632: Padma Lakshmi, Live and Unfiltered

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. The thing that I'm most proud of is the legacy of teaching a generation or two about food in a way that I didn't have when I was growing up. I didn't know what an amuse-bouche was until I was 30. I mean, I'll have a 13-year-old say, we had an amuse-bouche contest at my sleepover last night. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel. Does Padma Lakshmi really need an introduction? The Emmy-nominated producer, television host, food expert, and New York Times bestselling author is in a league of her own. And recently she joined us for a live conversation at the Bell House in Brooklyn.

1:13She shared her take on how Top Chef impacted food culture, shooting Taste the Nation, and writing her new cookbook Padma's All-American. Plus her memories of 90s New York, her epic cookbook collection, and the rush of doing stand-up. Padma Lakshmi, this is Taste. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. Thanks for coming. What a full house. I'm so excited. When I found out that tonight's theme was Stay Cool, you were the first and only person that I wanted to speak with. I think that you have been shaping culture and food culture for so long, and I'm just really excited and honored to speak with you.

1:54Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. I'm sure everyone wants to hear a lot of things from you to start I often ask my guests on the show to share a food memory with me I think you probably have a million food memories so I'm wondering if you would share a food memory of a dish that you feel was somehow impactful or pivotable in your career wow there's been so many which one to choose um you know one food memory that I think is really important. It sounds highfalutin, but you'll see why. I went on this food tour where I went to Noma to eat. This is a long time ago. This is certainly 15 years ago, maybe.

2:41It was wonderful. It was a seven-course meal. Then the next day, I went to El Bully, sort of bang, bang, back to back before it closed. and that was a 50 course meal. And, you know, because of my job, I've been lucky enough to have a lot of great meals. But on the flight home, I remember thinking, why is only white food fetishized this way? And not that those two experiences were not worthy. They were exquisite and memorable and really special and all of those things. and I just, I started thinking about other kinds of food and I think it was a catalyst in a weird way, even though, you know, the food that we feature on Taste the Nation is so vastly different.

3:31We have a couple of very high-end people on there, but for the most part, it's really different. And so it made me curious about a different kind of food, almost because, you know, I was lucky enough to have all these wonderful rare experiences. I remember one of the first courses is a pot with yogurt and then malted powder on top of it, like a little terracotta pot, like you would plant geraniums in. And then it had greens that were sticking out of it. and then we were told that that was our first course. And, you know, it was a carrot that had a snail or a slug on it. And it was just such a creative meal.

4:23But it just, then after that, as much as I appreciated the meal, I just started thinking about, you know, the dosa cart in Washington Square Park and all these different immigrant foods and why nobody was looking at the food that most people ate every day with the same reverence. And I think that was the seed for Taste the Nation. I love hearing about that seed and also knowing that the great Padma Lakshmi can go to Noma and still think, well, what's better? What's more out there? Because I think a lot of people probably feel that way. Yeah, I mean, I'm curious. Yeah, and I think speaking of curiosity, I imagine the last time you were in the bell house is when you were doing Padma Puzzana comedy show here.

5:07What was it like to be doing stand-up? you know it's um i love this place i love the bell house i think it has a great energy so i was very happy to be back here tonight when you know they said this was taking place here we do a comedy show here we've done it for years and everybody comes out all the comics that you would know and it started out from a very organic place and it's always a fundraiser for usually for national network of abortion funds. Little did I know how much we would need it even more now than we did then. But it's always a good show. And, you know, I never, for the first few years, I just hosted it.

5:50And I just, you know, let the comedians, the professionals do their thing. Bo and Yang and Matt Gershaw hosted it for a couple years. Roy Wood Jr. as well. And then And just the last couple of years, I just tried my hand at it on a lark because all these comedians were there, you know, because I knew them and I sort of called in favors to perform for free for charity and stuff. And it was always a medium I was really curious about. And it's been interesting learning how to write for that medium. And it's excruciating. It's fucking terrifying. and it's exhilarating also you know it's really it's just you and the mic and it's it's wonderful because it's such a direct experience with the crowd and I think nowadays we're really missing that just like that immediate one-on-one looking in the eye having an exchange and being funny on top of it it's a lot it's wonderful yeah and I imagine especially as someone who has been a host and been an interviewer and done cameos to be speaking presumably off the top of your head or at least just yourself in the audience must be a really kind of different connection to have.

