Our Kathy doesn't cook much, although she does do some excellent baking. However, she loves Top Chef, so she was eager to talk to Padma Lakshmi, the host, for a piece coming up in the magazine. She just got off the phone, so she'll tell you more:

Padma is busy shooting Season 4 of Top Chef (and figuring out her wardrobe: "Is it a quick fire? All right, I'll just wear that," she said to what I assume was an assistant in the room) but took a few minutes to talk to me about families and holiday cooking, since her new cookbook, Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet, includes several of her own family recipes. She told me that the hardest part wasn't actually writing the book but rather making sure she wrote down recipes in an accurate, measured form. Her mother was famous for being able to whip something up whenever anyone dropped by, a skill Padma inherited, but that didn't ingrain in her the need for exact measurements. It was evident that she really, really loves food. I was particularly impressed with her ability to just rattle off recipes off the top of her head, and I loved that she called cranberries "a very intriguing little fruit."

Top Spot from ‘Top Chef’ host

Posted by Joe Gray at 4:53 p.m. CDT

Padma_2 We caught up with Padma Lakshmi, host of Bravo TV’s “Top Chef,” and asked her what her “Top Spot” is in Chicago.

In a quick break between taping of Season 4 as it wraps up this week here in Chicago and before she leaps into a publicity tour for her new cookbook, “Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet: A World of Recipes for Every Day,” Lakshmi told us she has not one, but three favorites:

First she cited Vermilion. “I wanted to hate it,” said the Indian-born Lakshmi of the Indian and South American fusion restaurant. But she ended up loving it. “I have to say that I worked my way through the menu.”

Next: “I love Avec. I love the dates with the chorizo,” and the whole small plates approach and the communal seating.

And finally: Table Fifty-Two, Art Smith’s new restaurant in the Gold Coast. She was taken with the “Sunday supper” approach of the Southern menu.

Lakshmi made a point to say that she hadn’t yet made it to Alinea and hoped to, but her first visit to Chicago has left her feeling a great love for the food scene.

Padma Lakshmi India-born model and actress Padma Lakshmi was named to People magazine's Most Beautiful People list in 2007, an honor that has as much to do with her accomplishments as her graceful and exotic appearance. This year the host of the hit TV show Top Chef released her second cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot, and Sweet. She also divorced her famous husband, writer Salman Rushdie. Of all the covers and articles Lakshmi has appeared in, her favorite is the cover of Newsweek. "It spoke of the serious impact of India on the world," she said, adding "I was thrilled." In fashion shoots and on TV, Lakshmi openly displays the large scar on her right arm, caused by a car accident when she was 14, making her seem refreshingly less self-conscious about her body than the typical supermodel.

100 Most Beautiful People

Padma Lakshmi is chosen as one of this year's 100 most beautiful people.

Yes, Padma Lakshmi is stunningly beautiful. But she’s a lot more than that. Here the former model talks to Adam Rapoport about hosting the hit series ‘Top Chef,’ and why being stripped naked and covered in chocolate has always been her fantasy

By Adam Rapoport; Photographs by Greg Kadel

If you really want to understand Padma Lakshmi, stop staring at her for a moment and start thinking about bacon. Not Canadian bacon (“best left to the Canadians,” she says), not Italian pancetta (an okay substitute, “but only if it’s slowly cooked to minuscule morsels of salty crunchiness”), but good old American bacon—crisp, fatty strips of cured pork. It’s her favorite food.

Okay, I know what you’re thinking: That’s what all runway models turned actresses turned tabloid wives turned cookbook authors turned hosts of Bravo’s surprise reality hit Top Chef tell reporters to make them think they’re really just one of the guys. Except that Lakshmi’s legit.

“She can eat,” says her Top Chef colleague Tom Colicchio, the celebrated New York City restaurateur. “I’ve been out with her. And she doesn’t order a salad—she’s adventurous. She actually can cook pretty well, too.”

Not that you’d know it from reading about her. Lakshmi spends much of her time with journalists, trying to get them to write about something other than that she’s married to author Salman Rushdie. (For the record, she does the cooking; he buys the wine.) She also writes cookbooks. Good ones. Her second, Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet, is due out next month.

Until then, you can picture her nude, bathed in chocolate, which is what she wanted to do for this photo shoot. (We tried; things got messy.) Or you can just turn on Bravo and catch her on Top Chef, most likely wearing a not exactly kitchen-sensible slinky spaghetti-strap dress and stilettos. Don’t expect an apology. “People always comment about my clothes,” says Lakshmi. “They don’t think a fashionable woman can love food and be knowledgeable and actually cook, and it’s complete bullshit. On the show, all I have to do is think, talk, and eat, and I think I’m dressed to do all those things.”

We couldn’t agree more.

The host of TV's Top Chef, Lakshmi (Easy Exotic) puts her own culinary skills to the test in this glossy, cosmopolitan cookbook. Here, in vibrant colors, are her own palate-shaping memories in the form of recipes and short but highly personal essays. Like Nigella Lawson, Lakshmi's sex appeal is part of her draw as a food personality, and this collection obliges with adorable family photos as well as glamour shots of the model/actress nibbling on her creations. The global cuisine runs the gamut from a Southeast Asian–style Warm Peanut Salad with Tomato and Cilantro to Persian Chicken Soup with Omani Lemon and Dill to fried chicken battered with Rice Krispies. Keralan Crab Cakes and Pineapple and Pomegranate Crumble are among the fusion dishes that blend cuisines with intriguing results. Interspersed throughout are plenty of South Indian classics, reflecting Lakshmi's own heritage. Lakshmi has an inventive knack for flavor combination, but some of her recipes, like a Barbecued Shrimp with Chili Honey Butter, don't quite live up to the hype. Nevertheless, this book will certainly be well received by Lakshmi's growing fan base as well as home cooks looking to mix it up in the kitchen. (Oct.)

By Rebecca Davis

Expand your culinary horizons with advice from top foodie Padma Lakshmi.

"People always ask me how I come up with my recipes, and I tell them, 'I sit around and daydream about food. I think about what I want to eat.'"

What does it mean to have good taste?
Taste is like a muscle. We all have this muscle, but how developed is it? A big component to having taste is knowing what things go together. So be adventurous and try new flavors.

How do we learn what goes together?
Listen to your palate-- let it tell you what tastes good. I remember as a kid I'd eat hot chutneys and relishes. I loved that the tastes were so concentrated. Now, I like things that are hot and sweet and sour and savory-- when there's a balance of flavors. things go together. So be adventurous and try new flavors.

