November 10, 2025 • 41 mins
Padma Lakshmi Talks New Book 'Padma's All American,' Endometriosis, Top Chef Exit, New Show + More
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
What's up its way up with Angela Yee and dare
I say, we have somebody that's pretty legendary here with
us today.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Pad Malakshmia is here. Thank you for coming to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Thank you, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And today, the day that we're recording, this is actually
election day, but also the day that your book, Pad
Masole American, a cookbook is out, So congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You know, I've.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Decided I've made it my mission like to actually start
cooking more at home because it's hard, and so I
was excited to actually get this book. And just from
watching your whole journey, I know we were talking before
this recording even started, just to watching you on Top Chef,
but knowing your full story from your memoir even before
that is fascinating to me.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
It took me five years to write that memoir, to
write Love Loss and what we Ate. Took me seven
years to write this book, Pad Misole Americans, So I'm
getting slower, not factor.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
But look, first of all, this is the it ain't
a little pamphlet recid, so I could see why it did.
It's interesting because you had your show Taste the Nation
and it's holiday time, and there was some specials you
did around the holiday season, and one of them was
focused on Thanksgiving and what is American food?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
So I have to ask you, now, what is American food?
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I mean, true, real traditional American food is the Three sisters,
which is beans, corn, and squash. Anything with those three ingredients.
It's elk, it's a lot of seafood.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's rabbit.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
You know, those are the kinds of things that they
ate here the original Americans.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
But now today American food.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Is pad tie, it's fun, it's you know, chicken chika masala,
it's tacos, it's pizza.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Is goat assume, you know that's your favorite.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Yeah, it's the spiciest. Goat assume is like a party food.
It's an advertiser that nigs eat like when they're first
having a cold beer. And it's literally these bite sized
pieces of goat drenched in a Scotch bonnet sauce sauce.
And it's delicious and it's just so easy to make.
And what's great about that dish is you have to
(02:16):
I don't eat a lot of goat, you know, which
is why I was curious about the recipe. And goat
is actually a great healthy meat to have because it's
much leaner than pork or beef or lamb.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And you basically just you.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Know, boil the meat with some aromatics slowly for three
hours and then you just cut the meat off the
bone and then you blend the sauce and cook it
in a pan.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
You make anything sound good when it's thank you the
way you describe that.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
But literally, the broth, the water that you've boiled this
goat in with the onions and peppers and stuff is
so delicious that I started.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Freezing that and using it for my ramen. Oh wow,
And now I make the dish just to have the broth.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
You know. It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
My mom is from this little island called Manserat, and
goat weater is actually like they're national.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Food, so oh okay.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
They'll have like a huge bucket, you know of goat water,
and that's what people eat when they go there.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And I will say, I've never had it.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
You haven't.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I don't know what it is. My grandfather grew up
with ghosts outside, so you don't.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Want to kill her. You're like dogs. You name them.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
No, I didn't name them, but they were cute, you know,
so for some reason. And I think that even growing
up here, it's not as like they don't have goat everywhere.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
It's not the easiest thing to find.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
It's easier to find an oxtail.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, it's definitely easy to find oxtail. Another thing I've
never had. And I'm Caribbean, which is crazy. Yeah, you know,
but I actually stopped eating red meat a long when
I was seventeen years old.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I don't blame you.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I started when I was sixteen, so we've been passing
each other. No, I was a vegetarian because I grew
up you know, my parents and my family are pretty
conservative Hindus, so very orthodox. And then I was in
high school and I started eating like pepperoni on pizza,
you know, things like that.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
But I don't on the red meat. I don't eat
a lot of red meat.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
There's a lot of meat in this book because it's
an immigrant cookbook, and I had to reflect all the
immigrant communities that I wanted to feature.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And what they ate.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
But in my home with me and my daughter, we
you know, meet, we make beef maybe once or twice
a year.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It's like a treat.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
It's a treat.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
It's usually in the colder months unless we have flank
steak or something or like steak chacos. But even that
we don't have that often. We do a lot of
chicken and fish. You know, we love hamburgers, so we'll
get a hamburger from outside, but we don't really cook.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
What do you think about like artificial meat, because you
know that was such a craze for a period of
time and it is very processed too, though, But what
are your thoughts when it comes to meat alternatives?
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Well, listen, if that's if that's what keeps you off
the meat, and that's fine, But like I personally don't
like if I want, I don't know. It's weird that
a non meat burger bleeds. You know, it's it's just
beat juice, but it's weird. Like to me, the amount
of processing, as you said, that it has to go
(05:08):
to to resemble meat is worrying. You know, I don't
know enough about the process to say one way or
the other.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
My philosophy is to eat.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Foods as close to their natural state as possible.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Okay, you know the least amount of.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Processing, So you know, I'm not when I'm eating vegetarian food,
I'm not looking to trick my palate into thinking it's
eating you know, sausage when it's really eating like for
Mica of chickpeas.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
You know, I just I know.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
But that's also probably because I've grown up a vegetarian,
you know, and I know that there's a world of
beautiful food out there that doesn't require you. I could
probably go back to being a vegetarian.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
I couldn't give up dairy, though I couldn't either.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
You know, people are lactose intolerant. I'm lactose dependent. I
you know, sometimes I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I think I have like a yeah, I think I
am too, but it depends. I never know how it's
going to hit me. So I only eat ice cream
at home, but I do try to do like non
dairy ice cream.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
But I could eat cheese like regular teas. It's interesting
because cheese will say like processed tea. I don't know
what cheese really is.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
If the word process is on the label, do not
buy it. That's the rule of thumb.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Okay, process anything.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, it's so hard because you know, but one thing
I learned is that cooking at home is always better.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Even if you're the worst cook and you're using canned
everything or frozen whatever, it's still better than going out
because when you go out, whether it's you know, a
casual restaurant, a fast food restaurant, high end restaurant, you
don't know how many people are touching that food. You
don't know where it comes from. And you know, there
are a lot of beautiful restaurants that I love, But
the single best thing you can do for the health
(06:56):
of your family is to cook at home, even if
it's something basic like a torchilla with scrambled eggs and
raw vegetables, that is healthier to eat than you know,
something that's boxed or something that you know, when you're
even in a regular, really good restaurant, there are eight
people touching that dish. There's the sauce guy, there's the
garnish guy, there's the meat guy.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I definitely know what you mean, and it's interesting to me. Also,
Halloweens just passed. Yeah, and I saw your costume, and
I think, if I'm not mistaken, didn't you get here
on Halloween?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
I did, I do, And you had a chance to
see everybody like in their costumes that I know you
were like, what is going on?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah, because I was four years old.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
I arrived at JFK and I had taken the long
road from New Delhi, you know, all the way over
here because my mom probably bought a cheap ticket or something.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So it was like New.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Jelli, Cairo, Rome, London, New York. And when I got here,
my mom brought me home and we had a very
small apartment, probably the size of the studio, and she
had this beautiful big plate of or dish of candy.
And then the doorbell kept ringing and she kept giving my.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Candy out, and I'm like this, I thought this was
to welcome me. What is she doing? And you know
she then she explained the holidays to me, and I'm like.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
I just thought they were beggars, you know, you't addressed
all strange.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
And I thought, wow, you know America, this land of plenty,
where all you have to do put on some makeup
and knock on someone's door and they'll give you free candy.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Another thing that you have talked about a lot, and
I want to say, like I work with coach Jesse
from the Detax now, but you've talked about your endometriosis
and how difficult that was for you when for so
long you didn't know what was going on. And that's
an important conversation because a lot of women feel like
pain during your period or bleeding heavily.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Is just normal.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And even like pain during sex, being uncomfortable, you know,
having to worry about bleeding through whatever it is that
you're wearing, these are all things that are hindrance. I've
literally met people who are like, I couldn't even go
to work date and I have no idea why, and
doctors will misdiagnose you, or sometimes we also just deal
with it because we think that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
We've been dealing with it for so long.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
And you know, as much as endometriosis affects you physically,
it also affects you mentally and emotionally, because when you're
in chronic pain like that, you can't think straight, and
then you're also feeling like, what's wrong with me that
I cannot handle a basic part of my own womanhood
right Exactly the time that endometriosis is developing in your body,
(09:33):
in puberty and onward from there is also a very
vulnerable time for young girls.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And women, and so.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
You're already learning how to deal with your growing and
changing body. Your hormones are crazy, and then you have
this to deal with. I mean, I remember being in
college and I would have my roommate just like pop
to advil and stick an extra tampon in her jacket and.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Skip to a basketball practice.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
You know, I was literally at home in bed with
a heating pad for like four or five days a week.
Sometimes I literally lost a week of my life for
twenty three years. I got my period when I was thirteen.
