Love, Loss And What She Ate

Padma Lakshmi’s career has helped fuse her two biggest loves—food and travel. Eating her way through the world, she has learnt a lot about cultures, and more about herself

- Shreevatsa Nevatia

Scheduled to air later this year, the new season of Top Chef will be its fifteenth. By now, the format of this reality television series is familiar. Eager to show their chops, amateur chefs sweat it out in a well-kitted kitchen.

One raw shrimp or a not-so-tender piece of pork is often ground enough for elimination. The judges are unforgiving, and at times didactic. But unlike its several emulators, this American reality cooking competition remains compelling. Padma Lakshmi, the show’s presenter, does make sure of that.

A five-foot-niner, Lakshmi is arguably statuesque. Her gaze on television oscillates between stern and empathetic. There is warmth in her consolation, and an honesty in her accessible reviews. Surprisingly, however, this poise was once shakeable. In her recently released memoir, Love, Loss and What We Ate, Lakshmi has confessed to suffering an initial “touch of the imposter syndrome”. Worried that star chefs would dismiss her as just another pretty face, the model found confidence in a sanguine monologue— “Sure, I hadn’t broken down a side of beef or cooked on the line. But I’d eaten and learned about good food all over the world—the finest bastillas in Marrakesh, tons of meals in Paris bistros, fresh pasta made by expert hands in Milan, the best biryani in Hyderabad, and the most exhilarating chaat in Delhi.”