What's an easy way to try new things?
Most of us cook to feed our families and there's always one person who doesn't want to try something new. So take a dish like mac and cheese and just add a few new ingredients. If you look at the soups in my new cookbook, there's a great lemon chicken soup-- the only really odd ingredients are juniper berries and Omani lemons, which give the soup a wonderfully rich tartness with a musky component. Start small: Replace your regular black pepper with Szechuan peppercorns. Or if you're boiling rice, just throw in a few cloves or star anise to perfume the rice.

As the host and a judge on Top Chef, you've had to be hard on the contestants. How can you deliver criticism without hurting someone's feelings?
We all have strong opinions about what we put in our mouths-- we all eat! But if someone's making a dish and you say, "That's awful," it doesn't help. If you say, "Maybe the chicken needs to be cooked more"-- if you can include some information about why it isn't working-- then the criticism is constructive.

That said, what was the grossest dish you tasted on the show?
Nothing was worse than that chocolate ganache with liver!

Foodies (like chefs) make the best travel companions: Who else would fly around the globe just for their favorite snack? We asked Padma Lakshmi, cookbook author and host of "Top Chef," for her tips

Favorite Restaurant
"This is like choosing between children! But Las Dos Lunas in Ibiza is one of my favorites. There's a beautiful garden for moonlit dinners [Carretera Eivissa–Sant Antoni km 5.4; 34-971-198-102; entrées, $21–$41]. I always love Trishna, in the Colaba district of Mumbai, for its pomfret in green masala, but tell them to keep it mild—they don't fool around! [Birla Mansion; 91-22-2270-3213; entrées, $4–$30]. Finally, game lovers should go to the Saddle Peak Lodge, north of Malibu. It's not for the faint of heart, but it is very cozy, especially in autumn [419 Cold Canyon Rd., Calabasas; 818-222-3888; entrées, $32–$42]."

Favorite Hometown Restaurant
"Manhattan's Indochine—for spicy, light food and a lovely staff, too [430 Lafayette St.; 212-505-5111; entrées, $18–$26]."

Favorite Food Souvenir
"There's a blend of spices in Morocco called ras al hanout that's particularly interesting in rice pilafs and on roasts."

Next Trip
"I eat Thai food three to four times a week and want to go on a culinary tour of Thailand and Cambodia: I love the lime leaves and the fragrant, fiery curries."

Favorite In-flight Meal
"Some Pondicherry Lentil Salad from my new book. It's healthy, travels well, and has a lot of protein. It's an interesting mix of French and Indian flavors."

Real Women, Real Beauty: Why Our Flaws are Beautiful

Perfection is overrated. Meet six women — including Top Chef's Padma Lakshmi — who have learned to embrace (and flaunt!) the imperfections that make them gorgeous.

"I love my scar."

— Padma Lakshmi, 37, award-winning cookbook author (her latest, Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet, debuts this month) and host of Bravo's Top Chef

When Lakshmi started modeling after college, perfection ruled the runways. "I felt like I wasn't even in the same universe as these women," she says. Why? Lakshmi was The One With The Scar. A serious car accident at the age of 14 broke her pelvis, shattered her arm, and permanently marred her right hand -- the one she used to punch through the windshield in an effort to free herself. Her arm now carries a 7-inch reminder of the ordeal. "While I was self-conscious about the scar when I was younger -- I'd stand just so, to hide it with my other arm -- I never thought, Poor me," she says. Much to her surprise, designers and photographers were drawn to her scar. She got booked because of it. And her fans, well, they think the scar is hot. "Guys seem to love it. It makes me seem fleshy and rugged and human to them," says Lakshmi. "And women respond to it too: It shows that not everything is perfect."

Last Meal: Padma's Place is in Her Kitchen
posted: 8:57 AM, October 3, 2007 by Nina Lalli

In some unexplainable way, Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi is pretty even over the phone. She's like the good-looking girl at school who you want to hate, but then it turns out she's really friendly and laid-back, and you almost hate her more for that.

At first, she thought we were asking about the last meal she ate, which was at Vermilion, in Chicago (where the Top Chef winner will be crowned tonight). Lakshmi says Vermilion is one of the best Indian restaurants in the country. For her very last meal, though, she'd do the cooking herself, all from her new cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot, and Sweet.

You could have anything, anywhere, cooked by anyone . . . I would probably have, um, the veal ragu with fresh linguine from Cipriani, which I have a weakness for. Or my own coconut-milk beef curry, with fresh curry leaves. And then I'd have cardamom créme anglaise with candied ginger.

Yum, where is that from? I would take the cardamom créme anglaise recipe in my new book, and drop in candied ginger in the ice cream machine. You know what else? The mushroom flautas from the appetizer section of the book.

What would you drink? I would just drink a nice dolcetto with that, I guess. No, wait—if I can have anything in the world, I'd have a 1982 Château Margaux.

Yeah, you should go for it for a last meal. Would you want to be anywhere special? I always wanted to go to Egypt, so maybe I'd go there . . . But maybe that's weird, to go to Egypt to eat noodles and drink Château Margaux.

Maybe—but, hey, you can do whatever you want. You know, all these dishes are in my book—there's even a version of the veal ragu, so if this is my last meal, maybe what I'd want to do is go through and pick the dishes that are the favorites for my friends and family, and cook for all of them—hopefully in my big, new, beautiful apartment in New York that I'm going to find soon! Because for my last meal, I'd want to be with people I love.

Is this book more personal than your others? Oh, yes, it's really personal. There are family recipes, and it encompasses sort of the greatest hits of the last few years.

BY RACHEL WHARTON

Wednesday, October 3rd 2007, 4:00 AM

The sultry "Top Chef" hostess Padma Lakshmi - who helps choose the third winner in tonight's live finale on Bravo at 10 - is often skewered for being too skinny to really know or enjoy good food.

But her aptly named new cookbook, "Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet" (Weinstein Books), might finally put a stop to those rumors.

Yes, there are picture-perfect pages featuring plenty of Lakshmi, but the Indian-born television star, actress and former model (and wife of author Salman Rushdie) has compiled dozens of belly-filling recipes from her own version of the American kitchen.

And that includes everything from a South Indian-inspired shrimp broth to a rich Mexican-spiced mac and cheese, about which, she writes, "I could eat a vat of it every day."