I only got a good diagnosis when I was thirty six.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
That's crazy.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Yeah, And I had you know, I always had good insurance,
Thank god, I had access to good medical care.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
I always lived in big cities like New York or
LA or London or whatever.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
But I fell through the cracks and doctors were all
too happy just to give me prescriptions of really heavy
pain medicine. And you know, after two days of taking
those pain meds, I would get really nauseous. And so
I had to decide do I want to be nauseous
for the medicine or do I want to be you know,
cramped up and have spasms. And I used to get
(10:44):
pain that would shoot down one leg. I used to
get migraines, lower back pain, all of it.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I still have to work.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
I mean I can't tell you how many jobs I
lost because of it.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
How many that's crazy, you has jobs because of that.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Of course, because if you've got to be in a
bikini and do a photo shoot, you know. I would
actually when I booked a job, I would look on
the calendar because the one thing with me is at
least my period was still regular, so I knew when
it was coming, and my body told me a week
before it got there anyway, you know, so I would
try not I would try to avoid working during then
(11:19):
as a model. But obviously you can't always do that.
You know, you take the work you get when you
get it. But it was really tough, and it's very demoralizing.
It's very lonely because nobody wants to call into their
job and be have my period again. But nobody was talking.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
About it right. And when I finally got the care that.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
I needed and had the surgery and saw what life
was like on the other side for women who don't
have this ailment, I was relieved. But then I started
to get angry because I realized I had lost all
this time. And so that is when I teamed up
with my surgeon to start the Endometriosis Foundation with America.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
And now we talk about it.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
We still got a long way to go with you know,
research and funding, but at least it's it's becoming more normalized.
You know, other people are talking about it. A lot
of you know, Olivia Coolpo talks about it, Lena Dunham
talked about it, Amy Schumer, a lot a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I literally was at my doctor yesterday because I've she
found two small fibris because I asked to check for it.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Good.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So they're like monitoring to see what's happening because you
want to make sure you know at the end of
the day, like the faster and the earlier, and sometimes
even shifting your diet can help.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, an anti inflammatory diet can help.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah. So I'm just trying to, you know, do what
I can.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
But I also like to bring attention to that because
people don't know and they just think I'm just bleeding heavy.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I always be heavy. And then when I.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Talked about it, people were literally calling up here like
I've been bleeding for a thirty days straight, you know,
just all kinds of things and if that's an indication
that there's something wrong.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
And also there are those indimutuous pats. I wasn't one
of them, but there were there. There are patients who
have endometriosis but don't suffer with that bad of pain.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
I had a girlfriend who's really trying to get pregnant
and used in vito, and she was using up her savings,
and you know, I kept saying, you know, maybe you
have endo, like there must be something blocking there because
you've had four or five or whatever she had at
the time.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
And she said, no, I don't really have cramps like you. Like.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
My period is okay. It's a little heavy sometimes, but
it's not that bad. And I said, just get it
checked out, right, And then she asked her for tila doctor.
And he's like, yeah, let's see.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Of course, because that fertility doctor does not have any.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Incentive to check you out. It's easier and it's better
for his bottom line if he can charge you fifty
sixty seventy thousand dollars because it's like fifteen thousand dollars
now per a month, per cycle. And you know, if
you're a young couple or even if you want to
get pregnant on your own, like, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
And that's tough on your body, yeah right, and mentally.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, it's demoralizing.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
So they should always check for it if it doesn't
work the first time and save you that heartache and cost.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
But they're really there.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
There's no motivation for fertility doctors to do that, you know,
And that's that's what's sad because a lot of I mean,
one of the things that our organization does, other than
educate students male and female, we lobby for insurance companies
to cover like big insurance companies like Signa do not
(14:32):
cover endometrios surgery unless you wind up in the hospital
with an emergency.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
We don't want to wait for that.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Right exactly.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
So there's a long way to go still, but at
least now people are talking about reproductive disorders like gindo.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
You know, aside from you, like you said, you started
off modeling, right and then hosting on television, which wasn't
even anything that you had planned no to do.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
It kind of came to you.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah, I mean I went to theater school.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
I majored in theater and American lit, and I thought
I was going to be an actor and I did some,
you know, a few small parts. But then I wrote
my first cookbook and it did well. Nobody expected it to,
but it did well, and that's how it happened.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
So I sort of fell.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Into a career in food when I was thirty years old.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
That's amazing because it is something that is organic.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
It's not like you were like, Okay, this is but
it felt like a natural, perfect fit for you to
be able to do that, and I'm sure you're there.
The background also helps as far as hosting.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
It does.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
It helps me, you know, behind my feelings sometimes, but
I really don't. But I really don't have a poker face,
you know, so like if you watch all people like that, Yeah,
if you watch old episodes of Top Chef, you can
see what I'm thinking.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
It's interesting because when you first started doing Top Chef,
you said they wanted it to be more serious, but
it really did kind of evolve into something that I
felt like was more palatable for the average person like
myself to watch.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, I mean, I you know, you always want to
when you give a critique, you always want to do
it with humanity and grace. And you know, I was
with those contestants every hour of the day.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
And I really felt for them.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
As hard as it looks on TV, it's much harder,
and so you know, I tried to be helpful or constructive.
Whenever I gave criticism, I tried to make sure it
was in the spirit of rooting for them to do better.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Is there anyone that if you try to get a
reservation they would be like, no.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
No, no, I'm kidding.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I
guess so.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
I mean, I've never I mean, if they don't like me,
it's probably because the feeling is mutual.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
And I didn't like their food.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I don't really know that much about them personally before,
and that's a good Yeah, it's better not to Yeah,
I just want to judge them on the food. It's
not really personal at all.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
And you know, I think for that, A lot of
people know you from you know, obviously.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
From tap Chap.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
That was a huge but then you actually said, Okay,
I'm ready to venture off and do my own thing,
and we were just discussing that behind the scenes.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, so did you.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yes, I did the same thing, just to create on
your own. And sometimes that's hard because you're leaving something
that's so successful. You know, everybody's tuned into Emmy nominations
and awards and the accolades, and then it's like, okay,
well now I have to Did people try to discourage
you from that? Because I know people try to discourage.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Oh yes, yeah, a lot of people tried to discosson
people who loved me and cared for me, and you know, they.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Were thinking about it. They think that's what's best for you.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Well, they were giving me, you know, advice that they
thought was the best.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
They were worried, you know, that I would be leaving
a really good, sure thing and I would be throwing
it away and there was no guarantee. You know, the
television business has contracted drastically in the last few years.
And my agent at the time was like, you you
shouldn't go. People would kill for your job. I know
(17:56):
actresses who aren't working and don't make half the money
make And I would say, but I'm unhappy, yeah, you know,
and how much is my happiness worth? And I was
just I was just burnt out. And I mean, there's
so many reasons but we don't have time off.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
For all and those are long days too, they are.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
And I was eating a lot of food and unnecessarily
on stilettos on concrete, and you have all that stuff
that you do.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Because it's a visual medium, right.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
The rules for women on television are much different than
for my male counterparts on television.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
That's just the reality of the business.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
But I can I put on a wedge sneaker please,
And that I saw in your book you talked about
a time in Chicago when you were judging in the pizza.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, you said you gained seventeen pounds that season.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
That's that's the most I've ever gained.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yes, I did, and it's not surprising because it was
a really heavy season of eating and I just felt
so uncomfortable. I thought I was going to throw up
just from the sheer volume. Because it's also like Chicago
deep dish pizza is bready right, you know, So it's
like having two bites of that is like having a
whole slice of regular pizza.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
You said you had to eat it fresh at the
oven and then try it again later to see how.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It would deliver. Yeah, so it was like double eating.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yeah, we don't do that anymore. But yeah, I mean,
maybe they do now that I'm gone, but no, I.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Mean the first thing I did when they made me
an executive producer was like, say, can we please not
have that Fear Factor episode again? Because there was always
that one where they had all these mystery meats like
kangaroo and you know, ostrich and rattlesnake and alligator, and
they always did it like really close to the beginning
when there were still a lot of contestants and we
(19:44):
hadn't really weeded out, you know, who was the best
and who wasn't, so you had people who were not
skilled or hadn't ever cooked those proteins before cooking them,
and then you're just sitting.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
There like chewing. You know. It was awful. But I
don't think that. I don't think they do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I can't do it. I'm so picky.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
There's so many things I don't eat, like I randomly
I told you already told you, like, I can't see
myself even experimenting like that, even just look even the
texture of things. Like people are gonna hate me for
saying this, but I really don't eat avocado.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I get that. I get that.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
I love avocado, but I understand people who don't because
it's on its own.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
It's not sweet, it's not salty, it's not tart. It's
kind of blame a mush. It's mush and it feels
like mush. It just doesn't chaste like bush. I get that.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Yeah, I mean basically, avocado is like, you know, a
mushy fluff vehicle for salt and lemon.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
You know, I wanted to ask you this for you
being a model and then coming into this space, and
I know initially you were like, oh, they looked at
you a little crazy, like who is this model that's
coming on here? Just a pretty face to put in
front of the camera. Where there are times that you
felt like people treated you unfairly in your career, just
because it is kind of a pretty privileged thing that
(21:02):
people may look at it like, Okay, is she here?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Initially when you.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
First started, oh sure, yeah, is she here because the
way she looks? Or is she here? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (21:10):
I think you know, when I first started Top Chef,
Bravo did not do a good enough job, and nor
did I about publicizing the fact that I had a
cookbook and I had hosted, you know, a stand in stirre,
a cooking show on the Food Network. It only lasted
a season, but it was called Padma's Passport. And I
had also done food documentaries called Planet Food. So I'd
(21:34):
already published my first cookbook, I was about to publish
my second cookbook, and I had done these two other
food shows before I got Top Chef. But people really
didn't know about them because they weren't, you know, on
TV for multiple seasons.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
So they just figured, you know, they.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Just stuck a model in there because that was what
they knew most about me. And as time went on,
you know, look, the chef world is very male dominated,
so you don't have to be a model to be
looked down upon.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Let me just say, I think it's the second most
male dominated, yeah, other.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Than the military. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
And so you know, I don't need to be a
chef to do my job. Well, I have my palette
and my knowledge of food, and it's taken me, you know,
years to develop that palette and develop a body of
information that I use in my head to judge something,
(22:30):
you know, just like you don't have to have cancer
to cure it, right, So I mean, but like I
you know. I love when people underestimate me.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
It helps, but it's hard.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
It's hard not to be affected when the people, you know,
when when the chef next to you or you know,
guest judge or whatever, when they're like rolling their eyes
or like, you know, and so that wears on you.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I think it's interesting that you don't consider yourself a
chef at all.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I don't, I know, because a chef is, but.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Because there's people who didn't go to culinary school but.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They yeah, but they work in a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Do you think you have to work in a restaurant though,
because I feel like I see videos of you cooking,
you have cooked multiple cookbooks out.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
In a way in my head like you are.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
No, okay, because I've never I mean, look, I have
a lot of respect for chefs. I know what they
do and it's not what I do. They run a restaurant,
They run a kitchen, army of staff who gets out
one hundred plates at the same time of hot food
that looks exactly like it did every other time you
went there to eat, and not to People go to
(23:42):
restaurants for they want the same enchilada.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
They want the same streak with the.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Same when it tastes a little different, exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
That's not I don't sell food, okay, I sell knowledge
on how to make food.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
I do.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I get it.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I'm a food writer.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Say have approached you to do a restaurant?
