Top 25 Padma Lakshmi Quotes

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

I am a sufferer of endometriosis. I didn’t want any young women to go through what I went through. I thought that people should know about it.

I’ve always thought the back is one of the most beautiful parts of a woman. I’ve created four versions of the front-to-back necklace which actually gives you two necklaces in one. I love the way they swing and catch the light as a woman is walking away. You almost want to pull on it and stop her!

I’m not of the American ilk that, you know, your lover needs to be your best friend and know you inside out. I think he should know you well enough to please you. Otherwise, what secret will there be to tell him when you’re ninety?

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

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

I’ve been a model for 15 years, and I’ve been on ‘Top Chef’ for eight seasons, and before that I had other cooking shows, so I’ve learned a thing or two about how to camouflage certain areas and how to draw the eye to a preferable area of the body.

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.

Every country I would go to, even if it was just on a modeling job, I would go to their markets. If I went to Morocco for ‘Elle’ magazine, I would be in the spice markets during my off time and just come back with a suitcase full of stuff that I really wanted to try.

Whenever I’m in sync with the trends, it’s always an accident. I still love wearing clothes I’ve had for ten years. I think understated luxury is the chicest thing.

I’m not tough. I’m tenacious.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

For a long time, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was desperate to find something that fit me and I just decided that if I could organically make a professional living out of the things that interested me, then I would be a happy person.

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

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.

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

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.