BYLINE: Christina Tapper

HIGHLIGHT: Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi dishes about her new cookbook and life after divorce from author Salman Rushdie

Moments after tasting a lovingly crafted dish on the Emmy-nominated Top Chef, host Padma Lakshmi makes sure her grin is camera-ready with a little help from the judges. "We have teeth checks," Lakshmi tells PEOPLE. "There's nothing worse than seeing me with a wad of spinach between my teeth."

Such are the occupational hazards for the stunning Indian-born model and actress, whose second cookbook, Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet, features recipes inspired by her travels to places like Tanzania and Spain. But this latest venture is as much about fellowship as fine dining. "With food, there's more that unites us than divides us," says Lakshmi, 37, who learned Indian cooking from her mother. "Take Asian and South American cooking there's tamarind, cumin, cilantro, in both."

Her chief recipe tester? Then-husband, novelist Salman Rushdie, 60, to whom Lakshmi dedicated the book. (The couple recently divorced after three years of marriage.) "He tasted every dish," says Lakshmi, who lives in temporary New York City digs. Currently unattached, Lakshmi says of her ex, "I miss having that sounding board. I don't think you ever stop loving people."

For now, the multi-tasking Lakshmi is channeling her energy into the Top Chef season finale airing Oct. 3, staying fit by lifting weights and boxing, and shopping for what else? kitchenware: "I can go into Chanel and walk out empty-handed, but if I go into a kitchen store, I'm in trouble."

Known for: The onetime Mrs. Salmon Rushdie has been a model and actress, but she’s best known in the States as the hot host of “Top Chef.”

The book: Lakshmi is quick to defend her culinary qualifications, reminiscing about her childhood in South India and later in New York, and her exposure to Caribbean, Filipino, Asian and European foods. She draws on her Kerala roots for spiced crab cakes and her modeling travels for linguine from Venetian landmark Harry’s Bar. There are sumptuous photographs of both the food and Lakshmi glamorously shopping and snacking.

BYLINE: Janet Rausa Fuller, The Chicago Sun-Times

SECTION: FOOD; Pg. S6

Can't get enough of all things "Top Chef"? Check out Padma Lakshmi's latest, Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet.

The host of Bravo's hit reality cooking show, who has been spotted around town filming the show's fourth season, plucks inspiration from her many travels and from people in her past -- her Peruvian baby-sitter, a Filipino playmate -- she holds dear.

The book requires some work on your part. Lakshmi, a native of India, is big on spices that aren't supermarket standbys; a glossary of where to find certain ingredients would have been helpful.

But the photos are gorgeous, her tales (an ode to bacon, memories of Jhoti the peanut vendor) are entertaining and the recipes, from pan-charred peas coated in garam masala to chicken cooked in Red Stripe beer, are intriguing.

In bookstores now.

BYLINE: PATRICIA RODRIGUEZ, Star-Telegram Staff Writer

SECTION: E; Pg. 3

Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi has traveled the world as a model and an actress.

Padma Lakshmi apparently wasn't selected to host Bravo's Top Chef just because she's another pretty face (although that surely couldn't have hurt). This is one model-actress who actually eats -- and cooks.

Having already written one well-received cookbook, 2000's Easy Exotic,Lakshmi this month released a second one, Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet: A World of Recipes for Every Day(Weinstein Books; $34.95). It's packed with recipes and gorgeous photographs of dishes Lakshmi has enjoyed in her multicontinental career. There are stews, soups and salads from her native India, pastas from her days living in Italy and enchiladas inspired by travels in Mexico.

Many of the recipes have long lists of spices, some of which can be difficult to find. Things like dried pomegranate seeds (in a recipe for pan-charred green peas), yuzu juice (from a Japanese citrus fruit) and Persian Omani dried lemons (in a yummy-sounding chicken soup flavored with dill) are likely to send cooks scurrying to an international market or two.

But the preparation of most dishes is surprisingly simple once you've gathered the ingredients. This rich stew, for instance, went together in about 20 minutes, and as it simmered that afternoon, it filled the whole house with an exotic, intoxicating scent. And it passed my ultimate cookbook test: Not only do I plan to try more of Lakshmi's recipes, I want to make this one again.

BYLINE: Matthew Odam AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

SECTION: LIFESTYLE; Pg. E08

In addition to her role as host of Bravo TV's "Top Chef," Indian-born model and actress Padma Lakshmi has also had success as a writer. In October, Lakshmi released her second cookbook, "Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet," a personal collection of recipes and stories about the food she loves and how she came to love it.

Lakshmi will be in Austin on Saturday, as she makes an appearance at 2 p.m. in the Cooking Tent of the Texas Book Festival. We chatted with her earlier this week and discussed her inspiration for the book, how food functions in the narrative of our lives and her experience on "Top Chef."

American-Statesman: India, Spain, South America, Africa " the recipes in 'Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet' are certainly eclectic. How did you come up with the various recipes in the book, and are you able to select a favorite region for food?

Padma Lakshmi: I'm not. If I was, I think my cookbook would have reflected that. I've just hunted and gathered these recipes where and when I could.

Were there some recipes you felt bad about having to leave out?

You always have to do a bit of pruning in a cookbook, and you have to see where it's redundant. And you think, "OK, maybe I don't need that many recipes with succotash, or whatever it is." (Laughs)

It's kind of a process. I always keep recipes in the back of my head, and then I revisit them. There are a couple of recipes in this book that actually did not make it to the first book, and I'm pretty glad that they finally found their voice after all these years.

What would you tell a novice chef who is scared or overwhelmed by the prospect of trying to make simple, yet delicious meals at home?

I would say, start with a dish in the book that you're familiar with, that maybe just has a couple of different ingredients and that you're used to - like the crab cakes or the chicken soup or even the macaroni and cheese or fried chicken. These are all recipes that are really classic in the American repertoire, except they have one or two ingredients that make them new again and a little more ethnically different. So in a way you get those flavors, but you're not shocking your audience of diners with something completely weird, like a rack of bison, that they've never had. (Laughs)

It seems your book, as much as it is you sharing recipes, is about sharing your love of food and promoting the idea that food can play a role in the narrative of our lives instead of simply providing nutrition.

