Padma Lakshmi Quotes

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Padma Lakshmi

Profession : Chef

Birth : September 1, 1970

The cookbooks and the writing in general have been a real bonus, but it's not something I've ever pursued... I've been lucky, I guess.

Padma Lakshmi

I love clothes, but really I don't have that much to say about skirts. Before I was writing, I went to fashion shows only when the designer was a good friend and I was there to show support.

Padma Lakshmi

All chefs are like Jewish mothers. They want to feed you and feed you and impress you. It's an eagerness to please.

Padma Lakshmi

I think wine is such a big universe that it's kind of like food - it's intimidating to a lot of people, myself included.

Padma Lakshmi

If you like a wine that you drink, now with your phone, it's so easy. Just take a picture of the label. You learn about it. You learn where it comes from and what the soil is like and why you like it. And that'll lead you to another wine.

Padma Lakshmi

Flowers die and wine gets consumed. Both are lovely. I appreciate both. Wine and roses. I actually had someone bring me a lobe of foie gras once.

Padma Lakshmi

I've been a model for 15 years, and I've been on 'Top Chef' for eight seasons, and before that I had other cooking shows, so I've learned a thing or two about how to camouflage certain areas and how to draw the eye to a preferable area of the body.

Padma Lakshmi

You don't need expensive classes and all kinds of weird equipment if you really want to be in shape. There are great ways to do it that are very economical, it just takes a time commitment, even if it means waking up a half hour a day before the rest of the household gets up because that's the only time you have.

Padma Lakshmi

I usually doze off between 7:30 and 9 p.m. while putting my baby to sleep. Then I suddenly wake up remembering I'm an adult with no bedtime. I spend the next four hours catching up on reading, e-mails, and other adult pursuits until I collapse for good until sunrise.

Padma Lakshmi

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.

Padma Lakshmi

Every city has a Donald Trump; ours is just the Trumpiest.

Padma Lakshmi

Whether I'm making a recipe or a piece of jewelry or a white-rose-and-jasmine tea or the perfume, I like to think of myself as a happy little sorceress, and if I could just have a little general store with all that stuff and give people a sense of my taste, that would be lovely.

Padma Lakshmi

For a long time, I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was desperate to find something that fit me and I just decided that if I could organically make a professional living out of the things that interested me, then I would be a happy person.

Padma Lakshmi

I'm an immigrant kid who came to America from India when I was very young and grew up in New York City with a single mom and really was influenced by all of those immigrant cultures bumping up against each other.

Padma Lakshmi

Every country I would go to, even if it was just on a modeling job, I would go to their markets. If I went to Morocco for 'Elle' magazine, I would be in the spice markets during my off time and just come back with a suitcase full of stuff that I really wanted to try.

Padma Lakshmi

People always comment about my clothes. They don't think a fashionable woman can love food and be knowledgeable and actually cook.

Padma Lakshmi

I really like to sometimes go into food detox and eat very simply.

Padma Lakshmi

Part of my job as a food writer is to describe food. So my work on 'Top Chef,' I feel, is an extension of that. When we give a criticism to the contestant, we want to make sure we tell them why it's not working and why it would work if they did it a different way.

Padma Lakshmi

I have great empathy for all the contestants that come on 'Top Chef,' whether they go home right away or they make it to the finish line. It's a very vulnerable position they put themselves in and I feel for them.

Padma Lakshmi

I grew up a vegetarian. Then, because I grew up in the states, I started slowly eating meat. First it was bologna sandwiches, or pepperoni on pizza.

Padma Lakshmi