Speaker 4 (23:59):
If you had to estimate, I mean, I've been approached
a few times, not many times, but a handful of times.
Most of those have been Indian restaurants. Some of them haven't.
And I've never wanted to do it because in a restaurant.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Is hard work, and it's.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Manual labor, and everyone steals from you, from your customer
to your cooks to your dishwashers, and then the margins
are really slim. So you're paying off the invoices of
forty five days ago with the money you're making today,
right right, So you it's very hard to do.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
And I have enough.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Jobs, Yeah you do. You know, you have a ton
of jab.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
I'm happy that I'm able to make a living with
what I'm naturally interested in. When you know, I have
a few young women that I mentor, and I always
tell them, try to get as close to, you know,
a job, as close to what you would do naturally anyway,
what do you do that you know you lose track
of time or whatever, Because every job is hard, no
(25:00):
matter how much you love it, it will get hard
at certain points. It's annoying, it's tedious, you know whatever.
But if you love what you do, if you're genuinely
interested in it, that will get you through those periods
that are more challenging.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
You know, in your tales Travelers and recipes from Taste
the Nation and beyond, what is a city that you
would say you were surprised at.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
How amazing the cuisine was?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Houston? Oh?
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Really? Okay? Yes, Houston is known for its food.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Though it is known for its food, I guess you're right,
But I mean, so it is Chicago, so with San Francisco,
and you know those New Orleans exactly, those.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Are all great food cities.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
I think why I liked Houston the most is because
the diversity of Houston really surprised me. You know, Los
Angeles is diverse, New York is diverse, but when you
get to those really high end restaurants, it's still all
white people.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Right, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
It is maybe a few Asians that work in tech,
but you know, it is.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
And and what I loved about Houston.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I was there for six weeks with top chefs, so
I had a chance to really get.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
To know it is that you have an Asian, you
have a.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Thai community, an Indian community, Nigerian community, all these different ethnicities.
And even when you went to what I can't remember
the shopping center, but even the high end shopping center,
you know, with all the galleria probably you know where
they had like a La Colonial that was a restaurant
that was an Asian restaurant. It's a beautiful restaurant. I
(26:29):
would see one table, it's you know, Chinese family. I
would see a black couple on a date. I would
see a white, you know, set of friends over here.
And that to me is true diversity when you see
them co mingling.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Right, you know.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
And I grew up in New York, and I love
that about New York. I love that walking down any block,
I can see people from all over the world, you know.
I hear Hindi and Spanish and Chinese, and I enjoy that.
I think it makes me a richer person. I think
it makes my daughter a more worldly person too. And
I think it makes me more.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Tolerant, you know.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
And so like another thing, I say to young people
who want to be in food or in any job, really,
I say, you know what, travel as much as you can.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yes, that helped you so much.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I know I did. I did, like I could.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
You know, I could tell you without a doubt that
I wouldn't have been able to write this book, or
write the Encyclopedia of Spices, for example, had I not
had the opportunity to travel in my youth. And I
did because I was modeling. And I also did because
I didn't have a family yet, I didn't have kids,
you know, sort of footloose and fancy free, so like
(27:39):
before you get all the responsibilities that tie you down. Now,
I can't go anywhere until my kid graduates high school
and hopefully gets into some college, you know, and then
I can be a little more free.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
But you should go. Just go anywhere, even if it's
just taking.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
A Greyhound bus to like two hundred miles south or
west or whatever. Just go because it will open your
eyes to different ways. Different way people dress, different music,
they listen to, different ways they have of even dressing
a sandwich.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
It sounds silly, but it.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
All gets it all contributes to your own creativity and
broadening of your mind.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
You know, I have to agree.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Even when watching Taste the Nation and seeing you like
in Puerto Rico and you know, making dishes there, but
then even seeing you talking about Hanukkah and the dishes
from there, I think that people will say that food
and music are the things that really can unify people
and understanding and appreciating other people's culture and understanding the why.
It's something that makes you be like, Okay, we can
(28:37):
sit down and have this meal. There's so many crazy
things going on in the world, and as much as
people can, you know, have their racism and feelings about
a certain type, they'll still go and eat.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Some Indian food.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I know.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I hate that crazy, yeah, I know. Like I remember
when seg Cruz went for tacos. I think somebody sent
a Mariachi vand to like troll him. I thought that
was very special. Guys, I thought that was nice.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I wanted to contribute to that. Maria. Actually fun.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I saw you also posting, Mom, Donnie, today is the election,
so I know when this airs, I guess we'll know.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Well, no, if he's our mayor or not.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
I just thought it was so stupid, Like you know,
there were all these people that say he lied, that
wasn't his aunt, and she didn't wear her job, and
you know, like, first of all, women have the capacity
to take off their h job in certain situations. It's
an article of clothing. Second of all, if you asked
one point four billion Indians, they will tell you that
(29:34):
the cousin of my parents is my.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
AUNTI your uncle.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
They were really dragging that.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I mean, if that's all they can drag him for,
then God bless you know. That tells you right there.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Like that's the whole argument is like that's not his aunt,
that's the mother's cousin.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Whatever he that was.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
So, you know, and food and security has also been
something that has been a huge issue for you, and
you even worked on passing a bill for teens.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Oh yeah, yes I did.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
And that really didn't have to do with food insecurity,
but it had to do with teen diet and health
because in the yes, in the state of New York,
we passed a bill that requires all public schools in
New York to teach good eating habsts, to teach good
health habits, and to teach about endometriosis as well. And
(30:26):
you know, when we go we have an education program
called Empower, and we have educated thirty over thirty five
thousand students across New York and Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Where we don't go into a health class or a
pe class.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
We go in actually into their science class because we
want to speak to boys and girls at the same
time so that they hear the same information together. Because
you know, indometriosis affects the woman's body, but it affects
everyone in her circle. And so that young boy will.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Grow up hopefully to be a better husband, a better father,
a better colleague.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
And I had a boy. I went on a ride
along to the Beacon School a few years ago, and
I had a young boy.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Who was probably a sixteen. He was a sophomore.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
He came up to me and he said, and if
somebody had this, how would they get help? And I said, wow,
they could go on our website. They could look for
a specialist in their area. And he said to me,
I think my mom has it because everything you're describing,
I see my mom lying down. I see her having cramps.