You just said it so beautifully. It really is part of the narrative of our lives, and food is so emotional and it's so much about coming together with your loved ones. This was a very personal book for me, so it's by no means everyone's idea of the "100 Greatest Hits," you know? It certainly is my list of how I'm eating now and how the people around me are eating in most urban environments - be that New York or Los Angeles or Austin. If you think about the way you've eaten in the last week, you've probably had a variety of cultures on your plate, and that's what I wanted to do. We all have those flavors that we're attracted to when we go out. What I wanted to do was bring them into the home.

How has working on 'Top Chef' expanded your palate or curiosity in the kitchen?

It's expanded my palate considerably. I was actually quite nervous that people might be a little thrown off by all the ingredients (in the book). The only thing I wish I had done - I do it indirectly, like you'll see a label in a still life shot of a place where you can get all of the spices and ingredients in the book, and I also talk about it in my head notes - I wish I had just put like a laundry list of shopping venues and Internet sites. But I think being on "Top Chef," my palette has grown even more adventurous, so I don't know what the next book is going to look like. All of these recipes were pretty much done before I started "Top Chef." Now, I love bison, it turns out. I love elk.

This little girl from India who started out as a vegetarian is now a full omnivorous glutton.

Well, you'll enjoy Austin, then, especially if you get a chance to try some elk backstrap out at Hudson's on the Bend. Speaking of Texas, Tre (Wilcox) seemed like a strong candidate on 'Top Chef' but got the ax a little bit earlier than one would have expected. Is it hard saying goodbye to contestants?

It's the most difficult part of my job, but it is an inherent component of the game. One thing we know for sure is that there will only be one chef left standing at the end of the show. Sometimes it's unfortunate, you know. I go through every day watching these people slave over these hot stoves, have little sleep and work their tails off. And I have great empathy for them. I'm the only one on the show who tastes every single thing that's prepared, from quick fire to elimination. And so, in a way, I'm getting the song of each of these people's lives.

José Andrés talks about a recipe being a box of memories, olfactory memories that trigger all these responses in you from your past, from where you've been, from what you've loved along the way. So I get very attached and feel a certain possessiveness toward these chefs, and Trey, especially. I think he's a stellar chef.

Will this be your first time in Austin, and what do you expect?

I'd love to ask you about the weather, because I don't know what to wear.

I've been to Texas a couple of times. Never been to Austin. I know it is one of the grooviest places in the region - very cultural, great art scene - so I'm really excited to come.

BYLINE: Gail Ciampa, Journal Food Editor

SECTION: LIFEBEAT/FOOD; Pg. E-01

Padma Lakshmi, the host of Bravo's very popular Top Chef is easy to look at and presumably knows her way around a kitchen. So there are photos of both Lakshmi and her lovely food filling the pages of her new book Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet: A World of Recipes for Every Day, (Weinstein Books; $34.95).

A theater arts graduate of Clark University in Worcester, Mass., she was born in India and burst onto the international scene as a supermodel and actress. There's no culinary training in her background.

But in her book, she imparts a love of food that began when she was young and cooked with her mother while exploring all the cuisines in New York where they moved to start a new life after her parents divorced. One day it was Polish sausages, another Vietnamese steamed fish. A Peruvian babysitter taught her to make mashed potato empanadas. Her mother's boyfriend for a time was from Barbados and she learned to eat tropical Caribbean food.

Though she tried to be vegetarian as a child, preferring salads to bologna sandwiches, she writes, "My mother the Brahmin culinary heretic actually encouraged me to eat meat."

She sprinkled bacon on salads, the top of eggs and grits and even grilled cheese sandwiches. In college, Lakshmi used bacon as a hangover cure in the form of fried eggs and honey mustard-glazed bacon on toasted English muffins.

As a model, her career took her around the globe and she said her "gastronomical research" continued with all the classical cuisine in Europe and beyond. But she learned it's only American bacon she loved, not the thick cut of European kitchens.

I know all this information gives very little insight into the more than 100 recipes in the book but I thoroughly enjoyed all the personal essays that give us a peek into Lakshmi. Many of the dishes look entirely approachable, cast-iron chicken or creamy broccoli soup and Tuscan lemon pudding. A few others require a long list of ingredients and tough ones to find at that: Rose Petal and Pistachio Ice Cream requires rose syrup and Turkish rose jam and dried rose petals. Her favorite ingredients to use in the kitchen are ginger, coconut milk, cinnamon, sugar, chilies and yuzu juice.

"I take classic recipes, such as chicken soup or macaroni and cheese, and add something unique to them, originality and complexity," she said.

But I have to admit it's the woman, not the recipes, who intrigues me the most.

She married author Salman Rushdie in 2004, but the two began divorce proceedings this year. The book is dedicated to S.R. so we can only wonder.

BYLINE: MADELEINE MARR, mmarr@MiamiHerald.com

SECTION: E; Pg. 10
Padma Lakshmi isn't an easy woman to catch up with these days.

Not only is the stunning host of Bravo's Top Chef taping Season 4 in Chicago, but she's squeezing in a nationwide tour for her second cookbook, Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet (Weinstein, $34.95), which brings her to Miami Book Fair International on Saturday.

Since the leggy Indian beauty barely has time to put a napkin on her lap, we chatted by phone on her way to the Windy City set.

On Top Chef 4 (air date TBA), ''you will see very strong women,'' she promises.

Hmmm. Kind of like her? Read a few blogs, and you'll find plenty of, shall we say, strong comments about the 37-year-old, who plays TC's executioner, dispatching each episode's loser with her trademark, ``Please pack your knives and go.''

''Padma has a very alienating quality about her -- ice princess,'' reads one post on the Bravo message board. Others use that word that rhymes with witch -- and worse. But ask a few chef-testants who've been around the chopping block with her and the consensus is: She's a cool chick.

''Most people think Padma is just a pretty face, but she's so much more than that,'' gushes Tantra chef Sandee Birdsong, who got the ax after only two episodes of TC Season 3: Miami. ``She's not superficial at all -- an absolutely awesome person, with amazing credentials.''

Hot-head Howie Kleinberg, the North Miami Beach native who made it to episode 11, agrees: ''I got the impression that she is warm and sweet -- just what you'd expect from someone in a position like hers,'' he says. ``It's obvious she cares about food and about what she does.''

Maybe her icy, on-screen aura is a product of the typecasting and pigeonholing reality-show producers employ to hype the drama. Maybe everyone should give the gal a break. She is just coming off a big breakup, from her husband of three years, author Salman Rushdie.

