cultural tie there for me.

Japan does no wrong for me, neither does Mexico.

Those are like my two fav countries.

However, however, I was in South Africa, I went to Botswana.

I was in Swazi for a little while.

Wow.

Also incredible food happening in Africa.

So honestly just, just take me anywhere

and I will find the great food.

Like it's, it's my job.

I'm pretty easy to please.

I don't do any dairy.

I don't eat any dairy or any land animals.

However, if I'm traveling,

say I'm in Mexico and all that's available

are dairy and land animals, then I'm eating them.

That's it.

Like I don't, not everybody in the world

has the luxury or the privilege

to be able to choose what they eat,

so I'm extremely flexible.

If I can go somewhere and I can get

just simple fish or just simple salad,

that's what I'm opting for.

However, if all there is is popcorn and French fries,

then we're having popcorn and French fries

and we're extremely happy about it.

I am an insane snack-er.

It's insane.

I have a snacking issue.

In fact, my name might be Sophia the saucy snacking Roe.

Whether it's a smoothie, a flipping Acai bowl,

get out of town.

If you even say Acai,

if I even see the color purple, it's a problem.

I need an Acai bowl.

I actually need an Acai bowl right now.

In fact, after I finish this, I'm getting an Acai bowl.

So I just want you to know that.

My favorite snack is a bowl of the butteriest,

I'm talking, I'm talking if you put the stick of butter

on the popcorn, I'm gonna need another stick.

So pre COVID, what I would do

was I would take myself to go see a movie

that I wasn't even interested in

just so that I could have two bowls of buttered popcorn.

I just need you to understand

my extraordinary love for popcorn.

It really exceeds me.

You know what I'm saying?

Like my love for popcorn will exist

even after I no longer do.

Do you understand?

It's extraordinary.

If it's not popcorn, just covered in butter,

it's just plates upon plates of French fries.

I don't care if they're sweet potato,

I don't care if they're regular potato,

I don't care if they're zucchini,

I don't care if it's squash.

If it is a strip of something that has been fried in oil,

you could sign me up.

Do you know what I'm saying?

People don't, some people like the pizza or the taco or the,

that's not, I just want the fried,

the fried potato stick something.

That's what I need.

That's my cheat meal.

That's what works for me.

That's what I'm interested in.

You know?

I don't really do cheat meals.

I don't really like that term

because then it proposes that everything else that I ate

was like extremely good.

I don't really believe food is intrinsically good or bad.

So on the weekends,

I'm eating a lot of what I'm eating during the week.

I'm very consistent.

I cook all the time and so, because I cook all the time,

I think I'm always just sort of like

just by proxy just eating a lot.

You know what I'm not crazy about?

The only food that I can think of

that I just could really easily say, I hate,

Lima beans.

That's about it.

Every other thing I could get down with,

even though I don't eat land animals,

even though I don't eat dairy,

I can confirm that a burger is delicious.

Same with cheese.

I don't eat cheese, but man, cheese is tasty.

I am not someone who gets hangry.

I don't get hangry.

Sometimes what will happen

is I'll look at my phone, I'll see what time it is

and my brain will be like,

"Yo, yo, yo, Soph, Soph, Soph, Soph, Soph

girl, you need to eat,

you haven't eaten since 10:00."

I'm not one of those people that can go too long

because I'm always very mindful of time.

I think I'm mindful of time.

I think that's the chef in me because listen,

a lot of people will tell you, you know,

time isn't real, time is an illusion.

Let me tell you something.

Time is real AF when you're baking a cake, okay?

So don't tell me time isn't real

because when you're cooking, time is very real.

I usually eat dinner 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM.

That's typically my takeout, typically do the takeout.

I love to get the takeout ramen.

Another thing, there's a restaurant in my neighborhood

called Sarah Geena and they do the most,

they just do vegetables right.

They just do it right.

Also L'Antagoniste,

is another restaurant in my neighborhood,

French restaurant.

They just do the, they just do it right.

I'm really simple.

I just like, like most of the time it's just all veggies,

but if I'm eating it out,

I'm probably just going to have

like fish and a salad, right?

Like it's so boring.

I know, it's so boring.

But I just like to be mindful of pallet fatigue.

I cook a lot and when you're making a lot of different stuff

all the time, you really just want simple.

Like, I really just want

arugula, lemon, salt, pepper, olive oil, it's a party

like nothing else.

And then there are times you guys,

where I eat an entire pint container of olives.

It's true.

I'll eat an entire pint container of olives at dinner time

and then I'll eat an entire box of crackers.

I fully admit how not healthy that is.

But I also admit that that's just the way that it goes.

I'd say about once a month there's a day

where I just eat an entire pint container of green olives

and crackers and popcorn.

So my beverage of choice at dinner, if it's wine,

it's a Beaujolais Argema,

something from the lower Valley, something like that.

Not to sound like too, too snobbish,

but that's just my, that's just my preference.

I love a younger sort of wine,

but a lot of times at dinner, I'm just drinking water.

I know that's boring AF.

Sometimes I do a weird chai tea at night.

I actually shouldn't say chai tea

'cause that's just like saying tea tea,

but sometimes I do like a black tea, a chai moment

and you know, just gives me a little caffeine

because I know that I'm going to be working.

Like say I'm writing recipes all night,

or say I have something sort of activist driven

that I need to work on.

After dinner, I'll have a chai, oat milk,

plenty, plenty of black tea vibes,

like good amount of caffeine

and I'll stay up until 12 or one

until I get what I need to get finished finished.

If I want to do an after dinner tea

and I don't want to stay up, then I'll make an herbal tea.

So something with marshmallow root

or something with a little turmeric or ginger,

just a little sleepy time lavender tea also is really nice.

My favorite foods to make

are foods that require a tender palette.

I know a lot of times in America,

it's all about like boom and bam and wow,

and spice and salt and savory and in your face.

You know?

And I love that, I think that's so awesome.

But for me, my favorite sort of foods to make

are foods that honor the subtleties of a palette.

So I love making things that really require tenderness

and really require a lot of subtle nuanced flavor.

I love creating soups and broths

and things that take a lot of time.

I love sourcing really great quality ingredients.

Those are the things

that I really, really, really enjoy making.

And that's everything I eat in a day.

You can check me out on Instagram.

My handle is @Sophia_Roe.