She's always using a heating pad, and she can't work
(31:33):
and I have to help her out.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
And I don't want her to feel like this.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
And I thought, oh, that one guy, that one young
man made it worth it to do go to that
school and pay for all those pamphlets and stuff.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
And it's really powerful because when you get like we've had.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Don't ask me the name, because I don't know the
names of sportscasters. But we in our first bloss about
we had a very powerful speech by a man who
was a very dominant football sportscaster and ex football player
speak about how much it affected his marriage and his
wife's health. And it was very powerful because it spoke
(32:10):
to all the men in the room.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
And you know, so we always say it's a family disease.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
And your memoir Love Loss and what we ate you
talked about your marriage and how your endometrio says he
couldn't understand and really had the empathy for it. And
you even was like, I want the doctor to explain
it to you. Yeah, what's going on? Because man CoA
feel like he's not desirable or like you just don't
want to have sex with him, when in truth, like
you know, it's painful, you're bleeding, there's so many things
(32:38):
going on, and then you feel bad about the situation.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Everybody feels everyone feels you know, yeah, your partner feels
bad because they feel unwanted or they you know, they
just feel rejected. You feel bad because you don't want
to do that. But at the same time, everything in
your body is saying no, and it's it's a very
you know, that wasn't the only problem, but you.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Know, that was one of them. That was one of them.
It was, but it's a very significant one, you know.
And so yeah, I mean I had to speak. You know,
I can't speak.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
About this disease and ask for other people to speak
openly about it so we can raise awareness and not
do it myself. That felt hypocritical to me. So I
started the book and you only have to read the
first two chapters and then that's over with, and then
I talk about, you know, the rest of things.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
But it's an open book. I love it because.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Well, I love I love memoirs, and I.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Sew you on TV.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I didn't know all of this until I read the book, though,
because it's harder to see you know that the show
is not about you, No, it's.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
About the chef. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
And in order to do my job well, sometimes you
have to sublimate your own personality, and it was right.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
That was fine. That's why the show is good too.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
But I mean, there's much more of me and taste
the nation, and there's a lot. I mean, even though
this book pumas Ale American is not about me, it
is about all my experiences driving around road by road,
community by community across our nation, visiting these people. So
there's a lot of recipes. There's party food, there's easy
(34:14):
weeknight meals. There's vegetarian dishes, there's vegan dishes. There's everything
from you know, everything from Peruvian immigrants to Nigerian immigrants
to Chinese immigrants. But there's also a lot of pros
In this book. There's a lot of writing. Each chapter
is separated by an essay, so between chapters there's profiles
(34:37):
of different people I met on the road, everyone from
you know, a forager in Arizona Navajo woman named Twila,
to a woman named Saipin who you know came to
this country fifty years ago and she was the maid
of the grandmother of her husband who fell in love
with her, and the family just owned him because they
(34:59):
didn't want him marrying the maid, right, And so they
came to this country and so there's all these people
who have come to this country for different reasons, and
I wanted to show what this country has.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Done for all these people, but also.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
What they have in turn done for this country sidepin
hires over one hundred and thirty five people. She's a
thriving business. To me, she's the best Thai restaurant in
the country in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah, definitely made me want to go. Tapoo's my second
favorite tipple. Two, what's your first Caribbean?
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Oh yeah, of course. Where do you go for Caribbean food? Though?
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Okay, a lot of places because you know, I'm from Brooklyn,
so well you know, I'm gonna go to Tatiana's, Okay
from Caribbean, Jasmine's Caribbean right here on forty sixth Street.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
I don't know if you've ever done there.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
No, it's amazing Legos, which is also in Times Square.
But then in Brooklyn we go to Lavender Room, used
to go to Negrill but that closed. This Footprints is
a staple in Brooklyn. That's you know, Rastapasta.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
So just so many different places that That's like what
my friends tell me all the time when they come here.
They're like, we know we're gonna eat Caribbean food already
because that's all you eat. Yeah, yeah, but I need
to learn how to make it. So you have some
jerk chicken in here. So I do got to try
that jerk chicken.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Jerk chicken recipe is great.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
I mean, you still need to smoke the chicken somehow,
if you have a grill before it gets too cold,
or you can buy a smoking gun and do it.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
But the flavors of.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
That, oh a smoking gun, I never thought about that.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Yeah, they're really fun and they're easy to use. But
you know, that is a really wonderful recipe. But try
the goat especially if you didn't I want you. I
bet you you're going to drink this goat water.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I'm gonna make your chicken instead. I'm gonna make chicken water.
I'm gonna substitute it. I don't know if I want
to do that.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
There are a lot of substitutions in the book too.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah. I was like, I don't know if I'm going
to do it.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Lastly, I just want to say you are coming back
to do another competition.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Show, which I never thought.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
I never thought even you would do that again.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I felt like you were done. I was there was
overt America's Culinary Cup.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Yes, it'll be out this spring.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
It's going to air right after Survivor fifty on CBS,
so everybody can watch it.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Okay, network TV period, I know.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
I know, finally, but you know, it's different when you
run the show. It's different when you can create a
show from scratch and make all the decisions, and it's
my vision. If it fails, it's my failure. If it succeeds,
you know, it's because of the ideas that I had.
I had a lot of very, very talented people that
(37:31):
I handpicked to make it with me because I know
what I know, but I also know what I don't know, Okay,
and so I've tried to pick. I've tried to be
really smart about who could execute my vision. And I
had so much fun doing it. I never knew it
could be so fun. And we didn't work crazy hours.
You know that we worked really hard and long hours,
but it was not inhumane. I never worked on the weekends.
(37:54):
I made sure my crew had enough rest as well.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
And the set is beautiful and.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It goes so well with the book.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
I just feel like everything kind of has signed up
a congratulation you.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
It's so funny because my woman in my office was
actually cheasing me because before Pugma's All American, I guess
edited the Best uh you know that series, the Best
American Poetry, the Best American Shortcers. So I edited the
Best American Food and Travel Writing, and then last year
(38:25):
and then this year it's Padma's All American, and then
next year it's gonna be America's own. So I'm like,
really owning this American Mabel Well, I wanted to take
the flag back, which is why the flag is on
the cover.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
That's so crazy that we nowadays, I feel like we
kind of like look at the flag and that's like immadiately, well,
we're made to feel like that's how we feel, but like, oh,
that person must be maga. That's how sometimes you look
at it and you're like, oh, this doesn't feel right,
but it's our flag too.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
It's so funny.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
I did an event last night at Symphony Space and
Michelle Buteaux, who's a really good friend of mine, and
she hasn't been on here you have to ever, I
had to have funny. She interviewed me for this and
she just started crying. She literally like real tears and
I'm like, are.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
You really crying?
Speaker 4 (39:08):
And she said, like when she sees the flag, she
kind of gets scared, but seeing me in front of
the flag is made it different.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
And she was very moved by that.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
And I think a lot of us have felt left
out recently in the last few years, from you know,
the dream, the American dream that we were sold to
come here or our parents to come here and work.
And you know, they're like, oh, are you reclaiming the flag?
And I always say, I'm not reclaiming it. I'm claiming it.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
It was always it was always mine, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
And that's why it Taste the Nation was such a
great show too, because I think the conversations, the people
that you talk to, the empathy getting into the backstory.
People were emotional crying on that show talking to you,
and that was amazing to see.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
It was wonderful.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
I think it's because like nobody ever asked them, and
I was interested in their stories, genuinely interested. I tell
I'm so happy to be doing that show. Like if
my call time was at six, I would naturally wake
up at five, you know, And while I was doing
my makeup. I had producers telling me about the day,
and I went to sleep every night spent and tired,
but really fulfilled, really gratified, really happy.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
And you know, this book is not only about Taste Nation.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
It's also about my travels with Top Chef. It's also
childhood recipees. But like most of the recipes are very doable.
They're very approachable. You just have to sometimes go to
h Mart or Calluscions or some ethnic food store, but
now you can order everything online.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Once you get the spices and the ingredients, it's really
not hard to do this book.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
Some might take you longer, some or Saturday afternoon recipes,
and some are weeknight recipes, but they're these are very doable,
and they're gonna say, I'm going to tell all right,
all right, you try and you tell me, but I
always give a range of the chilies, because you know.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Everyone I lovet I like my nose running.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Okay, then you're gonna like this book, all right.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Well, Pama's All American Tales, Travels and Recipes from Taste
the Nation and Beyond is available now.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Make sure y'all get it.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
It's also holiday season time, so if they got to
cook for people, maybe it'd be nice to cook some
of these dishes. I think entertaining at home is amazing
to do right now. Also, so thank you for this,
and thank you for coming up here my
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Pleasure, Thanks for having me on
What's up its way up with Angela Yee and dare
I say, we have somebody that's pretty legendary here with
us today.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Pad Malakshmia is here. Thank you for coming to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Thank you, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
And today, the day that we're recording, this is actually
election day, but also the day that your book, Pad
Masole American, a cookbook is out, So congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
You know, I've.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
Decided I've made it my mission like to actually start
cooking more at home because it's hard, and so I
was excited to actually get this book. And just from
watching your whole journey, I know we were talking before
this recording even started, just to watching you on Top Chef,
but knowing your full story from your memoir even before
that is fascinating to me.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
It took me five years to write that memoir, to
write Love Loss and what we Ate. Took me seven
years to write this book, Pad Misole Americans, So I'm
getting slower, not factor.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
But look, first of all, this is the it ain't
a little pamphlet recid, so I could see why it did.