Nothing, though, is dampening her enthusiasm for the cookbook or for returning to South Florida, where she laid her head at the Fontainebleau for last spring's six-week shoot. Rushdie.

''I have a real soft spot for your town,'' Lakshmi says in that nasally, New Englandy way of hers. ``Unfortunately, I spent most of my time working, eating or sleeping.''

Even a goddess needs her beauty rest. After graduating from Clark University with a degree in theater, Lakshmi spent her 20s as a model, strutting international runways for major fashion houses.

Though she had to remain a twig for the cameras, food was always a passion, prompting her 2000 book, Easy Exotic: A Model's Low-Fat Recipes From Around the World (Miramax).

Skinnies snapped up her Provencal tomato-potato stew, farfalle with peppers and Bali baked fish recipes -- complete with calorie and fat counts. You'll find no caloric tally in Tangy Tart, though. Lakshmi -- who can't be more than a size 4 -- says she is ''incapable of freaking out'' over her weight anymore.

"I like to be sleek, yes, but not by depriving myself. I'd rather not eat the whole plate or exercise. Sometimes you've got to eat rich foods, just not a vat of them. Life is too short.''

Believe it. In Tangy Tart, she goes orgasmic over bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches: ``I'm sure the smell of sizzling hickory smoked pork fat has a lot to do with it. Adding to the appeal is the way the caramelized sugar seeps from the meat, rendering it crunchy and savory, mixing with the sulfates and salt, and mayonnaise.''

And her consideration of ice cream's allure is positively pulse-quickening: ''Is it the rich, creamy, cold velvet that bathes the mouth in a slightly numbing, chilled bliss?'' she writes. ``Ice cream begs us to savor and consume it by caressing it with our tongue. It is the most primal method of getting one's most primal need satisfied.''

Despite the steamy prose, Lakshmi says the book is a bouquet to her mother, Vijaya, who supported the family by working as a nurse in New York. (They came to the U.S. from South India when Padma was a tot. Lakshmi still lives in Manhattan; mom, in L.A. Dad's not really in the Kodak.)

''She didn't have it very easy, having to raise me on her own, but still managed to put good food on the table,'' she says. ``She'd use whatever she found . . . strange but tasty things ended up in the pot.''

Some of the family recipes Lakshmi includes -- like green mango curry with asafetida powder and black mustard seeds -- will require a trip to an ethnic market, but Tangy Hot is by no means an Indian cookbook. There's a zucchini pudding a Mexican housekeeper taught her to make, an eggplant dish an Italian pal inspired and the Braised Spinach Catalana she brought back from her Barcelona honeymoon.

“I get inspiration everywhere -- from the shish kebab guy on the corner to a four-star Michelin restaurant.''

Lakshmi will be back the silver screen later this year in Exclusion, by Oscar-winning director Deepa Mehta (after an unfortunate first outing in the 2001 Mariah Carey bomb Glitter). And she seems content with her single status, carrying on a love affair with food.

''It's amazing,'' she says. "I never thought when I was modeling for, say, Herve Leger, that one day I would make a living out of what I ate. It's been great to follow a passion and turn it into a livelihood.''

BYLINE: Kate Lawson

SECTION: MY WEEKEND; Pg. 1D

LENGTH: 505 words

Padma Lakshmi is not only the most beautiful woman on television today, she's also an accomplished writer and cook who will be in town Sunday to sign copies of her latest cookbook, "Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet" (Weinstein Books, $35), to benefit Gleaners Community Food Bank. Here's what the host of Bravo's Emmy-winning "Top Chef" had to say in a phone chat earlier this week from her home in New York

Have you finished taping Season Four of "Top Chef"?

Yes, we just wrapped it up last week in Chicago. It went really well and I ate like a pig. Now I'm going to have to exercise.

Do you have a favorite episode? I mean, did you eat some really amazing food that just blew you away?

It's all amazing. The fact that this show just keeps getting more popular and it's attracting a higher caliber of chefs is what impresses me. And the food is outstanding.

About the book, I have to say I was so impressed not only with the quality of the recipes but the writing was just beautiful. Please tell me that those were your words.

You know, I get that question all the time, and yes, absolutely, this book is 100 percent me. I wrote every single word and the text for every recipe. It was two years in the making and a labor of love for me. My fingerprints are on every aspect of the book, and it's more of me than anything in my life.

My favorite is your chapter on bacon. Especially because you say you're a vegetarian.

I know. It's funny you say that because really, bacon makes anything better. I'm thinking of getting that on a T-shirt. It's also funny because on this book tour (this is Lakshmi's second) I haven't done any cooking. People just ask me to read from the book. That's most unusual for a cookbook. The two favorite chapters are "In Praise of Bacon" and "The Rose Witch."

Where did you learn how to cook?

I'm Indian and my mother is a great cook. I watched at her side while she prepared meals and learned how to improvise. I've always had a great palate, especially for very spicy foods. Even at 4 years old, I thought the spicier, the better. Everywhere I went I learned about cooking, whether it was from my grandmother, my babysitter, my aunts, from famous four-star chefs and the truck-stop barbecue joint. I never missed an opportunity to learn.

Do you have a favorite from your book?

The chili honey butter. It's dangerous to have around, though, because you'll want to put it on anything you eat. I also love the curried butternut squash soup, which I like to make with low-fat coconut milk.

What do you like to do on your time off?

Sleep. Box. Roller skate. Sleep.

Take the the stress out of your party

BY KATHY ROWINGS

THE HOLIDAYS are a great time to get your family together and enjoy some much-needed time off, but cooking for the whole clan can be tricky. We asked Padma Lakshmi, host of Bravo's Top Chef and author of the just-out cookbook Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet, to share her tips on how to cook up the perfect holiday for your family and guests.

--What's a surefire strategy for picking a good holiday menu?
I tailor my menu to who's coming over. If I know a particular relative is coming, I'll try to make his or her favorite food -- especially a dish from growing up in our family that we don't get to eat that often. Try to find a menu that's easy to prepare a bit in advance. You don't want every dish needing attention two minutes before you serve it, or you'll spend your whole evening in the kitchen. Make things that can rest well, that may actually benefit from some waiting time, such as a rice pilaf or a roast.

-- Do you think a host should do a test run before the big day?
When you're having a lot of people over to the house, don't try out a recipe for the first time. Try it out when you're not stressed, when you don't have to be somewhere or you're not tired from a full day of work. See if you like it, or if you think the recipe needs tweaking. Then you'll also know how much time it takes to make it so you'll be able to plan the other dishes accordingly.