7:09I mean it's wonderful because you know you can just say anything. I mean I say shit on this stage I would never say in an interview like this one or on my social media or any other form, let alone my TV shows. Most of that gets edited out anyway because I have people who care about me. But when I'm doing this on this stage, usually there's a pact that you have with the audience that you hope is sacred, that you're just going to talk about stuff. and it's such I love live television as well I started out on Italian television in my 20s as part of a cast of a live six hour variety show no five second tape delay Italy's highest rated show it was called Dominica Inn it might still be on it's been on forever and I loved it so much because it was so long ago there was no internet and there was no social media and there were no camera phones.

8:19It was just live television and it was exhilarating and that is what comedy gives me. I think there's a very intense and spontaneous and charged thing that happens when that's the exchange between you and your audience. There's no editing, there's no television, there's no filming, there's no journalist you know uh interpreting or shaping it's just I'm talking to you I'm talking to you I'm talking to you I have to say I've tried very hard to find uh excerpts from Dominica Inn on YouTube and I have not managed to find them but if anyone in the audience as I said this was before the internet so if anyone has like a VHS tape let me know and I will find a way to play it I want to talk just a little about Top Chef because I think um so many people here know you through that and you were the host for 17 years and that was such a transformative period of time in food culture and food television and I'm curious what role you think Top Chef had in shaping where we're at today in terms of food culture I think it had a huge role to play you know I I saw how food changed just in the evolution of our show of being there so long you know if I had a kid, they'd be going to college by now if it was a Top Chef baby, right?

9:44But I mean, I think at first, we were smart in that we didn't sort of jump on the bandwagon of most reality shows. And we were really about the food and the craft of making it. And I think that really served us well because it gave us, first of all, a meaning to our show, but also, you know, longevity with the audience and with the food community, which is really important. And I think we earned that, and we deserved it. And the thing that I'm most proud of is the legacy of teaching a generation or two about food in a way that I didn't have when I was growing up. I didn't know what an amuse-bouche was until I was 30.

10:29I mean, I hail a cab on the corner, and I'll have a 13-year-old say, we had an amuse-bouche contest at my sleepover last night. We had a quick fire at my camp. I'm like, okay, cool. You know, that's great. And so I think we educated people much more about food. We also allowed other people to live vicariously through us because most people don't really again, have access to that kind of fine dining, which is a shame, but you know, most people don't there's a lot of inaccessibility for many where food is concerned in many ways. Yeah, absolutely. And certainly so many chefs had their careers elevated and transformed by being on the show.

11:16Completely. I mean, if you look at the Food Network, it's all our alumni. I'm just saying. Look at any Food Network show and you'll see them all, you know. Antonia and Richard and even on Fox, it's Nyesha. I mean, they're all, they all came through our house, you know, and they're all part of our alumni. And we're very, I'm super proud of all of them. Absolutely. I'm curious if you developed any sort of like sixth sense in the beginning of the later seasons. Could you kind of pick someone out of the crowd because of a quick fire and the way they walked into the room and know that they were going to make it far in the competition?

11:55Not the way they walked in. No. No. I mean, first of all, like it's. I walk in first.

12:07But no, you never know. People surprise you. But you know through their food. When I did Top Chef, it was very important to us, and I would maintain that going forward too, is that I don't really know that much about the contestants at all. Sometimes I don't even know their last names. I mean, I read their last names, obviously. and I sort of get a one sheet. But it's relevant to me. I don't care if they're gay or straight or young or old or whatever. I'm just judging them on their plate of food. But after you have two or three dishes by the same cook or chef, you know what it is. I can tell somebody who knows how to season food, who cares about their environment, who has a subtle palate, or who has good instinct but is still very crude in their technique.