It's interesting because you had your show Taste the Nation
and it's holiday time, and there was some specials you
did around the holiday season, and one of them was
focused on Thanksgiving and what is American food?
Speaker 2 (01:18):
So I have to ask you, now, what is American food?
Speaker 4 (01:20):
I mean, true, real traditional American food is the Three sisters,
which is beans, corn, and squash. Anything with those three ingredients.
It's elk, it's a lot of seafood.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
It's rabbit.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
You know, those are the kinds of things that they
ate here the original Americans.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
But now today American food.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Is pad tie, it's fun, it's you know, chicken chika masala,
it's tacos, it's pizza.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Is goat assume, you know that's your favorite.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Yeah, it's the spiciest. Goat assume is like a party food.
It's an advertiser that nigs eat like when they're first
having a cold beer. And it's literally these bite sized
pieces of goat drenched in a Scotch bonnet sauce sauce.
And it's delicious and it's just so easy to make.
And what's great about that dish is you have to
(02:16):
I don't eat a lot of goat, you know, which
is why I was curious about the recipe. And goat
is actually a great healthy meat to have because it's
much leaner than pork or beef or lamb.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And you basically just you.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
Know, boil the meat with some aromatics slowly for three
hours and then you just cut the meat off the
bone and then you blend the sauce and cook it
in a pan.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
You make anything sound good when it's thank you the
way you describe that.
Speaker 4 (02:41):
But literally, the broth, the water that you've boiled this
goat in with the onions and peppers and stuff is
so delicious that I started.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Freezing that and using it for my ramen. Oh wow,
And now I make the dish just to have the broth.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
You know. It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
My mom is from this little island called Manserat, and
goat weater is actually like they're national.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Food, so oh okay.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
They'll have like a huge bucket, you know of goat water,
and that's what people eat when they go there.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And I will say, I've never had it.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
You haven't.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
I don't know what it is. My grandfather grew up
with ghosts outside, so you don't.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Want to kill her. You're like dogs. You name them.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
No, I didn't name them, but they were cute, you know,
so for some reason. And I think that even growing
up here, it's not as like they don't have goat everywhere.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
It's not the easiest thing to find.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
It's easier to find an oxtail.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, it's definitely easy to find oxtail. Another thing I've
never had. And I'm Caribbean, which is crazy. Yeah, you know,
but I actually stopped eating red meat a long when
I was seventeen years old.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I don't blame you.
Speaker 4 (03:42):
I started when I was sixteen, so we've been passing
each other. No, I was a vegetarian because I grew
up you know, my parents and my family are pretty
conservative Hindus, so very orthodox. And then I was in
high school and I started eating like pepperoni on pizza,
you know, things like that.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
But I don't on the red meat. I don't eat
a lot of red meat.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
There's a lot of meat in this book because it's
an immigrant cookbook, and I had to reflect all the
immigrant communities that I wanted to feature.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
And what they ate.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
But in my home with me and my daughter, we
you know, meet, we make beef maybe once or twice
a year.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It's like a treat.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
It's a treat.
Speaker 4 (04:21):
It's usually in the colder months unless we have flank
steak or something or like steak chacos. But even that
we don't have that often. We do a lot of
chicken and fish. You know, we love hamburgers, so we'll
get a hamburger from outside, but we don't really cook.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
What do you think about like artificial meat, because you
know that was such a craze for a period of
time and it is very processed too, though, But what
are your thoughts when it comes to meat alternatives?
Speaker 4 (04:46):
Well, listen, if that's if that's what keeps you off
the meat, and that's fine, But like I personally don't
like if I want, I don't know. It's weird that
a non meat burger bleeds. You know, it's it's just
beat juice, but it's weird. Like to me, the amount
of processing, as you said, that it has to go
(05:08):
to to resemble meat is worrying. You know, I don't
know enough about the process to say one way or
the other.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
My philosophy is to eat.
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Foods as close to their natural state as possible.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Okay, you know the least amount of.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Processing, So you know, I'm not when I'm eating vegetarian food,
I'm not looking to trick my palate into thinking it's
eating you know, sausage when it's really eating like for
Mica of chickpeas.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
You know, I just I know.
Speaker 4 (05:43):
But that's also probably because I've grown up a vegetarian,
you know, and I know that there's a world of
beautiful food out there that doesn't require you. I could
probably go back to being a vegetarian.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
I couldn't give up dairy, though I couldn't either.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
You know, people are lactose intolerant. I'm lactose dependent. I
you know, sometimes I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I think I have like a yeah, I think I
am too, but it depends. I never know how it's
going to hit me. So I only eat ice cream
at home, but I do try to do like non
dairy ice cream.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
But I could eat cheese like regular teas. It's interesting
because cheese will say like processed tea. I don't know
what cheese really is.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
If the word process is on the label, do not
buy it. That's the rule of thumb.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Okay, process anything.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Yeah, it's so hard because you know, but one thing
I learned is that cooking at home is always better.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
Even if you're the worst cook and you're using canned
everything or frozen whatever, it's still better than going out
because when you go out, whether it's you know, a
casual restaurant, a fast food restaurant, high end restaurant, you
don't know how many people are touching that food. You
don't know where it comes from. And you know, there
are a lot of beautiful restaurants that I love, But
the single best thing you can do for the health
(06:56):
of your family is to cook at home, even if
it's something basic like a torchilla with scrambled eggs and
raw vegetables, that is healthier to eat than you know,
something that's boxed or something that you know, when you're
even in a regular, really good restaurant, there are eight
people touching that dish. There's the sauce guy, there's the
garnish guy, there's the meat guy.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I definitely know what you mean, and it's interesting to me. Also,
Halloweens just passed. Yeah, and I saw your costume, and
I think, if I'm not mistaken, didn't you get here
on Halloween?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (07:31):
I did, I do, And you had a chance to
see everybody like in their costumes that I know you
were like, what is going on?
Speaker 3 (07:37):
Yeah, because I was four years old.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
I arrived at JFK and I had taken the long
road from New Delhi, you know, all the way over
here because my mom probably bought a cheap ticket or something.
Speaker 3 (07:46):
So it was like New.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Jelli, Cairo, Rome, London, New York. And when I got here,
my mom brought me home and we had a very
small apartment, probably the size of the studio, and she
had this beautiful big plate of or dish of candy.
And then the doorbell kept ringing and she kept giving my.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Candy out, and I'm like this, I thought this was
to welcome me. What is she doing? And you know
she then she explained the holidays to me, and I'm like.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
I just thought they were beggars, you know, you't addressed
all strange.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (08:17):
And I thought, wow, you know America, this land of plenty,
where all you have to do put on some makeup
and knock on someone's door and they'll give you free candy.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Another thing that you have talked about a lot, and
I want to say, like I work with coach Jesse
from the Detax now, but you've talked about your endometriosis
and how difficult that was for you when for so
long you didn't know what was going on. And that's
an important conversation because a lot of women feel like
pain during your period or bleeding heavily.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Is just normal.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
It's not.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
And even like pain during sex, being uncomfortable, you know,
having to worry about bleeding through whatever it is that
you're wearing, these are all things that are hindrance. I've
literally met people who are like, I couldn't even go
to work date and I have no idea why, and
doctors will misdiagnose you, or sometimes we also just deal
with it because we think that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
We've been dealing with it for so long.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
And you know, as much as endometriosis affects you physically,
it also affects you mentally and emotionally, because when you're
in chronic pain like that, you can't think straight, and
then you're also feeling like, what's wrong with me that
I cannot handle a basic part of my own womanhood
right Exactly the time that endometriosis is developing in your body,
(09:33):
in puberty and onward from there is also a very
vulnerable time for young girls.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And women, and so.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
You're already learning how to deal with your growing and
changing body. Your hormones are crazy, and then you have
this to deal with. I mean, I remember being in
college and I would have my roommate just like pop
to advil and stick an extra tampon in her jacket and.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Skip to a basketball practice.
Speaker 4 (09:56):
You know, I was literally at home in bed with
a heating pad for like four or five days a week.
Sometimes I literally lost a week of my life for
twenty three years. I got my period when I was thirteen.
I only got a good diagnosis when I was thirty six.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
That's crazy.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Yeah, And I had you know, I always had good insurance,
Thank god, I had access to good medical care.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
I always lived in big cities like New York or
LA or London or whatever.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
But I fell through the cracks and doctors were all
too happy just to give me prescriptions of really heavy
pain medicine. And you know, after two days of taking
those pain meds, I would get really nauseous. And so
I had to decide do I want to be nauseous
for the medicine or do I want to be you know,
cramped up and have spasms. And I used to get
(10:44):
pain that would shoot down one leg. I used to
get migraines, lower back pain, all of it.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I still have to work.
Speaker 3 (10:50):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
I mean I can't tell you how many jobs I
lost because of it.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
How many that's crazy, you has jobs because of that.
