Padma Lakshmi Quotes

I always loved my bangles, I can't remember a time when I didn't have a bangle on.

I know most people use their phones to tell time, but there's something very romantic and beautiful about a timepiece.

DON'T wear loud clanging bangles at work, it's disruptive and noisy and your coworkers won't appreciate it! Bangles should have a gentle wind-chimey tinkle, not the crash bang of a million pots and pans.

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

I love clothes, but really I don't have that much to say about skirts. Before I was writing, I went to fashion shows only when the designer was a good friend and I was there to show support.

The best thing you can do for someone is make them a beautiful plate of food. How else can you invade someone's body without actually touching them?

Beauty is no accomplishment on its own. It's what you do with it.

I like me better naked. I don't mean that in a vain way... When you put clothes on, you immediately put a character on. Clothes are adjectives, they are indicators. When you don't have any clothes on, it's just you, raw, and you can't hide.

I've always had a fantasy to write a cookbook, because everyone wants to know what a model eats.

In truth, I am a single mother. But I don't feel alone at all in parenting my daughter. Krishna has a whole other side of her family who loves her, too. And so Krishna is parented by me, but also by her grandmother and aunts and cousins and uncles and friends.

I'm not tough. I'm tenacious.

Whether I'm making a recipe or a piece of jewelry or a white-rose-and-jasmine tea or the perfume, I like to think of myself as a happy little sorceress, and if I could just have a little general store with all that stuff and give people a sense of my taste, that would be lovely.

Flowers die and wine gets consumed. Both are lovely. I appreciate both. Wine and roses. I actually had someone bring me a lobe of foie gras once.

Women's voices not being heard is the root of many of the problems of the world.

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

I'm a sucker for fried chicken - I really love it.

An oil massage, a hot bath, a good night's sleep, soft smells and music and clothes with soft textures denote sensuality to me.

From the simple stringing together of lemon garlands for the goddess Durga, to dividing the prasadam or blessed foods for the children first, I came to associate food not only with feminity, but also with purity and divinity.

In a way that somebody else converts to Judaism or becomes a Hare Krishna, I belong to the church of fried chicken.

People are thrown off by someone who looks feminine, but is also strong. It's not that pretty girls aren't smart, it's that women aren't strong.

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

Jewelry should not upstage you. I pick one hot point on my body that I'm going to highlight. Let one area do the singing - you don't want to hear three songs at once.

You don't want your jewelry to make you look fat. A lot of what's out there now does - you just wind up looking like a Christmas tree.

I tend to sleep in the nude... I'm a sensual-leaning woman. You have to use the word 'leaning' or it sounds like I'm boasting.

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

I usually doze off between 7:30 and 9 p.m. while putting my baby to sleep. Then I suddenly wake up remembering I'm an adult with no bedtime. I spend the next four hours catching up on reading, e-mails, and other adult pursuits until I collapse for good until sunrise.

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

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

I have great empathy for all the contestants that come on 'Top Chef,' whether they go home right away or they make it to the finish line. It's a very vulnerable position they put themselves in and I feel for them.

I love seafood. I'm not a vegetarian but I'm probably a pescetarian.

People always comment about my clothes. They don't think a fashionable woman can love food and be knowledgeable and actually cook.

All chefs are like Jewish mothers. They want to feed you and feed you and impress you. It's an eagerness to please.

Miami, which has already aired, has this wonderful blend of Caribbean culture and Latin American culture and Southern American culture (talking about fried chicken). All those combine to make for a very very interesting array of ingredients, restaurants, and the chefs that come there. It also has great seafood, not to mention the glorious citrus that's there. And all those things inform what you do - and they should.

I think eating in itself is the act of great sensuality, so all you have to do is point the camera in the right direction.

During the course of filming 'Top Chef,' I gain 15 lbs., so I'm used to needing two dress sizes.

I think wine is such a big universe that it's kind of like food - it's intimidating to a lot of people, myself included.

Even the fried chicken is great cold.

I always think, after the second glass of wine, you should be putting something in your stomach.

My mom was scared of the old Times Square so I was never allowed to go. Now I'm scared of the new Times Square, so I still never go.

I am as omnivorous as it's possible to be. I always say there's nothing I won't eat and nothing I won't wear.

In southern Spain, they made me eat a bull's testicles. They were really garlicky, which I don't like. I prefer to take a bull by the horns, not by, um...

Decide which you want to play up: your clothing or your jewelry, but not both. Let one be the star and one the supporting player.

I don't have any stigma attached to my body. When I'm in my own private space, I have very little on.

I was the first Indian model to have a career in Paris, Milan and New York. I am the first one to admit I was a novelty.

I really like to sometimes go into food detox and eat very simply.

Wine, like food, is so emotional. If you think about it, so much of the courting ritual is surrounded by wine and food. There's a built-in romance to wine.

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

I never Tweet about my daughter. Never. I just want to be respectful of her privacy. My job as a mom is to know when to open my mouth and when not to.

The cookbooks and the writing in general have been a real bonus, but it's not something I've ever pursued... I've been lucky, I guess.

I work out all the time! I don't just sit around and eat burgers whenever I want. Oh, if I could I probably would, but I don't.