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Padma Lakshmi
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Biography Highlights
- Emmy-nominated food expert, television host, producer, and a New York Times bestselling author. Creator, host, and executive producer of the James Beard Award-winning Hulu series Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi. She also served as host and executive producer of Bravo’s Emmy-winning series Top Chef – which has been nominated for 42 Emmy’s. Author of several New York Times bestselling books, including her memoir Love, Loss, and What We Ate. Named one of TIME’s Most Influential People in 2023, Padma is an ACLU Artist Ambassador for immigrants’ rights and women’s rights. A sought-after speaker and host on topics including women’s empowerment, mental health, social justice, and philanthropy.
Biography
About Padma Lakshmi
Padma Lakshmi is an Emmy-nominated food expert, television host, producer, and a New York Times bestselling author. She is the creator, host, and executive producer of the critically acclaimed Hulu series Taste the Nation with Padma Lakshmi, which won a James Beard Award and received a Critics Choice Real TV Award for Best Culinary Series and a 2021 Gotham Award for Breakthrough Series. Lakshmi also served as host and executive producer of Bravo’s two-time Emmy-winning series Top Chef, now in its 20th season. Top Chef has been nominated for 42 Emmys, including her three-time nomination as Outstanding Host for A Reality-Competition Program. In 2023, Padma was named one of TIME’s Most Influential People.
Padma released her first children’s book The New York Times bestselling Tomatoes for Neela, as well as edited The Best American Travel Writing. Lakshmi is also the author of two cookbooks, Easy Exotic and Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet, The New York Times bestselling memoir Love, Loss and What We Ate, and The Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs. Lakshmi is co-founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America (EndoFound) and serves as an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Artist Ambassador for immigrants’ rights and women’s rights. She was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and was awarded the Advocate of the Year Award by the United Nations Correspondents Association (UNCA).
Padma is a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She received the Karma Award from Variety magazine, as well as the 2016 EIHS Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
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Taste the Nation & Impact the World
On screen she is seen exploring the rich and diverse food culture of various immigrant groups, seeking out the people who have so heavily shaped what American food is today. Off-screen, Lakshmi is also widely known as a fierce philanthropic advocate, working with organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on immigrants’ rights and women’s rights. In this inspiring conversation, Padma discusses her life and career while showcasing the ways she has used her platform to make a positive impact around the globe.
Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Story of Survival and Triumph
Long before Padma Lakshmi ever stepped onto a television set, she learned that how we eat is an extension of how we love, how we comfort, how we forge a sense of home—and how we taste the world as we navigate our way through it. In this conversation, Padma details the unlikely path from an immigrant childhood to a complicated life in front of the camera.
Padma shares an extraordinary account of her journey and the remarkable people who shaped her along the way, from her headstrong mother who flouted conservative Indian convention to make a life in New York, to her Brahmin grandfather—a brilliant engineer with an irrepressible sweet tooth—to the man seemingly wrong for her in every way who proved to be her truest ally. Padma’s unexpected story inspires audiences to live ferociously, forge their own paths, and leave an unforgettable legacy.
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