Speaker 4 (10:57):
Of course, because if you've got to be in a
bikini and do a photo shoot, you know. I would
actually when I booked a job, I would look on
the calendar because the one thing with me is at
least my period was still regular, so I knew when
it was coming, and my body told me a week
before it got there anyway, you know, so I would
try not I would try to avoid working during then
(11:19):
as a model. But obviously you can't always do that.
You know, you take the work you get when you
get it. But it was really tough, and it's very demoralizing.
It's very lonely because nobody wants to call into their
job and be have my period again. But nobody was talking.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
About it right. And when I finally got the care that.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
I needed and had the surgery and saw what life
was like on the other side for women who don't
have this ailment, I was relieved. But then I started
to get angry because I realized I had lost all
this time. And so that is when I teamed up
with my surgeon to start the Endometriosis Foundation with America.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
And now we talk about it.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
We still got a long way to go with you know,
research and funding, but at least it's it's becoming more normalized.
You know, other people are talking about it. A lot
of you know, Olivia Coolpo talks about it, Lena Dunham
talked about it, Amy Schumer, a lot a lot of people.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
I literally was at my doctor yesterday because I've she
found two small fibris because I asked to check for it.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Good.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
So they're like monitoring to see what's happening because you
want to make sure you know at the end of
the day, like the faster and the earlier, and sometimes
even shifting your diet can help.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah, an anti inflammatory diet can help.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Yeah. So I'm just trying to, you know, do what
I can.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
But I also like to bring attention to that because
people don't know and they just think I'm just bleeding heavy.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
I always be heavy. And then when I.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Talked about it, people were literally calling up here like
I've been bleeding for a thirty days straight, you know,
just all kinds of things and if that's an indication
that there's something wrong.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
And also there are those indimutuous pats. I wasn't one
of them, but there were there. There are patients who
have endometriosis but don't suffer with that bad of pain.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
You know.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
I had a girlfriend who's really trying to get pregnant
and used in vito, and she was using up her savings,
and you know, I kept saying, you know, maybe you
have endo, like there must be something blocking there because
you've had four or five or whatever she had at
the time.
Speaker 3 (13:22):
And she said, no, I don't really have cramps like you. Like.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
My period is okay. It's a little heavy sometimes, but
it's not that bad. And I said, just get it
checked out, right, And then she asked her for tila doctor.
And he's like, yeah, let's see.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Of course, because that fertility doctor does not have any.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Incentive to check you out. It's easier and it's better
for his bottom line if he can charge you fifty
sixty seventy thousand dollars because it's like fifteen thousand dollars
now per a month, per cycle. And you know, if
you're a young couple or even if you want to
get pregnant on your own, like, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
And that's tough on your body, yeah right, and mentally.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Yeah, it's demoralizing.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
So they should always check for it if it doesn't
work the first time and save you that heartache and cost.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
But they're really there.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
There's no motivation for fertility doctors to do that, you know,
And that's that's what's sad because a lot of I mean,
one of the things that our organization does, other than
educate students male and female, we lobby for insurance companies
to cover like big insurance companies like Signa do not
(14:32):
cover endometrios surgery unless you wind up in the hospital
with an emergency.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
We don't want to wait for that.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
Right exactly.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
So there's a long way to go still, but at
least now people are talking about reproductive disorders like gindo.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
You know, aside from you, like you said, you started
off modeling, right and then hosting on television, which wasn't
even anything that you had planned no to do.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
It kind of came to you.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Yeah, I mean I went to theater school.
Speaker 4 (15:01):
I majored in theater and American lit, and I thought
I was going to be an actor and I did some,
you know, a few small parts. But then I wrote
my first cookbook and it did well. Nobody expected it to,
but it did well, and that's how it happened.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
So I sort of fell.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Into a career in food when I was thirty years old.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
That's amazing because it is something that is organic.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
It's not like you were like, Okay, this is but
it felt like a natural, perfect fit for you to
be able to do that, and I'm sure you're there.
The background also helps as far as hosting.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
It does.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
It helps me, you know, behind my feelings sometimes, but
I really don't. But I really don't have a poker face,
you know, so like if you watch all people like that, Yeah,
if you watch old episodes of Top Chef, you can
see what I'm thinking.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
It's interesting because when you first started doing Top Chef,
you said they wanted it to be more serious, but
it really did kind of evolve into something that I
felt like was more palatable for the average person like
myself to watch.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, I mean, I you know, you always want to
when you give a critique, you always want to do
it with humanity and grace. And you know, I was
with those contestants every hour of the day.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
And I really felt for them.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
As hard as it looks on TV, it's much harder,
and so you know, I tried to be helpful or constructive.
Whenever I gave criticism, I tried to make sure it
was in the spirit of rooting for them to do better.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Is there anyone that if you try to get a
reservation they would be like, no.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
No, no, I'm kidding.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I
guess so.
Speaker 4 (16:36):
I mean, I've never I mean, if they don't like me,
it's probably because the feeling is mutual.
Speaker 3 (16:43):
And I didn't like their food.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I don't really know that much about them personally before,
and that's a good Yeah, it's better not to Yeah,
I just want to judge them on the food. It's
not really personal at all.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
And you know, I think for that, A lot of
people know you from you know, obviously.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
From tap Chap.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
That was a huge but then you actually said, Okay,
I'm ready to venture off and do my own thing,
and we were just discussing that behind the scenes.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, so did you.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yes, I did the same thing, just to create on
your own. And sometimes that's hard because you're leaving something
that's so successful. You know, everybody's tuned into Emmy nominations
and awards and the accolades, and then it's like, okay,
well now I have to Did people try to discourage
you from that? Because I know people try to discourage.
Speaker 4 (17:25):
Oh yes, yeah, a lot of people tried to discosson
people who loved me and cared for me, and you know, they.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Were thinking about it. They think that's what's best for you.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Well, they were giving me, you know, advice that they
thought was the best.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
They were worried, you know, that I would be leaving
a really good, sure thing and I would be throwing
it away and there was no guarantee. You know, the
television business has contracted drastically in the last few years.
And my agent at the time was like, you you
shouldn't go. People would kill for your job. I know
(17:56):
actresses who aren't working and don't make half the money
make And I would say, but I'm unhappy, yeah, you know,
and how much is my happiness worth? And I was
just I was just burnt out. And I mean, there's
so many reasons but we don't have time off.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
For all and those are long days too, they are.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
And I was eating a lot of food and unnecessarily
on stilettos on concrete, and you have all that stuff
that you do.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Because it's a visual medium, right.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
The rules for women on television are much different than
for my male counterparts on television.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
That's just the reality of the business.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
But I can I put on a wedge sneaker please,
And that I saw in your book you talked about
a time in Chicago when you were judging in the pizza.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, you said you gained seventeen pounds that season.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
That's that's the most I've ever gained.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yes, I did, and it's not surprising because it was
a really heavy season of eating and I just felt
so uncomfortable. I thought I was going to throw up
just from the sheer volume. Because it's also like Chicago
deep dish pizza is bready right, you know, So it's
like having two bites of that is like having a
whole slice of regular pizza.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
You said you had to eat it fresh at the
oven and then try it again later to see how.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
It would deliver. Yeah, so it was like double eating.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
Yeah, we don't do that anymore. But yeah, I mean,
maybe they do now that I'm gone, but no, I.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
Mean the first thing I did when they made me
an executive producer was like, say, can we please not
have that Fear Factor episode again? Because there was always
that one where they had all these mystery meats like
kangaroo and you know, ostrich and rattlesnake and alligator, and
they always did it like really close to the beginning
when there were still a lot of contestants and we
(19:44):
hadn't really weeded out, you know, who was the best
and who wasn't, so you had people who were not
skilled or hadn't ever cooked those proteins before cooking them,
and then you're just sitting.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
There like chewing. You know. It was awful. But I
don't think that. I don't think they do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I can't do it. I'm so picky.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
There's so many things I don't eat, like I randomly
I told you already told you, like, I can't see
myself even experimenting like that, even just look even the
texture of things. Like people are gonna hate me for
saying this, but I really don't eat avocado.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
I get that. I get that.
Speaker 4 (20:18):
I love avocado, but I understand people who don't because
it's on its own.
Speaker 3 (20:23):
It's not sweet, it's not salty, it's not tart. It's
kind of blame a mush. It's mush and it feels
like mush. It just doesn't chaste like bush. I get that.
Speaker 4 (20:33):
Yeah, I mean basically, avocado is like, you know, a
mushy fluff vehicle for salt and lemon.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
You know, I wanted to ask you this for you
being a model and then coming into this space, and
I know initially you were like, oh, they looked at
you a little crazy, like who is this model that's
coming on here? Just a pretty face to put in
front of the camera. Where there are times that you
felt like people treated you unfairly in your career, just
because it is kind of a pretty privileged thing that
(21:02):
people may look at it like, Okay, is she here?
