Beyond Top Chef: Why Padma Lakshmi Is So Much More Than Just a TV Host

It's easy to forget that the people we see on our TVs and on the big screen are more than just that role. Padma Lakshmi is not just the host of Bravo's Top Chef; she's also a single mom, a philanthropist, a woman who has struggled with body image, and a self-proclaimed tea nerd.

Tea is something that Padma speaks about fondly, both in her latest book, Love, Loss, and What We Ate, and in person. "It was the first thing that you learned how to make in the kitchen," she said. "You were not even allowed to graduate to actual food until you mastered a good cup of tea." Her love for tea and her admitted "seven cups a day" that she drinks made her recent partnership with Tazo a no-brainer.

I joined her for a tasting of Tazo's chai lattes and a few recipes that Padma created to pair with the teas, including a cinnamon cookie and a delicious little sourdough toast with pepper jam and manchego cheese. Her inspiration behind that particular toast, she said, was the chai itself. "You get the sweet from the jam but then another spike from the jalapeño peppers, and that perfectly encapsulates all the notes in the chai — all the sweet and the spicy."

Among the chatter of tea and food, Padma and I discussed her memoir that was released last month and took her four years to write. She admitted she kind of fell into writing it. "I wanted to do a different kind of book," she said. "And then in the writing of it, I just kept going deeper and deeper into the personal stuff." And in her book is where you really find out who Padma is on top of being a TV host. In reading it you learn of her love of food and her Indian heritage. You find out how she was bullied as a child for being a "brown girl" in a predominantly white town in Southern California. You learn how endometriosis took over her life for many, many years, leading Padma to start the Endometriosis Foundation of America alongside her doctor. And you're taken on a journey through Padma's life of self-acceptance and self-confidence.

Above all, what I took away from her memoir is that Padma just kept putting herself out there and taking the things she wanted, despite how hard it was or scared she might have been. "I wanted to talk about what it feels like to feel like you don't belong somewhere or you feel like, 'Oh, everyone's going to think I'm an imposter and they're going to figure out that I really don't belong here,'" she said of becoming a model with a very visible scar and then being a judge on Top Chef.

But settle into Top Chef she did. She's come a long way from the early days of feeling "green and innocent," she said of the Chicago season in particular. She referenced the deep dish pizza challenge from the beginning of the season in her book and how much pizza she had to eat. "Oh my god, you know we still talk about that challenge because none of us can believe it," she said when I brought it up. She also, funnily enough, has not touched deep dish pizza since then.

But despite spending much of her life surrounded by world-renowned chefs, she said she likes to cook simply at home. "I come from a place that's 'How can we do this in an easy, approachable way?' I'm a stickler for authenticity and using the right spices," she said of her cooking routine. She also loves to include her 6-year-old daughter, Krishna, in her kitchen activities. "The sooner you can get your kids involved in cooking, the more glamorous eating well becomes, and a child that's had a hand in making a dish is more likely to eat that dish," she said. Padma went on to say that Krishna even has her own miniature kitchen setup in their home that even includes a mortar and pestle so she can grind her own spices for tea.

Don't think, however, that just because Padma likes to keep her cooking simple and delicious that she doesn't throw a twist in here and there. "I make a watermelon sorbet, and I put a little black pepper in it and yuzu. And it's delicious." Now that's something you don't hear every day. She also calls white pepper her secret-weapon spice because it has a very specific taste and not many people use it.

To be honest, Padma's life, like those of other celebrities, looks so glamorous to someone like me. As she was getting her hair and makeup touched up for our Facebook Live segment we filmed, I made a comment about how I'd love to have someone to do my hair and makeup for me so it's always flawless. She smiled and gushed about how great her team is but then went on to say she really loves to do it herself, though. And that's just how she is about life. She likes to cook for her family at home, regardless of how long of a day she has at work. She likes to grind up her own spices for tea. She likes to chase Krishna around in the morning to make sure she's wearing socks.

Padma is a strong woman with an equally strong love of food. She's quick to answer where her favorite places in the world to find tea are: Morocco, Istanbul, Seattle. She didn't hesitate about her favorite unexpected place to find amazing cuisine: Bali — "You have this confluence of various Asian cultures that are all contributing to this little island's cuisine, and you also have a big tourism business so there's always people coming by. So it does have a big restaurant culture," she shared. And she didn't think twice about her favorite indulgent meal: pizza, nachos, fried chicken.

Padma is one of those unicorn people who are beautiful, whip-smart, gracious, and practical. She can sit down and have a lengthy conversation with you — in one of the five languages she's fluent in — and make you feel like you've been friends forever, and Love, Loss, and What We Ate is, in essence, an extension of Padma. She poured her heart into those pages and laid her entire life on the line so the world could get to know her a little bit better. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you grab a steaming cup of chai and settle in to do just that.