-- Is it tacky to ask people to pitch in?
That's easier to do in a family situation. Family members usually have similar tastes because they've all grown up with the same food. My family did lots of potlucks, and it always turned out well.

-- What about those pesky picky eaters?
I've had a few picky eaters at my table over the years. You just have to make something very simple. A lot of picky eaters say "I don't like anything spicy" or "I'll only eat this or that," and then the whole group ends up eating only this or that. If people don't like, say, spicy foods, I'll make the same protein food but leave the sauce off so I'm not cooking two whole separate meals.

-- Should you stick to the basics on the holidays?
It's hard. Most of us are cooking for three or four different kinds of palates -- those of your kids, your spouse, a friend. All of these people have different needs and tastes. But people are really traditional when it comes to the holidays, especially Thanksgiving. They really want the turkey whatever way the family has it every year. One option is to add some different side dishes to change the routine.

-- You've got the menu planned and the guest list set. What can you do to minimize the stress?
Manage your time. Finish most of your cooking an hour before people get there, and go have a shower, put on a clean dress, wash your hair so it doesn't smell like fried food. Then you can finish off two or three dishes. Obviously, you don't want to dress the salad until the last second, but you don't want to be a frazzled, panicked, soup-stained mess when your family arrives. You want to be calm, have fun, have a glass of champagne with them. That's why I encourage hosts to think about the menu and give yourself a break. One tip: You can minimize stress by planning a menu that avoids too much preparation at the last minute.

BYLINE: David Foxley

On Monday, Nov. 19, Padma Lakshmi, the former model and comely host of Bravo's reality series Top Chef, read from her latest cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet (Weinstein Books, $34.95), at the Strand Bookstore near Union Square.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the title of Ms. Lakshmi's book, along with her first, Easy Exotic, is a nod to her on-air personality. But one would be wrong.

"I finished this book before I started Top Chef, so it had to do with all the flavors, the palate," Ms. Lakshmi, whose breakup with author Salman Rushdie was first reported in these pages, told the Transom while hastily signing a stack of volumes with a slowly dying Sharpie. She dismissed the idea that viewers might be salivating over her hot bod rather than her culinary creations. "Our show is very seriously about food. So I think being on Top Chef just adds to the credibility that I already garnered from the award [Best First Book at the 1999 World Cookbook Awards in Versailles] that the first book won." To be sure, to be sure.

How is writing different from filming? "I get hair and makeup at Top Chef and I get someone who irons my clothes," said Ms. Lakshmi, 37, resplendent in a black dress and black suede ankle boots. "The book I can write in pajamas; I'm at home and it's completely self-generated. And nobody makes Starbucks runs!"

Also at the Strand was chef Tom Colicchio, her fellow judge on Top Chef and owner of the gourmet mini-chain Craft. Though Mr. Colicchio said he's never had the opportunity to sit down to a meal actually cooked by his colleague-"when we're doing the show, we don't have time," he said-he has tried her flavorful condiments. "Some of the chutneys come to mind, which were really flavorful, but really spicy, too," he said.

Ms. Lakshmi promised that lots of zest is sprinkled through Top Chef's upcoming season. "We have a lot of strong women, which is really nice for the show," she said.

BYLINE: PATRICIA RODRIGUEZ, FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

SECTION: FOOD; Look and Cook; Pg. 2E

Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet: A World of Recipes for Every Day. Weinstein Books, $34.95

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Padma Lakshmi apparently wasn't selected to host Bravo's "Top Chef" just because she's another pretty face (although that surely couldn't have hurt). This is one model-actress who actually eats - and cooks.

Having already written one well-received cookbook, "Easy Exotic," Lakshmi this month released her second one.

ABOUT THE BOOK: This book is packed with recipes and gorgeous photographs of dishes Lakshmi has enjoyed in her multicontinental career. There are stews, soups and salads from her native India, pastas from her days in Italy and enchiladas inspired by travels in Mexico.

Many recipes have long lists of spices, some of which can be difficult to find. Things like dried pomegranate seeds (in a recipe for pan-charred green peas), yuzu juice (from a Japanese citrus fruit) and Persian Omani dried lemons (in a yummy-sounding chicken soup flavored with dill) are likely to send cooks scurrying to an international market.

But the preparations are simple once you've gathered the ingredients. This rich stew went together in about 20 minutes, and as it simmered, it filled the house with an intoxicating scent. And it passed my ultimate test: Not only do I plan to try more of Lakshmi's recipes, I want to make this one again.

BYLINE: Joe Gray, Chicago Tribune

SECTION: FOOD NEWS

Nov. 28---- Fans of Bravo TV's "Top Chef" might know host Padma Lakshmi only as former model and actress who introduces challenges and helps judge the results. They're in for a surprise.

Lakshmi's new cookbook, "Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet: A World of Recipes for Every Day" (Weinstein Books; $34.95), gives a peek inside the life of the reality cooking-show star. What we learn is that she's a serious cook and seriously in love with the flavors listed in her book's title.

On the show, Lakshmi often takes a back seat to the chef contestants, guest judges and head judge Tom Colicchio. But that's her job. It's her role to solicit the opinions of those judges, she said. Now the book is her turn to talk about her love of food.

"This book is probably the most personal piece of work that I have ever done," said Lakshmi in a brief break from taping the show's fourth season in Chicago. Along with 120 recipes and detailed, chatty headnotes, the book includes a series of engaging essays that round out the picture of Lakshmi beyond the "Quickfire Challenges" and the constant wardrobe changes.

"It was very important to me that even people who had no intention of doing the recipes [would still] enjoy the book," she explained, hence the tales of the peanut man at Elliot's Beach in her native Madras, on the southeastern coast of India, and the story of falling for the cook while visiting a beautiful resort area of Careyes, Mexico.

But to skip the recipes would be a mistake because Lakshmi proves herself an enticing translator of the foods she has experienced growing up in India, then New York and then in her travels around the world. Lakshmi makes a case for a mix of cuisines.

"It's a scrapbook of how I like to eat and I think it is how a lot of people are eating now," Lakshmi said. "Most of us just don't eat one cuisine any more. We actually put our own twists on them."

She mixes influences sometimes within the same dish, such as the chicken soup with cumin and lemon grass that mixes Thai and Indian influences. Among traditional dishes, her chicken korma was an aromatic and rich stew with layers of flavor that went on and on.