Speaker 2 (21:05):
Initially when you.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
First started, oh sure, yeah, is she here because the
way she looks? Or is she here? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (21:10):
I think you know, when I first started Top Chef,
Bravo did not do a good enough job, and nor
did I about publicizing the fact that I had a
cookbook and I had hosted, you know, a stand in stirre,
a cooking show on the Food Network. It only lasted
a season, but it was called Padma's Passport. And I
had also done food documentaries called Planet Food. So I'd
(21:34):
already published my first cookbook, I was about to publish
my second cookbook, and I had done these two other
food shows before I got Top Chef. But people really
didn't know about them because they weren't, you know, on
TV for multiple seasons.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
So they just figured, you know, they.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
Just stuck a model in there because that was what
they knew most about me. And as time went on,
you know, look, the chef world is very male dominated,
so you don't have to be a model to be
looked down upon.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Let me just say, I think it's the second most
male dominated, yeah, other.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
Than the military. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (22:10):
And so you know, I don't need to be a
chef to do my job. Well, I have my palette
and my knowledge of food, and it's taken me, you know,
years to develop that palette and develop a body of
information that I use in my head to judge something,
(22:30):
you know, just like you don't have to have cancer
to cure it, right, So I mean, but like I
you know. I love when people underestimate me.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
It helps, but it's hard.
Speaker 4 (22:41):
It's hard not to be affected when the people, you know,
when when the chef next to you or you know,
guest judge or whatever, when they're like rolling their eyes
or like, you know, and so that wears on you.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I think it's interesting that you don't consider yourself a
chef at all.
Speaker 3 (23:00):
I don't, I know, because a chef is, but.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Because there's people who didn't go to culinary school but.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
They yeah, but they work in a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (23:09):
Do you think you have to work in a restaurant though,
because I feel like I see videos of you cooking,
you have cooked multiple cookbooks out.
Speaker 3 (23:16):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
In a way in my head like you are.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
No, okay, because I've never I mean, look, I have
a lot of respect for chefs. I know what they
do and it's not what I do. They run a restaurant,
They run a kitchen, army of staff who gets out
one hundred plates at the same time of hot food
that looks exactly like it did every other time you
went there to eat, and not to People go to
(23:42):
restaurants for they want the same enchilada.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
They want the same streak with the.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Same when it tastes a little different, exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
That's not I don't sell food, okay, I sell knowledge
on how to make food.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
I do.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
I get it.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
I'm a food writer.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Say have approached you to do a restaurant?
Speaker 4 (23:59):
If you had to estimate, I mean, I've been approached
a few times, not many times, but a handful of times.
Most of those have been Indian restaurants. Some of them haven't.
And I've never wanted to do it because in a restaurant.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Is hard work, and it's.
Speaker 4 (24:14):
Manual labor, and everyone steals from you, from your customer
to your cooks to your dishwashers, and then the margins
are really slim. So you're paying off the invoices of
forty five days ago with the money you're making today,
right right, So you it's very hard to do.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
And I have enough.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Jobs, Yeah you do. You know, you have a ton
of jab.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
I'm happy that I'm able to make a living with
what I'm naturally interested in. When you know, I have
a few young women that I mentor, and I always
tell them, try to get as close to, you know,
a job, as close to what you would do naturally anyway,
what do you do that you know you lose track
of time or whatever, Because every job is hard, no
(25:00):
matter how much you love it, it will get hard
at certain points. It's annoying, it's tedious, you know whatever.
But if you love what you do, if you're genuinely
interested in it, that will get you through those periods
that are more challenging.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
You know, in your tales Travelers and recipes from Taste
the Nation and beyond, what is a city that you
would say you were surprised at.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
How amazing the cuisine was?
Speaker 3 (25:24):
Houston? Oh?
Speaker 2 (25:25):
Really? Okay? Yes, Houston is known for its food.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
Though it is known for its food, I guess you're right,
But I mean, so it is Chicago, so with San Francisco,
and you know those New Orleans exactly, those.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Are all great food cities.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
I think why I liked Houston the most is because
the diversity of Houston really surprised me. You know, Los
Angeles is diverse, New York is diverse, but when you
get to those really high end restaurants, it's still all
white people.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Right, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
It is maybe a few Asians that work in tech,
but you know, it is.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
And and what I loved about Houston.
Speaker 4 (26:01):
I was there for six weeks with top chefs, so
I had a chance to really get.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
To know it is that you have an Asian, you
have a.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Thai community, an Indian community, Nigerian community, all these different ethnicities.
And even when you went to what I can't remember
the shopping center, but even the high end shopping center,
you know, with all the galleria probably you know where
they had like a La Colonial that was a restaurant
that was an Asian restaurant. It's a beautiful restaurant. I
(26:29):
would see one table, it's you know, Chinese family. I
would see a black couple on a date. I would
see a white, you know, set of friends over here.
And that to me is true diversity when you see
them co mingling.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
Right, you know.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
And I grew up in New York, and I love
that about New York. I love that walking down any block,
I can see people from all over the world, you know.
I hear Hindi and Spanish and Chinese, and I enjoy that.
I think it makes me a richer person. I think
it makes my daughter a more worldly person too. And
I think it makes me more.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Tolerant, you know.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
And so like another thing, I say to young people
who want to be in food or in any job, really,
I say, you know what, travel as much as you can.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yes, that helped you so much.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
I know I did. I did, like I could.
Speaker 4 (27:19):
You know, I could tell you without a doubt that
I wouldn't have been able to write this book, or
write the Encyclopedia of Spices, for example, had I not
had the opportunity to travel in my youth. And I
did because I was modeling. And I also did because
I didn't have a family yet, I didn't have kids,
you know, sort of footloose and fancy free, so like
(27:39):
before you get all the responsibilities that tie you down. Now,
I can't go anywhere until my kid graduates high school
and hopefully gets into some college, you know, and then
I can be a little more free.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
But you should go. Just go anywhere, even if it's
just taking.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
A Greyhound bus to like two hundred miles south or
west or whatever. Just go because it will open your
eyes to different ways. Different way people dress, different music,
they listen to, different ways they have of even dressing
a sandwich.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
It sounds silly, but it.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
All gets it all contributes to your own creativity and
broadening of your mind.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
You know, I have to agree.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Even when watching Taste the Nation and seeing you like
in Puerto Rico and you know, making dishes there, but
then even seeing you talking about Hanukkah and the dishes
from there, I think that people will say that food
and music are the things that really can unify people
and understanding and appreciating other people's culture and understanding the why.
It's something that makes you be like, Okay, we can
(28:37):
sit down and have this meal. There's so many crazy
things going on in the world, and as much as
people can, you know, have their racism and feelings about
a certain type, they'll still go and eat.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Some Indian food.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
I know.
Speaker 4 (28:50):
I hate that crazy, yeah, I know. Like I remember
when seg Cruz went for tacos. I think somebody sent
a Mariachi vand to like troll him. I thought that
was very special. Guys, I thought that was nice.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
I wanted to contribute to that. Maria. Actually fun.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
I saw you also posting, Mom, Donnie, today is the election,
so I know when this airs, I guess we'll know.
Speaker 3 (29:12):
Well, no, if he's our mayor or not.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
I just thought it was so stupid, Like you know,
there were all these people that say he lied, that
wasn't his aunt, and she didn't wear her job, and
you know, like, first of all, women have the capacity
to take off their h job in certain situations. It's
an article of clothing. Second of all, if you asked
one point four billion Indians, they will tell you that
(29:34):
the cousin of my parents is my.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
AUNTI your uncle.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
They were really dragging that.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I mean, if that's all they can drag him for,
then God bless you know. That tells you right there.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
Like that's the whole argument is like that's not his aunt,
that's the mother's cousin.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
Whatever he that was.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
So, you know, and food and security has also been
something that has been a huge issue for you, and
you even worked on passing a bill for teens.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Oh yeah, yes I did.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
And that really didn't have to do with food insecurity,
but it had to do with teen diet and health
because in the yes, in the state of New York,
we passed a bill that requires all public schools in
New York to teach good eating habsts, to teach good
health habits, and to teach about endometriosis as well. And
(30:26):
you know, when we go we have an education program
called Empower, and we have educated thirty over thirty five
thousand students across New York and Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Where we don't go into a health class or a
pe class.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
We go in actually into their science class because we
want to speak to boys and girls at the same
time so that they hear the same information together. Because
you know, indometriosis affects the woman's body, but it affects
everyone in her circle. And so that young boy will.
Speaker 3 (30:58):
Grow up hopefully to be a better husband, a better father,
a better colleague.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
And I had a boy. I went on a ride
along to the Beacon School a few years ago, and
I had a young boy.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Who was probably a sixteen. He was a sophomore.
Speaker 4 (31:11):
He came up to me and he said, and if
somebody had this, how would they get help? And I said, wow,
they could go on our website. They could look for
a specialist in their area. And he said to me,
I think my mom has it because everything you're describing,
I see my mom lying down. I see her having cramps.
She's always using a heating pad, and she can't work
(31:33):
and I have to help her out.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
And I don't want her to feel like this.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
And I thought, oh, that one guy, that one young
man made it worth it to do go to that
school and pay for all those pamphlets and stuff.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
And it's really powerful because when you get like we've had.
