TheTop Chefhost gives a very personal food tour of New York City.
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This story originally ran in January 2019.
Were republishing it today for the premiere ofTaste the Nation With Padma Lakshmion Hulu.
Its fermented lemon pickles, so its a little bitter.
Its a really funky thing.
Were at stop No.
but its actually not bad!
Lakshmi nods approvingly as I scoop the yogurt rice up with the lemon pickle.
A sharp fermented bolt spikes the back of my tongue.
I feel like a fat, happy baby.
Back then, she lived nearby in Elmhurst.
Ive gotten much more pious after they opened the canteen, she laughs.
I had to really make some very deep Sophies choices about where I should take you, she explains.
(Dinner guest Chris Rock loves it.)
People are so into turmeric and ginger and all of that.
If it opens Americans to new flavors and ingredients that are more natural and healthy, thats fine.
I dont care about cultural appropriation.
Anthony, can you hey verify we buy some?
(Anthony informs her that he already got some last Saturday.)
Oh, this is a moment here.
Its the WD-40 of my house.
You cant eat eggs in a home without it.
I recently was talking to David Chang about that, she says.
He was like, Ive known you for years.
Why have we never talked about this ever?
I just said, I dont know.
Because it never comes up.
Just take her cheeky 2009Carls Jr. commercialfor the Western Bacon Six-Dollar Burger.
Food is sexual, so Ill stand by my goddamned commercial.
Lakshmi is aware of misperceptions surrounding her its the kind of trade-off shes been navigating her whole life.
Ive had to just say,Well, this is just the way that I make my living.
She wants to take a detour.
Well, when youre 7 it feels like a field!
she laughs, as we get out of the car and start walking uphill.
Thats when the insomnia began.She told her mother what had happened, who then confronted her stepfather.
He didnt believe her.
So the next week, she was on a plane back to India to stay with her grandparents.
Memory is curious, Lakshmi says, turning back, hands jammed into her pockets.
So she sent me to somewhere she thought was safe, which was her parents home, Lakshmi explains.
But as a child, it felt different: She had slipped through her safety net.
Back in the car, Lakshmi turns on the seat warmers and instructs the driver to continue on.
Its always funny to me when people think Im so posh.
Im not saying Im not now, she says.
Im totally a big, fat, comfortable lady!
But I didnt start that way.
My poshness is totally self-built.
She sort of doesnt see the point.
That self-adjustment has been hard-won.
Im not looking to jeopardize it, she says.
I want to be pulled forward, not held back, by my past.
Much of that has to do with her daughter, Krishna.
In some ways, she has the childhood a 7-year-old Padma could have only dreamed of.
I just expected her to come out brown, Lakshmi says, laughing.
Then my family would joke, Well, she might crisp up as she gets older!
As a teenager, classmates taunted Lakshmi, calling her black giraffe.
She felt awkward and insecure about her tall, brown girl body.
I think about those people, she muses.
I always feel like calling her out.Where are you?
Modeling offered her a conditional existence, where she was valued, but maybe not taken seriously.
Still, Lakshmi reasoned, it was a practical move.
She could pay off all of her student loans while traveling the world Morocco, the Seychelles, Bali.
I was starting to make a shit ton of money like Id never seen, Lakshmi recalls.
But I dont think I was very happy because in my heart I really wanted to be a writer.
Youre lucky to be doing what most people would kill to do.
Just stock your money away and be thankful.
She picks up a tray and tosses out a half-demolished dosa.
Ready to move on?
Before we leave, a busybody asks how her ex-husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie, is doing.
Lakshmi laughs it off and replies, I divorced him ten years ago!
She was taken by his attention and stature; he represented the intellectual life she craved.
But Lakshmis own aspirations grew as she entered her 30s, and their relationship struggled.
She had been a constant ego massager.
Lakshmi began to feel herself slipping away.
I think youre attracted to what you admire, Lakshmi says slowly.
He did help my writing.
I had an in-house editor who was better than I could ever have imagined.
Toward the end of their relationship, she was in greater pain, andthey had less sex.
She felt like her own body was turning against her.
I was working against an invisible monster I didnt know existed, she says.
Once I stopped fighting against my body because we determined the problem, I was like,Oh.
My bodys not my enemy.
After her diagnosis, Lakshmi began to redefine her relationship with her body.
Comedy has, too.
Shes become a zippy presence on Twitter, livetweetingTop Chefand making fun of Stephen Millershairline.
She opened the two sold-out shows with a simple statement: Fuck Louis C.K.
Im happy that I did it, but I think I did it in the most violent way.
Im still very shaky about it, she says.
It was a really deep, dark, secret, and it was a very public self-flaying.
It was such a fast decision.
When you push something down for 32 years, you get really good at it, she reflects.
Harvey Weinstein was another episode, in a long line of episodes.
I ask her if anything ever happened with him.
I knew enough to keep somewhat of a distance, but I wasnt spared.
I think we need to move on from him.
On the way to our next stop, we drive past her old apartment building.
At Maharaja, the chaatrestaurant, Lakshmi orders one of each item in a mix of English and Hindi.
My head bob will go away as we enter back into Manhattan, she laughs.
Im going to show you how to do one.
You want to get a video of this?
Theres still a heap of food left over, but Lakshmi is good at knowing when to move on.
By now, she has a routine.
As we head toward our last stop, threading through the crowds of Chelsea Market toward Los Tacos No.
1, our bellies are full, but not bursting.
Everything weve eaten today the dosas, chaat, tacos, even pizza is homey, mostly brown-people food.
Its not home cooking.
But Bravo was developingTop Chef,and the internet wanted her to host that instead.
Honestly, I never thought it would last this long.
I needed to help my cookbook!
Lakshmi says, of why she joined in the first place.
Now, she plans to doTop Chefuntil its over.
I feel a great proprietorship over the show, says Lakshmi, who became an executive producer in 2013.
Other than that, Lakshmi is focused on writing another book.
As she gets older, she predicts shell become more reclusive and inward.
But these days, she still relishes the social calendar.
Somebody should tell the mayor that Diwali is gone, she laughs.
He couldnt just recognize me?
Lakshmi orders two tacos each for us nopales and al pastor and a horchata.
Sure, Lakshmi texts back, turning to Anthony.
What am I doing tomorrow night?
like tell me nothing.
Tonight is no good, she replies, but tomorrow works.
Theres always some beautiful event to go to, like Women of the Year last night, she says.
Still, the time between shooting seasons ofTop Chefgives her more time to write.
Her book proposal is due in less than two weeks.
she says in the quiet dark of the car.
So, do I have it all?
Do I have it all, like I want it, at once?
