- Hardcover: 336 pages
- Publisher: Ecco (24 Mar. 2016)
- ISBN: 9780062202611
Long before Padma Lakshmi ever stepped onto a television set, she learned that how we eat is an extension of how we love, how we comfort, how we forge a sense of home—and how we taste the world as we navigate our way through it. Shuttling between continents as a child, she lived a life of dislocation that would become habit as an adult, never quite at home in the world. And yet, through all her travels, her favorite food remained the simple rice she first ate sitting on the cool floor of her grandmother’s kitchen in South India.
Poignant and surprising, Love, Loss, and What We Ate is Lakshmi’s extraordinary account of her journey from that humble kitchen, ruled by ferocious and unforgettable women, to the judges’ table of Top Chef and beyond. It chronicles the fierce devotion of the remarkable people who shaped her along the way, from her headstrong mother who flouted conservative Indian convention to make a life in New York, to her Brahmin grandfather—a brilliant engineer with an irrepressible sweet tooth—to the man seemingly wrong for her in every way who proved to be her truest ally. A memoir rich with sensual prose and punctuated with evocative recipes, it is alive with the scents, tastes, and textures of a life that spans complex geographies both internal and external.
Love, Loss, and What We Ate is an intimate and unexpected story of food and family—both the ones we are born to and the ones we create—and their enduring legacies.
Emmy-nominated Padma Lakshmi is known internationally as an actress, food expert, model and award-winning author. Lakshmi recently wrapped her twelfth season as the host of Bravo’s Emmy award-winning Top Chef.
Lakshmi was born in India and grew up in America. She graduated from Clark University with a Bachelor’s degree in Theater Arts and American Literature. Known as India’s first supermodel, she began her career as a fashion model, working in Europe and the US.
Lakshmi established herself as a food expert early on in her career, having hosted two successful cooking shows and writing a best-selling cookbook Easy Exotic, for which she won the International Versailles Event for best cookbook by a first time writer. Lakshmi followed this success with the publication of her second cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet, released by Weinstein Books, which has over 150 recipes from around the world alongside intriguing personal memoirs.
In addition to these current projects, Lakshmi is a savvy businesswoman with multiple companies of her own. Her debut home décor line, The Padma Collection, hit floors in Bloomingdale’s stores nationwide with tabletop dishware, stemware and hand-blown glass décor pieces. She has also created Padma’s Easy Exotic, a collection of culinary products including frozen organic foods, fine teas, natural spice blends, as well as hard goods.
For The Food Network, Lakshmi hosted Padma’s Passport where she cooked diverse cuisine from around the world. Lakshmi has also hosted Planet Food, a documentary series broadcast on The Food Network and worldwide on the Discovery Channel where she journeyed to countries such as Spain and India. Lakshmi is Emmy nominated for her role as host and judge on Bravo’s Top Chef which has recently been awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Reality Competition Show. Other television credits include co-hosting Rai Television's Domenica In, Italy’s highest rated program.
Lakshmi is also an accomplished writer. In addition to her food writing, she has contributed to such magazines as Vogue, Gourmet and British and American Harper's Bazaar as well as had a syndicated column on fashion and food for The New York Times.
Originally known as the first internationally successful Indian supermodel and often noted as a global style icon, Lakshmi has been featured as People magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People and 25 Most Intriguing People, AOL’s Top 20 Style Influencers, Gotham magazine’s Best Dressed New Yorkers, and part of The Elle 25.
Lakshmi was born in India and grew up in America. She graduated from Clark University with a Bachelor’s degree in Theater Arts and American Literature. Known as India’s first supermodel, she began her career as a fashion model, working in Europe and the US.
Lakshmi established herself as a food expert early on in her career, having hosted two successful cooking shows and writing a best-selling cookbook Easy Exotic, for which she won the International Versailles Event for best cookbook by a first time writer. Lakshmi followed this success with the publication of her second cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet, released by Weinstein Books, which has over 150 recipes from around the world alongside intriguing personal memoirs.
In addition to these current projects, Lakshmi is a savvy businesswoman with multiple companies of her own. Her debut home décor line, The Padma Collection, hit floors in Bloomingdale’s stores nationwide with tabletop dishware, stemware and hand-blown glass décor pieces. She has also created Padma’s Easy Exotic, a collection of culinary products including frozen organic foods, fine teas, natural spice blends, as well as hard goods.
For The Food Network, Lakshmi hosted Padma’s Passport where she cooked diverse cuisine from around the world. Lakshmi has also hosted Planet Food, a documentary series broadcast on The Food Network and worldwide on the Discovery Channel where she journeyed to countries such as Spain and India. Lakshmi is Emmy nominated for her role as host and judge on Bravo’s Top Chef which has recently been awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Reality Competition Show. Other television credits include co-hosting Rai Television's Domenica In, Italy’s highest rated program.
Lakshmi is also an accomplished writer. In addition to her food writing, she has contributed to such magazines as Vogue, Gourmet and British and American Harper's Bazaar as well as had a syndicated column on fashion and food for The New York Times.
Originally known as the first internationally successful Indian supermodel and often noted as a global style icon, Lakshmi has been featured as People magazine’s 100 Most Beautiful People and 25 Most Intriguing People, AOL’s Top 20 Style Influencers, Gotham magazine’s Best Dressed New Yorkers, and part of The Elle 25.
REVIEW:
What a story, and what a life!
I am a fan of Top Chef and have watched Padma on it since I first started watching. I always wondered what her claim to fame was, and her memoir definitely fills us in and more. I was blown away by some of the stuff I learned about her, and am even more in awe of her. She's not just beautiful, but she's smart, a good mother and human being in general.
Plus there is recipes in this book that she so graciously shares with us. One of them is her childhood favorite, Chili Cheese Toast. I can't wait to try it!
I am a fan of Top Chef and have watched Padma on it since I first started watching. I always wondered what her claim to fame was, and her memoir definitely fills us in and more. I was blown away by some of the stuff I learned about her, and am even more in awe of her. She's not just beautiful, but she's smart, a good mother and human being in general.
Plus there is recipes in this book that she so graciously shares with us. One of them is her childhood favorite, Chili Cheese Toast. I can't wait to try it!
Yeah, I'm a bigger fan now. I want to track down her cookbooks now too. Recipes that are indulgent without the fat, basically. I'm intrigued.
Fans of the show Top Chef, or not, you will like her life story. I'd bet on it. She is simply fascinating.
5/5
**Compensation may be earned from the links within. This copy was purchased. Opinions are owned by Freda's Voice.
She does sound like an interesting and talented woman. I haven't seen her on tv but she sounds very successful.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a fascinating book! I love memoirs of people with interesting and unique careers or backgrounds and it sounds like she has a very unique job and a strange pathway leading up to it.
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