Speaker 4 (31:50):
Don't ask me the name, because I don't know the
names of sportscasters. But we in our first bloss about
we had a very powerful speech by a man who
was a very dominant football sportscaster and ex football player
speak about how much it affected his marriage and his
wife's health. And it was very powerful because it spoke
(32:10):
to all the men in the room.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
And you know, so we always say it's a family disease.
Speaker 2 (32:14):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
And your memoir Love Loss and what we ate you
talked about your marriage and how your endometrio says he
couldn't understand and really had the empathy for it. And
you even was like, I want the doctor to explain
it to you. Yeah, what's going on? Because man CoA
feel like he's not desirable or like you just don't
want to have sex with him, when in truth, like
you know, it's painful, you're bleeding, there's so many things
(32:38):
going on, and then you feel bad about the situation.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
Everybody feels everyone feels you know, yeah, your partner feels
bad because they feel unwanted or they you know, they
just feel rejected. You feel bad because you don't want
to do that. But at the same time, everything in
your body is saying no, and it's it's a very
you know, that wasn't the only problem, but you.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
Know, that was one of them. That was one of them.
It was, but it's a very significant one, you know.
And so yeah, I mean I had to speak. You know,
I can't speak.
Speaker 4 (33:11):
About this disease and ask for other people to speak
openly about it so we can raise awareness and not
do it myself. That felt hypocritical to me. So I
started the book and you only have to read the
first two chapters and then that's over with, and then
I talk about, you know, the rest of things.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
But it's an open book. I love it because.
Speaker 3 (33:32):
Well, I love I love memoirs, and I.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
Sew you on TV.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
I didn't know all of this until I read the book, though,
because it's harder to see you know that the show
is not about you, No, it's.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
About the chef. Yeah, of course.
Speaker 4 (33:44):
And in order to do my job well, sometimes you
have to sublimate your own personality, and it was right.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
That was fine. That's why the show is good too.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
But I mean, there's much more of me and taste
the nation, and there's a lot. I mean, even though
this book pumas Ale American is not about me, it
is about all my experiences driving around road by road,
community by community across our nation, visiting these people. So
there's a lot of recipes. There's party food, there's easy
(34:14):
weeknight meals. There's vegetarian dishes, there's vegan dishes. There's everything
from you know, everything from Peruvian immigrants to Nigerian immigrants
to Chinese immigrants. But there's also a lot of pros
In this book. There's a lot of writing. Each chapter
is separated by an essay, so between chapters there's profiles
(34:37):
of different people I met on the road, everyone from
you know, a forager in Arizona Navajo woman named Twila,
to a woman named Saipin who you know came to
this country fifty years ago and she was the maid
of the grandmother of her husband who fell in love
with her, and the family just owned him because they
(34:59):
didn't want him marrying the maid, right, And so they
came to this country and so there's all these people
who have come to this country for different reasons, and
I wanted to show what this country has.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
Done for all these people, but also.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
What they have in turn done for this country sidepin
hires over one hundred and thirty five people. She's a
thriving business. To me, she's the best Thai restaurant in
the country in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
Yeah, definitely made me want to go. Tapoo's my second
favorite tipple. Two, what's your first Caribbean?
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Oh yeah, of course. Where do you go for Caribbean food? Though?
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Okay, a lot of places because you know, I'm from Brooklyn,
so well you know, I'm gonna go to Tatiana's, Okay
from Caribbean, Jasmine's Caribbean right here on forty sixth Street.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
I don't know if you've ever done there.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
No, it's amazing Legos, which is also in Times Square.
But then in Brooklyn we go to Lavender Room, used
to go to Negrill but that closed. This Footprints is
a staple in Brooklyn. That's you know, Rastapasta.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
So just so many different places that That's like what
my friends tell me all the time when they come here.
They're like, we know we're gonna eat Caribbean food already
because that's all you eat. Yeah, yeah, but I need
to learn how to make it. So you have some
jerk chicken in here. So I do got to try
that jerk chicken.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Jerk chicken recipe is great.
Speaker 4 (36:16):
I mean, you still need to smoke the chicken somehow,
if you have a grill before it gets too cold,
or you can buy a smoking gun and do it.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
But the flavors of.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
That, oh a smoking gun, I never thought about that.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Yeah, they're really fun and they're easy to use. But
you know, that is a really wonderful recipe. But try
the goat especially if you didn't I want you. I
bet you you're going to drink this goat water.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
I'm gonna make your chicken instead. I'm gonna make chicken water.
I'm gonna substitute it. I don't know if I want
to do that.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
There are a lot of substitutions in the book too.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah. I was like, I don't know if I'm going
to do it.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Lastly, I just want to say you are coming back
to do another competition.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
Show, which I never thought.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
I never thought even you would do that again.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
I felt like you were done. I was there was
overt America's Culinary Cup.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Yes, it'll be out this spring.
Speaker 4 (37:04):
It's going to air right after Survivor fifty on CBS,
so everybody can watch it.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Okay, network TV period, I know.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
I know, finally, but you know, it's different when you
run the show. It's different when you can create a
show from scratch and make all the decisions, and it's
my vision. If it fails, it's my failure. If it succeeds,
you know, it's because of the ideas that I had.
I had a lot of very, very talented people that
(37:31):
I handpicked to make it with me because I know
what I know, but I also know what I don't know, Okay,
and so I've tried to pick. I've tried to be
really smart about who could execute my vision. And I
had so much fun doing it. I never knew it
could be so fun. And we didn't work crazy hours.
You know that we worked really hard and long hours,
but it was not inhumane. I never worked on the weekends.
(37:54):
I made sure my crew had enough rest as well.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
And the set is beautiful and.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
It goes so well with the book.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
I just feel like everything kind of has signed up
a congratulation you.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
It's so funny because my woman in my office was
actually cheasing me because before Pugma's All American, I guess
edited the Best uh you know that series, the Best
American Poetry, the Best American Shortcers. So I edited the
Best American Food and Travel Writing, and then last year
(38:25):
and then this year it's Padma's All American, and then
next year it's gonna be America's own. So I'm like,
really owning this American Mabel Well, I wanted to take
the flag back, which is why the flag is on
the cover.
Speaker 1 (38:39):
That's so crazy that we nowadays, I feel like we
kind of like look at the flag and that's like immadiately, well,
we're made to feel like that's how we feel, but like, oh,
that person must be maga. That's how sometimes you look
at it and you're like, oh, this doesn't feel right,
but it's our flag too.
Speaker 3 (38:54):
It's so funny.
Speaker 4 (38:55):
I did an event last night at Symphony Space and
Michelle Buteaux, who's a really good friend of mine, and
she hasn't been on here you have to ever, I
had to have funny. She interviewed me for this and
she just started crying. She literally like real tears and
I'm like, are.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
You really crying?
Speaker 4 (39:08):
And she said, like when she sees the flag, she
kind of gets scared, but seeing me in front of
the flag is made it different.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
And she was very moved by that.
Speaker 4 (39:19):
And I think a lot of us have felt left
out recently in the last few years, from you know,
the dream, the American dream that we were sold to
come here or our parents to come here and work.
And you know, they're like, oh, are you reclaiming the flag?
And I always say, I'm not reclaiming it. I'm claiming it.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
It was always it was always mine, you know.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
And that's why it Taste the Nation was such a
great show too, because I think the conversations, the people
that you talk to, the empathy getting into the backstory.
People were emotional crying on that show talking to you,
and that was amazing to see.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
It was wonderful.
Speaker 4 (39:53):
I think it's because like nobody ever asked them, and
I was interested in their stories, genuinely interested. I tell
I'm so happy to be doing that show. Like if
my call time was at six, I would naturally wake
up at five, you know, And while I was doing
my makeup. I had producers telling me about the day,
and I went to sleep every night spent and tired,
but really fulfilled, really gratified, really happy.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
And you know, this book is not only about Taste Nation.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
It's also about my travels with Top Chef. It's also
childhood recipees. But like most of the recipes are very doable.
They're very approachable. You just have to sometimes go to
h Mart or Calluscions or some ethnic food store, but
now you can order everything online.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Once you get the spices and the ingredients, it's really
not hard to do this book.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
Some might take you longer, some or Saturday afternoon recipes,
and some are weeknight recipes, but they're these are very doable,
and they're gonna say, I'm going to tell all right,
all right, you try and you tell me, but I
always give a range of the chilies, because you know.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Everyone I lovet I like my nose running.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Okay, then you're gonna like this book, all right.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Well, Pama's All American Tales, Travels and Recipes from Taste
the Nation and Beyond is available now.
Speaker 2 (41:06):
Make sure y'all get it.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
It's also holiday season time, so if they got to
cook for people, maybe it'd be nice to cook some
of these dishes. I think entertaining at home is amazing
to do right now. Also, so thank you for this,
and thank you for coming up here my
Speaker 3 (41:18):
Pleasure, Thanks for having me on
Way Up With Angela Yee News
Host
Angela Yee
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