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14:33Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. From February 20th to March 7th, dive into Canada's biggest culinary festival, Montreal en Lumière. An exclusive partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and its exhibition, On the Menu Montreal, a restaurant story. The 2026 festival invites food lovers on a flavorful journey through time. Montreal's top restaurateurs will reimagine 65 years of the city's iconic astronomy, crafting inventive, nostalgia-inspired dishes with a modern twist. Prepare your palate. World-renowned chefs, including several Michelin-starred talents, will team up with over 80 of Montreal's finest local chefs to create unforgettable, one-of-a-kind menus.

15:19The full program is available at MontrealOnLumiere.com, presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. I'm curious, do you enjoy going to restaurants, or is it kind of a job for you? I mean, it's not a job for me because I don't review restaurants, but, you know, I love going out to eat, but I'm not a big restaurant person. I used to be, but maybe now. It's just, I like to eat at home. When I really want to have a good time, I like eating at restaurants and trying different restaurants, but when I want to have a really good time, I'm at home. I'm at home, I'm with friends or family, I'm with the doors closed and the curtains drawn, or the terrace open, but you get my drift.

16:14I think there's an intimacy when you can let yourself be and just relax. I think being in public is tenuous sometimes for all of us, especially with camera phones. But not even that. I feel even terrible talking about it because it's such a high-class problem to have. But sometimes when I go out to eat, somebody's being really nice from the kitchen and sends me a lot of different food. And it's lovely. But usually I just order what I want to eat, you know. And usually when I'm not working and I'm eating out, you know, it's because I want to rest and relax. And I just want to see friends. I don't want to eat heavy, you know, because I don't eat at home like you see me eat on TV.

17:04I eat super simply. it's mostly vegetarian you know there's a lot of fish and chicken but it's not it's very simple you know in hindi you would say garka kana you know house you know the food of the house it's not the food of the restaurant when you cook at home do you use cookbooks or recipes or are you just kind of cooking from the heart at this point yeah i mean i have a very large collection of cookbooks. I get sent so many. I mean, there's so many cookbooks that are published in a year, which is scary because I'm about to publish one in November. Thank you. It's called Padmas All American and it is available for presale right now.

17:51We're going to talk all about it, I promise. No, I mean, but I love cookbooks. I always have. And, you know, I'm not a chef. I'm a food writer. I don't want to be a chef. I love food. I love cooking food. My job is how to tell you to make and enjoy something when I'm not standing in the room, right? So I love cookbooks. I don't follow recipes unless I'm, you know, doing it to blurb a book or there's really something specific like, you know, how to make some kind of cake or pastry that I'm following recipes but I do reference them I do reference them we have a whole cookbook library at home there's nothing but cookbooks in there how do you organize it um with great difficulty I imagine no no no somebody does it for me no I mean there's a wonderful woman in our office that is really great and you know different people we've all kind of arranged it at one point or another.

18:52It's, you know, I've lived in this place for 12 years, so we've had to build more bookshelves, and we've had to reorganize it, and so we all take turns, and, you know, it's better they do it, because I'm the most anal retentive of all. Is it like alphabetical, or color, or region? No, it's not in color for us. No, who does that, really? Not me. Okay. No, I don't, I swear, Padma. How do you find anything? No, I mean... Mine is not organized at all. I organize them by subject, usually by geographical location. And then there are people like me who cook from all over the place, but not just me, a whole bunch of people like Oto Lenghi or Nigella or whatever.

19:38So those people I have in a certain section. And then I have all of Nathan Mirvold's books, and I'd have to reinforce that part of the bookshelf. And then I have reference books and I have La Technique and all of the gourmet cookbooks and all of the joy of cooking. And then I have antique cookbooks. I love little vintage cookbooks that I've gotten over the years. So we have a lot. But the food memoir is in another part of the house and in my writing in the writing room in the office and so those are just in one section the sort of food memoir but then there's the the only thing that I alphabetize I would say is the fiction the authors for the fiction well I guess we should talk about your book since we're talking about cookbooks and your new book you developed over the past seven years of working on taste the nation I'm really interested in how you first thought about wanting to turn that research and reporting into a book and how you see the book living in concert with the TV series?