Lakshmi, who was embarking on a promotional tour for the book after "Top Chef" taping wrapped up at the end of October, said she had been working on the book for more than two years, in and around the show. Because of the show's long hours -- judges often worked late into the night -- Lakshmi had no time to cook while in Chicago nor to visit the grocers and other Indian businesses along Devon Avenue.

That she'll save for another trip, because she has fallen in love with the city.

BYLINE: Jill Rosen, Sun reporter

SECTION: TASTE; BOOKMARK; Pg. 4F

Although Padma Lakshmi also hails from India, Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet is less an homage to the author's ethnic roots than a tasting tour of her favorite international flavors.

In fact, it's fair to say that the book, whose recipes hopscotch the globe, is really a celebration of Lakshmi, the model, author and actress best known as the host of Bravo's Top Chef. The 265-page book is liberally seasoned with her pictures.

Because of the random nature of the recipe assortment, it's hard to imagine using the book to plan a certain meal. Rather, it's the type of book you'd leaf through looking for inspiration. And there are a number of tempting dishes.

I tried the Puree of Roasted Eggplant. Vibrant and fresh-tasting with cilantro and lemon juice, it worked well as a spread, better than as a side dish, which Lakshmi also recommended. A friend found the raw red onion a bit overpowering, so the onion-sensitive might want to consider roasting that along with the eggplant.

BYLINE: Tara Duggan, Chronicle Staff Writer

SECTION: Food; COOK'S BOOKS; Pg. F6

The past few months have brought a wave of Indian cookbooks from Indian authors. It's fascinating to see how they reflect the multifaceted cuisine's integration into American culinary life.

Two of the books, from Indian-born, New York-based chefs Suvir Saran and Padma Lakshmi, each include recipes for mac and cheese and Mexican snacks among the chutneys. A book from Madhur Jaffrey focuses on 30-minute recipes, a very American concept in and of itself. And a book from Suneeta Vaswani focuses on cooking from every corner of India, perhaps a reflection of our newfound interest in regional cooking.

I was prepared not to like Lakshmi's "Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet," since so many books from TV cooks seem rushed. However, this second book from the statuesque host of Bravo's "Top Chef" has more to offer, partly because of the author's experience traveling as a model. She has a warm, lighthearted way of sharing recipes, like a party hostess who always throws something fabulous together.

The Food section staff enjoyed her pan-seared flounder with Chipotle Date Chutney. The book's food shots are artistic, and portraits of the author aren't hard on the eyes, either - though it's hard to believe she's actually eating that scoop of honey-fig ice cream.

Lead Us Into Temptation
Padma Lakshmi, the Top Chef temptress, has wandered the world collecting flavors, savors, and cooking techniques. Here, we serve up this exotic dish in 4 courses
By: Matt Goulding

Watching Padma Lakshmi as she prepares to go before a camera lens is like observing the composition of a signature dish at a fine restaurant. Many hands are involved, each one assigned to an unthinkably small task of extreme precision. Instead of painting plates with delicate reductions and positioning microgreens atop towers of protein, they're painting the contours of her back with just the right shade of cinnamon brown and positioning her thick, black hair in waves that make it look like a dark, bottomless sea. When the camera starts clicking, no fewer than 13 people have contributed to dressing and coiffing and making up this multifaceted entrée, this model/actress/culinary diva.

I'm standing innocently and uselessly aside, watching this all go down in a photo studio in Manhattan's Greenwich Village. Then Padma cocks her head over her shoulder and casts a deep, sultry stare that stabs me in the chest like a 10-inch chef's knife. Her eyes soften and her lips curl into a sly smile: "If only I had this many fluffers in the kitchen. I'd have them poof up my salads."

If Padma's really looking for help tousling her arugula, I'm sure I could work something out. After all, she may be one of the greatest catches of the new millennium. Padma speaks five languages and has lived and worked in more countries than most people can pick out on a map. She has an award-winning cookbook and one of the most popular cooking shows on cable (Top Chef), and her ex-husband is one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. She is 15 IQ points smarter than the average human and three heart palpitations more beautiful than the average supermodel, with soft, cappuccino skin, deep, burrowing eyes, and more pleasing curves and stunning vistas than the Pacific Coast Highway.

But the one thing Padma doesn't have, something she's never had, is a man who treats her right in the kitchen. "Guys don't cook for me," she'll tell you, with the dejected look of a little girl who just lost her puppy to a fur trader. "I don't know why that is." Maybe it's her well-documented prowess with a spatula and a spice cabinet, or the fact that as executioner on Top Chef, she makes a living castrating very capable cooks with her trademark death blow: "Please pack your knives and go."

No matter. What's important is that in her search for a man who'll cook for her, Padma has offered hope to every man who has ever dreamed of dating out of his league. The way to this woman's heart -- maybe any woman's heart -- is through the sensual red zone known as the kitchen.

So now I have a mission, which I undertake for the benefit of mankind: to find out what to feed an exotic creature like Padma. It's a quest worth pursuing on behalf of a woman who has spent most of her life adrift, driven in equal measure by wanderlust and food lust. To chart the evolution of both, I'll present her in banquet form: Padma, a lifetime in four courses. I think your appetite will increase with each one.

First Course: Stinky Curry and a Liter of Milk

Born in India and transplanted to New York with her mom by the age of 4, Padma spent her earliest years divided between the solitude of a single-parent apartment in Manhattan and the buzz of an overstuffed household in the city of Chennai (formerly Madras), where a dozen family members were in residence at any given time.

"All of the action of the house was in the kitchen," she notes. "All the decisions were made there, all the family secrets revealed." It was in that kitchen, where sights and sounds of cooking seasoned every major event, that Padma fell in love with food. Her new cookbook, Tangy Tart Hot & Sweet, largely reflects those early, heady times spent in the kitchen -- from cauliflower roasted with a pinch of anise seed to crusty pita chips dusted with sumac powder.

"You can have very simple food with those light, subtle brushstrokes of flavor," she says, recalling her childhood, "and your cooking can have a delicacy and a very sophisticated quality without being fussy."

But when she shuttled back to New York, the smells and tastes of her motherland didn't win her any friends. In American classrooms, Padma was that exotic girl with the weird lunches.

"Being from India wasn't that cool when I was young," she recalls. "My classmates would show up with these very neat peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off and I would show up with this very pungent curry, and they'd be, like, 'Ewww, that's gross!' Kids are cruel."

