Padma Lakshmi Talks Baby Krishna: 'Everything Is Better With Her Around'

By Nicki Gostin Posted Jun 21st 2010 02:30PM

Padma Lakshmi has a lot on her plate, caring for her four-month-old daughter and starring on Bravo's new season of 'Top Chef.' Luckily, the beautiful host, 39, found a moment to speak with PopEater about mothering baby Krishna, spicing things up and the possibility of presidential guest judges on the Washington, D.C. season of the cook-off reality show.

Padma answers the phone: "Sorry to be doing the interview with my mouth full, but I'm starving ... I have to eat!"

What are you eating?
A sandwich. Very uninteresting, with peppers and spinach.

Well then. How about the new season of 'Top Chef'?
It's great. What's great about it is that everyone in D.C. was so welcoming. We always have a lot of food luminaries, but this season we also have all the local Washington VIPs -- like Nancy Pelosi and Leon Panetta.

Will Michelle Obama be a guest judge?
Um ... I can't say.

Wow! But I'm going to guess President Obama will not be a guest judge...?
That's accurate.

Do you ever get tired of the crazy contestants?
It's interesting because we really don't see much of that unless they're really crazy because we're not privy to all the reality stuff. They're always on their best behavior when they're in front of us.

Do you have a cookware line?
I do spices and teas and beautiful -- well I think it's beautiful -- bakeware for HSN that's inspired by my own vintage and antique bakeware I've been collecting from Morocco, Spain and Mexico.

What's a spice you think is underrated?
There are lots. The spices we have in Easy Exotic are easy because they're premixed. I think a lot of people are intimidated to use spices and then there's always the spice you have to buy for a recipe that needs a teaspoon and then it sits in your cupboard for six months.

Any spice you don't like? I think cumin smells like B.O.
It can if it's not used properly. I'm not big on cream of tartar. Lately, I've been taking the spice fenugreek in pill form because it's supposed to be good for nursing. I'm nursing right now while eating a sandwich, having my hair and make up done and talking to you.

Do you use a pump for breast milk?
I don't like to pump, I'd rather just nurse. Sometimes I have to, but I'm not into the pumping. It feels very bovine.

What's the best thing about being a mom?
Everything. Everything is better with her around. Anything from the beginning of the day till the end.

Did you ever think you could feel this way for another human being?
I don't even know how to answer that question because it's such a primal feeling. It's so deep and intense.

You are quite the eligible single gal. You'd make a man very happy. You've got it all.
Right now I'm excited about making my daughter happy. Honestly, I live and die by the tiniest gestures and expressions on her face. I don't really have any attention span for anything else than her. Well, I do for my work, but someone was asking me this the other day, if my perspective about work had shifted, and it has. It's not that I'm not still interested in being good at my work and that I'm not ambitious, it's just for different reasons. Now, I want to do it so she'll be proud of me.

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Tags: Padma Lakshmi, Top Chef

Comments

(46)

Wednesday 23 June

By mark

Vote down Vote up Report this

another person with no talent and no reason to be famous judging people with much more talent than her

By CANY

I can't stand Padma because of the way she poses in the ads for Top Chef. She must think she is some kind of goddess. It's a cooking show and you are merely a hostess for the show. That does not make you a big deal, stop posing. Have some sense of who you are, a tall plain Jane. I don't think she is pretty enough to have her ego.

By jeff

Padma is Smoking Hot! One of the most beautiful women in the World.

By SWEETIE

To :: HG In MN,,

The Article Plainly States,,, She Is Not Married!!

By raydbonz

Wow - Nancy Pelosi will be the perfect person to judge the crazy contestants. Not many people on the planet more crazy than she is!!

Friday 25 June

By Bluejeans

This article (if that's what You want to call it) reads like an advertisement for Padma's product lines. Sheer puffery. Not worth the column inches. Where's the editor??? My head would have been on the floor for this garbage.

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