20:48Well, you know, Taste the Nation was a book idea to start with. And it was only supposed to be a cookbook. And I sold it to my publisher, Dan. And then I showed it to my producing partner. And we were working on a show about immigration. You know, we did a lot of research just even for the cookbook and I showed him the proposal and he said, this is our show. He said, we should blend the two. And that's how the show was born. And then it took us like a year and seven no's before we got a yes. But then when we did get a yes, I put the book aside and I did the show and then pandemic happened and then I did the show some more and um you know then I left Top Chef had some time on my hands so I finally finished the book and um seven years later you know it's finally done now.

21:44Can you tell us about a couple memorable meals from the tv show that have been able to live on in the book? Sure um probably the best thing I ate across all episodes of Taste the and quite possibly also top chef, low key, was this beautiful Kabuli Palau. It's an Afghan dish and it's delicious. And if you're ever in D.C., go to this restaurant called Lapis, L-A-P-I-S, Lapis in D.C. It's wonderful. It's a delicious restaurant. I've been there. It's so yummy. And, you know, I don't eat a lot of lamb at all. And she showed me how to make this dish and it was, you know, it's got a few parts to it, but it's all doable.

22:28It's all, again, home cooking. You don't need much technique. Just need patience with yourself and time. Do it on a Saturday the first couple of times, but it's so stunning. It's lamb that's cooked and stewed and then you add rice on top of it and then it cooks. Use the longest grain of basmati you can find and then you saute carrots and butter with some raisins and cinnamon and then you invert it and you have this beautiful lamb and rice and then you cover the thing with these you know glossy carrots and it's just delicious it's so succulent and aromatic and warm yeah it's wonderful i'm always interested when you're talking about like a developing or kind of adapting a recipe how much did you want to stick to exactly how it was made for you versus making it more doable for a home cook?

23:21Oh, I want to make it completely doable for the home cook because it doesn't mean anything unless I get you to make it, right? And then I want to, even if I give you shortcuts or substitutions, the end result should be, should give you the same feeling, the same taste and texture that I experienced. It's a taste memory that I'm working off of usually. And then I check my work with, you know, whoever did the recipe and see how close it is because that's how we all do it. I mean, I want you guys, I want everybody to cook on a weeknight. I want everyone to cook, you know, as daily as possible, at least five nights a week.

24:06And so, you know, it's important to know that some recipes are for a Saturday and some recipes, like there's this yogurt chicken in the book. My mom used to make it for me all the time. My mom was a full-time nurse. She worked at Sloan Kettering. She had no time. She left the house before I did for school, and then she came back like at 6.30. And it's a wonderful recipe. You just marinate the chicken in yogurt and spices all day or in the fridge and overnight, and then just put it in the oven. And it is so yummy, and it makes a lovely sauce, which is not pretty, I'm not going to lie, But it's delicious.

24:43A lot of this food, it was really a task, styling the recipes. All the pictures in the book are completely gotten on the road, except for the food photography, obviously. So the beauties are ones that we staged and did in my apartment. And it was tough with some of them, because our food is not always the most photogenic, but it's so delicious, this recipe, and it's about as easy as can be. I guess on the opposite end, what was a recipe in the book that was the most difficult to kind of perfect and get to a perfect place? I would say there's a three-layer cake. There's a cardamom and strawberry cake that is beautiful.

25:31It's pound cake, three layers of pound cake with strawberries and cream cheese frosting. and dried rose petals. I mean, it's glorious. It's a showstopper. And that recipe actually first appeared, most of them are new recipes, but that one appeared on the cover of the 100th anniversary of Better Homes and Gardens. And I'm not a big dessert person. I love ice cream, but I don't bake so much. And I'm always in awe of this cake because it's really beautiful. It is like a cover worthy cake. I've seen it in the book. And something else that I was really drawn to in the book is you have these essays that are kind of sprinkled throughout that are very personal about people in your life and their connections to food or identity or foodways, all of these things.

