Padma Lakshmi
Padma Lakshmi
Padma Lakshmi is an Indian-born American author, actress, model, television host and executive producer. Her debut cookbook Easy Exotic won her the "Best First Book" award at the 1999 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. She has been the host of the US reality television program Top Chef since season two in 2006, for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. In 2010, Top Chef won the Emmy Award for...
NationalityIndian
ProfessionTV Actress
Date of Birth1 September 1970
CityChennai, India
CountryIndia
I am as omnivorous as it's possible to be. I always say there's nothing I won't eat and nothing I won't wear.
I'm the kind of girl who thinks about what she's gonna cook for dinner when she's finishing her lunch.
People always comment about my clothes. They don't think a fashionable woman can love food and be knowledgeable and actually cook.
All chefs are like Jewish mothers. They want to feed you and feed you and impress you. It's an eagerness to please.
I am a sufferer of endometriosis. I didn't want any young women to go through what I went through. I thought that people should know about it.
I'm not attached to things at all. I'm very lucky to have quite a few beautiful things, but if I look back at my life, I was often happiest when I had very little.
One thing that happens when you're pregnant is that as your stomach starts to stretch. It itches! So I have to keep my belly really lubricated. Every morning, there's a buttering ceremony after I get out of the shower. It's really like basting a turkey with body butter.
During the course of filming 'Top Chef,' I gain 15 lbs., so I'm used to needing two dress sizes.
I was the first Indian model to have a career in Paris, Milan and New York.
Women's voices not being heard is the root of many of the problems of the world,
Whenever I'm in sync with the trends, it's always an accident. I still love wearing clothes I've had for ten years. I think understated luxury is the chicest thing.
In southern Spain, they made me eat a bull's testicles. They were really garlicky, which I don't like. I prefer to take a bull by the horns, not by, um...
My mom was scared of the old Times Square so I was never allowed to go. Now I'm scared of the new Times Square, so I still never go.
I'm not tough. I'm tenacious.