As if curry isn't hard enough for American kids to comprehend, Padma was also from a strict vegetarian household. She didn't have her first bite of meat until seventh grade.

"My mom would make me drink four 8-ounce glasses of milk a day for protein," she says. "To this day, one of my favorite things is an ice cold glass of milk at midnight."

Second Course: Cream of Alphabet Soup

"By the time I was 9, I was handling a knife in the kitchen," she says matter-of-factly, as if most kids are julienning in fourth grade. "My mom was working and going to school for her masters, so I became her sous chef."

Padma and her mother moved west when she was a teenager, landing near Los Angeles. It was there, influenced by the Latin flavors pervading L.A., that she developed what she calls her "MacGyver cooking style."

"I'd sometimes come home from school and make bean-and-cheese enchiladas and put them in the oven and have a hot meal for my mom when she came home from work. It was me and my mom against the world. She worked hard for everything I had."

Padma matched that work ethic in the kitchen. "I started by gussying up cans of soup. I would mix cream of potato soup with alphabet soup, a can of each, and add diced jalapeños to it. And I would chop up some fresh parsley. If it wasn't for the alphabet letters, people would think it was homemade."

Perhaps because of those humble beginnings -- with a can of Campbell's finest in one hand, a spoon in the other -- Padma doesn't take herself too seriously, especially in the kitchen. "My style is mostly spontaneous. You just have to wing it, man. You cook with your mouth, tasting as you go. It doesn't take a genius."

Third Course: Beef in Red Wine and Whiskey con Coca-Cola

Padma fled to Spain the last semester of her senior year of college to escape a gripping case of boredom.

"I really discovered the whole sensuality of life when I was in Europe," she says. "Madrid was exciting in '92. They were still partying from the death of Franco. I was taking my textbooks to dinner because I knew we'd end up dancing at a disco and then at the after-hours clubs. By 5 we'd go for churros con chocolate, and by then it was time to go to school. We'd show up reeking of cigarettes and whiskey con Coca-Cola."

Her modeling career began with an encounter in a Madrid café and burgeoned over meetings in tapas bars across the city, where she fell hard for simple, classic Spanish dishes like tortilla española, an egg-and-potato omelet that Padma has been known to pack for picnics with men. But she would love it if some man would reciprocate.

Padma eventually migrated across Europe, settling in for a 6-year stint in Milan, where her modeling career exploded. She met a man in Milan, got engaged, and moved in. In her mother-in-law-to-be's kitchen, she learned the exacting rules of traditional Italian cooking. "I learned how to make polenta, ragu Bolognese, white ragu, fish carpaccio…so many things." Her favorite? Brasato al Barolo, a lusty braise of bacon-wrapped beef brisket and hearty red wine.

The bacon is Padma's twist. "It's my one true love." I doubt she means that literally, but given the way she intones the declaration, I can't be sure.

Fourth Course: Scotch and Scrambled Eggs

The innocent days in Europe eventually came to an end. When she left Italy, she was alone. "I was really young, and I needed a clean break."

Things happened fast for Padma back in the United States. She published her first book, Easy Exotic, which won Best First Book at the Versailles World Cookbook Fair in 1999. She hosted a Food Network series called, fittingly enough, Melting Pot: Padma's Passport. She played a princess in The 10 Commandments, an alien princess on Star Trek: Enterprise, and a disco girl alongside Mariah Carey in the ill-fated Glitter.

It was in these high-flying times that she met her husband-to-be, the Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie. The "beauty and the brain" story that emerged was too perfect for the paparazzi to ignore: A man whose prowess with a pen is so absolute and penetrating that it inspires a death sentence from the then – supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, meets a woman whose looks are so stunning as to melt the heart of the cruelest dictator. The tabloids feasted. Lady Lakshmi dinner parties became events of lore, with guests from the art, entertainment, and food world gathering around her exotic creations: Moroccan curried chicken pie, baked figs, rose-petal-and-pistachio ice cream.

In 2006, the producers of a new cable show that pitted aspiring chefs against each other decided to replace the hot wife of a famous entertainer (Billy Joel) with the hot wife of a famous writer, and Padma moved in as the new host of Top Chef. More than modeling, more than acting, even more than being married to Rushdie, Top Chef made Padma into a person you probably recognize on these pages. And the credit is all hers: It's her balance of beauty, brains, and culinary savvy that has made her such an enduring and enjoyable part of the show.

"Padma has impeccable taste," says Eric Ripert, a chef, co-owner of Le Bernardin, guest judge on Top Chef, and the food columnist for this magazine. "And she's a very good cook." What did she serve Ripert (who has since purchased her book for all his line cooks)? "Fish with coconut milk, Indian rice, and an amazing ice cream."

That she cooked fish for Ripert, a man many consider to be the world's foremost master of seafood, speaks volumes about Padma's searing-hot level of confidence. Whether soldiering through a 6-hour photo shoot with 13 fluffers, pinballing around the planet as a global ambassador for the Keep a Child Alive AIDS campaign, or battling it out with the other Top Chef judges until 4 a.m. on which cook they should fillet, Padma doesn't back down from anything.

Most notably, she doesn't back down from a second helping. Of anything.

I called up a few of her closest friends to plumb the depths of her appetite.

"Astonishing," is how one describes it.

"I'm constantly impressed by how much she can eat," says another.

"Her appetite is amazing," says chef Tom Colicchio, the owner of Craft and Top Chef's head judge. "I keep telling her that one day her metabolism will slow down."

My mind was spinning with possibilities.

What's her response to all the claims levied about her appetite? "I can take down half a pizza, a bottle of wine, and a tiramisu without blinking an eye. But if I do that, then the next day I'm eating fish and sautéed vegetables. It's all about balance."

What does she like to drink? "Single-malt scotch. At any point in a meal, scotch."

What's her guilty pleasure? "Taco Bell. Three taco supremes, no sour cream."

What does she eat when she's hung over? "An In-N-Out burger. I love it."

What does she eat in bed? "Frozen grapes. And Butterfingers."

According to Padma, Colicchio is one of the only men who has ever cooked for her. So what was the dish?

Scrambled eggs, she tells me, savoring the memory.

For all of the complexities, the worldwide journeys, the high-profile dinners, that's what it takes to please a woman like Padma? A simple plate of scrambled eggs?

There's hope for all of us, men.