26:21And I'm curious with what kind of inspired you to include them. well I mean it is a cookbook mostly but it's also very much a travelogue so I want you to feel like you're on this giant road trip with me and going through all these different communities from Lowell Massachusetts to DC to you know the sea islands in South Carolina to Arizona to everywhere. And so I want you also to feel what I felt on the road meeting all these people. When you travel in these small towns and you're just not staying in a big hotel and there for two days or when you're not with relatives, really, we embed ourselves for a week in each of these communities.

27:10And our research team and our producers were doing having weeks and weeks of preparation with research and talking to people in the town and finding out what the most interesting stories are. So when you actually, by the time you get there, you're very, very curious and well-equipped. And it was just the most intellectually stimulating experience of my life and also spiritually stimulating in my life. Especially, it's such a contrast now. My experience, it makes me choked up. my experience traveling through this country and meeting all these different Americans. The book is called Padmas All-American.

27:51And I had such a good time, and I got to know so many different people, dance teachers, city council members, restauranteurs, ex-gang members, all these different historians, whatever, the woman who drove the hot dog mobile, in Milwaukee for, you know, like really interesting people. And now we're so polarized. And every time I open Instagram or whatever, I just, like, it's such a turnoff. But I had an extraordinary experience. And I wanted to include all of that in the cookbook as well. You know, I am a writer, so first and foremost. So, I mean, I know I'm known to most people as a person on TV.

28:39But for me, that kind of writing is what sustains me. And I want you to feel what I was feeling. I want you to know these people. Because the book is really about them. It's not about me. It's about me learning about them. Yeah, I think it made me feel really tenderly towards all of these people that I maybe had seen their name or seen them on the show. but knowing about your personal relationship with them. I think often in food media, we talk about how food is the way that you can get to know a culture or another person. And the reality is that a lot of these recipes are really personal recipes that have been born out of immigration to this country.

29:18And maybe papaya isn't available for the Samtam, so they do apple instead. The really personal techniques and ways that these dishes have come about. And I think to me, seeing the essays made it seem more forgiving and kind to these people that you're not just showing this recipe, but you're showing who they are as well? Well, I'm more interested in who they are than the food. The food is the collateral benefit, right? I mean, Taste of Nation is a food show, but it's kind of just a food show in masquerade. It's really a political show. It's really a show about people and Americans and who we really are on the ground.

29:57And so it is sort of my answer to everything that's going on. it is my answer to Stephen Miller. I mean, in the most... In the most benevolent, peaceful way I can. And that's also what the book is as well. It's an act of resistance. It's just... It's act of resistance through joy and through food and to celebrating all of these immigrants through their food and their huge, huge contributions to the landscape and culture of this country. Yeah, it makes America what it is. Exactly. Absolutely. Yeah.

30:40I think everyone here probably will be already eager to get the book, but I think talking about it in that kind of way and what it means in this moment is really interesting. You mentioned social media a little bit before. I love following you on Instagram, and I think it's really interesting to see how you can kind of tell stories and present across different platforms. I'm curious, like, what your relationship with social media is. Like, do you consume food content on Instagram? My relationship is very mixed on social media. I don't consume, I try not to consume a lot of any kind of content because I don't have a lot of time on my hands.

31:17And before I know it, 20 minutes have gone by or 40 minutes have gone by and I could have been reading. And, you know, I, no, seriously, I know I sound so boring. but um i don't have a lot of time and i'm a slow reader and i think i think that will benefit me more so i just try to post check see a few things and get off quickly i mean i'm always um you know saving recipes for weird things like i didn't know you could make so much stuff with cottage cheese Oh, yeah. Like, literally. And I got sucked into it. I made this weird mango cheesecake, and then I got creative, so I added saffron in it. I was like, this is way too much saffron.

32:04I'm like, she's not supposed to be in here. So you do get sucked into that food content, but, you know, it's a lot, social media. I mean, I did clap back to these two girls. I don't remember their names, but you know who I'm talking about. I know what you're talking about. Maybe we don't need to bring it up. That's okay. It's fine. I said what I said. It was on a restaurant topic, right? Yeah, no. It was just people who were critiquing, but really just being rude. I think if your criticism is not coming from a place of knowledge, we should have a new kind of word for it, maybe. Yeah.