135 Quotes by Padma Lakshmi

Every woman has a record of her body – a closet full of jeans and bras of various sizes, albums full of photographs revealing periods of weight gain and loss.

Where is it written that a smart woman can’t also be stacked?

I’m the kind of girl who thinks about what she’s gonna cook for dinner when she’s finishing her lunch.

I’m an immigrant kid who came to America from India when I was very young and grew up in New York City with a single mom and really was influenced by all of those immigrant cultures bumping up against each other.

It doesn’t matter how precisely the onion is cut as long as the person chewing it is happy.

One thing that happens when you’re pregnant is that as your stomach starts to stretch. It itches! So I have to keep my belly really lubricated. Every morning, there’s a buttering ceremony after I get out of the shower. It’s really like basting a turkey with body butter.

Part of my job as a food writer is to describe food. So my work on ‘Top Chef,’ I feel, is an extension of that. When we give a criticism to the contestant, we want to make sure we tell them why it’s not working and why it would work if they did it a different way.

When there is little you can do, you do what you can.

I’m not attached to things at all. I’m very lucky to have quite a few beautiful things, but if I look back at my life, I was often happiest when I had very little.