STIRRING THE POT: PADMA LAKSHMI

Padma Lakshmi is an Emmy-nominated producer, television host, food expert, and a New York Times best-selling author. In 2023, she was named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People.

Lakshmi will serve as creator/host/executive producer of a new food competition show called “America’s Culinary Cup” on CBS, featuring the country’s most decorated chefs- set to air as part of the network’s 2025/26 slate. She is also the creator, host, and executive producer of the critically acclaimed Hulu series “Taste the Nation”, which ran for two and a half seasons and received an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special. “Taste the Nation” was also the recipient of four Critics Choice Real TV Awards, two Television Critics Association award nominations, a 2021 Gotham Award nomination for Breakthrough Series, and earned a nod from the Television Academy Honors which celebrates programs across numerous platforms and genres that raise awareness about complex issues facing society. In June 2022, “Taste the Nation: Holiday Edition” won a James Beard Foundation Award in the Visual Media - Long Form category.

Lakshmi served as host and executive producer of Bravo’s two-time Emmy-winning series “Top Chef” for 19 seasons. “Top Chef” has been nominated for 47 Emmys, including her five-time nomination as Outstanding Host for A Reality-Competition Program. In 2022, she accepted two Critics Choice Real TV Awards for Best Culinary Show and Best Competition Series on behalf of “Top Chef” as well as an award for Best Show Host. “Top Chef” would repeat wins at the 2023 Critics Choice Real TV Awards receiving the award for Best Culinary Show and Best Show Host. She is an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Artist Ambassador for immigrants' rights and women's rights. Lakshmi was also appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

In December 2021, she received the Advocate of the Year Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA). In October 2022, Lakshmi was honored at the 20th edition of the ACLU's Sing Out For Freedom benefit concert along with Patti Smith and Shaina Taub. In March 2023, Lakshmi was honored by Planned Parenthood of Greater New York's with the Champion of Change Award for her lifetime of advocacy. Just when she thought her modeling days were behind her, she graced the pages of Sports Illustrated Magazine’s Swimsuit Edition in 2023.

Born in India, she grew up in the United States, graduating from Clark University with a bachelor’s degree in Theatre Arts and American Literature. Known as India’s first supermodel, she began her career as a fashion model and actress working in Europe and the United States.

Lakshmi established herself as a food expert early in her career hosting “Padma’s Passport”, where she cooked diverse cuisine from around the world, and “Planet Food”, a documentary series, both on the Food Network domestically and worldwide on the Discovery Channel. She also co-hosted Rai Television‘s “Domenica In”, Italy’s highest-rated variety show.

The award-winning author’s next cookbook, Padma’s All American, is being released by Knopf in November 2025. This book is the result of five years of traveling and tasting, listening and observing for her show “Taste the Nation” on Hulu. Lakshmi compiles dozens of recipes from the immigrant and indigenous communities she visits, as well as many from her own family, showing what really comprises American cuisine. A prolific author, she also wrote the best-selling Easy Exotic, which won the Best First Book award at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Lakshmi followed this with the publication of her second cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet, and her memoir The New York Times best-selling Love, Loss, and What We Ate. She later published The Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs. In August of 2021, she published her first children’s book Tomatoes for Neela which was also a New York Times best-seller.

In addition to her food writing, Lakshmi has also contributed to Vogue, Gourmet, both British and American Harper’s Bazaar, as well as penning a syndicated column on fashion and food for The New York Times.

Lakshmi created a fine jewelry line The Padma Collection, which sold at Bergdorf Goodman, Neiman Marcus, and Nordstrom. She also designed a home décor line under the same name featuring tabletop dishware, stemware, and hand-blown glass décor pieces, which sold nationwide in Bloomingdale’s. In addition, Lakshmi created Padma’s Easy Exotic, a collection of culinary products ranging from frozen organic foods, fine teas, natural spice blends, and home goods. In 2018, Lakshmi collaborated with MAC Cosmetics for a worldwide capsule collection called MAC Padma which quickly sold out in both India and the United States.

After unknowingly suffering from endometriosis for decades, in 2009 she co-founded the Endometriosis Foundation of America (EndoFound) alongside Advanced Gynecological Surgeon Tamer Seckin, MD. EndoFound launched the first interdisciplinary research facility in the country for Gynepathology, as a joint project between Harvard Medical School and MIT and Lakshmi gave the keynote address at the Center’s opening in December 2009.

Her efforts were recognized on the floor of the New York State Senate, where she succeeded in passing a bill related to teen health initiatives. The organization’s ENPOWR program has currently educated over 32,000 students about endometriosis in high schools across the state of New York.

Lakshmi is a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has received the 2018 Karma Award from variety, as well as the 2016 NECO Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

padmalakshmi.com

Photo: Inez & Vinoodh

Florence Fabricant, a food and wine writer for the New York Times, contributes the weekly Front Burner and Off the Menu columns, is a member of the wine panel and writes the pairings column for the wine tastings. She frequently writes features that appear in the Food section and also covers food and travel elsewhere in the Times. She has written 13 cookbooks. This spring, her latest, The Ladies Village Improvement Society Cookbook: Eating and Entertaining in East Hampton" to celebrate the 125th anniversary of LVIS was published by Rizzoli. Other books include Wine with Food, based on the New York Times pairings columns and written with Eric Asimov and The City Harvest Cookbook, both published by Rizzoli. She actually began her career as a food writer in East Hampton, contributing the column In Season to the East Hampton Star. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Smith College, she has an M.A. in French from New York University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She holds L’Ordre National du Mérite from the French government, is on the Board of Trustees of Guild Hall in East Hampton, N.Y., and is a member of Who’s Who of Food and Beverage in America. (New York, NY). She lives in Manhattan and East Hampton, N.Y., and has two children and two grandchildren. 

Photo: Fred Conrad for The New York Times