We Spoke to Padma Lakshmi About Family, Forgiveness, and the Pleasures of Fried Chicken
Photos courtesy of Padma Lakshmi.

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We Spoke to Padma Lakshmi About Family, Forgiveness, and the Pleasures of Fried Chicken

Padma Lakshmi has, at various points in her life, worn the hats of entrepreneur, actress, model, Top Chef host, and cookbook author. Now, she is adding memoir author to that list.

Padma Lakshmi is no slouch. She has, at various points in her life, worn the hats of entrepreneur, actress, model, Top Chef host, and cookbook author. Now, she is adding memoir author to that list.

Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir, offers a detailed account of the dramatic highs and lows that she has experienced from a young age. But it also focuses on the integral role that food has played during key moments in Lakshmi's life; from childhood recollections of rice in her grandmother's kitchen in India, to a kumquat chutney that provided solace during her darkest hour as an adult.

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We spoke with Padma about the perils of writing such a personal and intimate book, the feeling of being an outsider, and her undying love of fried chicken.

MUNCHIES: Can you tell me about the title of your book: Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir? Padma Lakshmi: It kind of sums up the book, it's the main pillars. It's also a bit of an homage to Love, Loss, and What I Wore, which came out about 20 years ago. It's such a sweet little book and it stayed with me. A couple of years ago, in the last part of Nora Ephron's life, I became friendly with her and she used to tease me and say, "How is Love, Loss, and What We Ate coming along?" when I was having writer's block and panic attacks. [laughs] We both loved that book and the title just stuck.

Does it annoy you that your memoir, which is about food above all, gets more attention because of your romantic life? I find it disappointing, but that's OK. Honestly, this book was so hard to write that I'm just happy that anyone's talking about it at all. Do I wish that they would focus on what the book is actually about? Yes, I wish they would. But, what can I do?

But it can also give people the wrong impression about a book that was difficult to write. It is irritating because you don't want to give people who haven't read the book an inaccurate idea of what it's about. With the relationship stuff, it's like an internet brushfire that you can't put out and all of a sudden, people think it's this tell-all salacious thing, but it's really not.

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So, let's set the record straight here on MUNCHIES! What is your book primarily about? This book is about food, family, feeling like an outsider, and it's also about forgiveness.

When have you felt like an outsider? Well, I'm a brown person in a white world—so pretty much always. I'm an Indian woman living in the US, so it's hard not to feel a little left out. I'm also someone who works in television, where it's getting better, but there's not that much diversity. Most Asians are stereotyped, one way or another.

Do you feel like food is a way of breaking down those cultural barriers? Yeah, I think so. If you enjoy a culture's food, you're enjoying that culture, because food is so integral to all of our cultures.

Beyond ethnicity, you also broach some pretty heavy women's issues in the book. It's a feminist book. I talk a lot about endometriosis and my surgery, and I feel like if this was a male issue, there would be much more research and more treatment options. I also talk about my grandmother who would probably never call herself a feminist, but definitely is and was.

Love, Loss, and What We Ate also gets really personal and explores how food helped you cope with really rough times. At different times in our lives we really have different needs, and at some point, if we're not feeling well physically or emotionally, or both, there are certain foods from our childhood that can lift us out of the gray and take us back the a happier and more idyllic time.

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Get you share an anecdote where food got you through a tough time? I made a kumquat chutney when I had just been diagnosed with endometriosis. I'd had a very lengthy surgery and a long recovery in bed. And I was also separated from my husband.

So it was really the pits? Yeah, I was really in the pits, that's a good way to say it.

How did the kumquats turn things around? I think that the chutney just lit up my palate, even though I wasn't cooking—I was just writing an article for Gourmet magazine which included that chutney in it. So when I started cooking again, I would just fling a dollop of it in a frying pan and thin it out with some water and make a filet of fish in that, or sear scallops with butter and the chutney. That one little chutney helped me get better.

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Rice also plays a pretty big part in your book. The first kitchen I remember is in my grandmother's house, and we just cooked rice every single day—it was never even an issue, it was just always there. Rice was just completely integral to our life and being. When I was young and we were looking for brides for my uncle, my grandfather would look at the pictures and say, "Yes, she's pretty, but can she make a decent bowl of rice?" That right there tells you how important rice is in my family.

How did that influence you later in life? I actually started a food company called Padma's Easy Exotic Rice. I'm not big on packaged foods, to be honest, so it's kind of weird that I have a frozen rice product. But the truth is that the natural medium of cooking rice is actually steamed, and these are really healthy and not starchy or mushy. It's cooked exactly as it should be. We even have a medley of red, black, and brown rice which is really interesting.

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That sounds pretty healthy. Do you have any guilty pleasures food-wise? I don't ever feel guilty about taking pleasure in something. The greasier the better. I love fried chicken and I think that I prefer buying barbecue off of some guy's truck on the highway to any kind of white-tablecloth haute cuisine.

I feel that people might be surprised to hear that. I think that because I'm on Top Chef, people have a specific idea of who I am. It's easy for people to think, "Oh, she wears fancy dresses and eats haute cuisine." But, really, I don't. I love pizza, especially Gruppo. I once got pizza after eating fried chicken. I also love sloppy, messy nachos. I love having the munchies!

Are you a big drinker? I like some tequila and I love wine, but I'm not a huge cocktail person.

So hanging out in literary circles with the likes of Christopher Hitchens didn't really rub off on you? Christopher drank all kinds of things, but I think that he was partial to whiskey. I've seen Christopher drink copious amounts of that stuff. I try to pace myself, but sometimes you wind up sipping absentmindedly.

Then maybe it was just the writing that rubbed off on you? I don't know about that, either. I think I was just cooking for them and happy to be cooking for them. Food was always a good escape for me. I could always fit in as a good cook. I would always find my place at the table by making dinner. It's very meditative and creative. I'm happiest when I'm barefoot in my kitchen and I can be there for hours and forget that any time has gone by.

We've covered a lot of ground, Padma. Thank you for your time. My pleasure, thank you.