Photo by Tiffany Walling McGarity & John McGarity

The ‘Top Chef’ TV goddess dishes on single motherhood, the rumor mill and her never-fail diet

By Nandini D’Souza Wolfe

Padma Lakshmi has had quite a year. The model, mother and Top Chef host has been traveling non-stop, and only just returned to her East Village apartment from the Emmys in Los Angeles, where her hit show was nominated for three awards. Lakshmi won raves for her strapless tangerine fit-and-flare Monique Lhuillier gown. She looked like a 
goddess, and playful pics emerged of Modern Family’s Jesse Tyler Ferguson peeking out from underneath her voluminous hem in the 
green room.
Anyone looking at her understated makeup and hair (to balance the gown’s vibrant hue), would think it was red-carpet business as usual for this model-turned-author/actress/reality star. But in reality, Lakshmi was sweating it a little bit. She had just wrapped filming for Top Chef ’s 10th season in Seattle and was carrying an extra 10 pounds. She hadn’t had time to start her traditional post-season diet yet.

Such weight gain is almost de rigueur now, nine seasons into her Top Chef hosting duties. Not that she’s complaining. The Bravo hit, which started its new season Nov. 7, has been a natural way to bridge her 
modeling and acting background with her love of food. Born in Madras, India, and then raised 
between New York and India when her parents divorced, Lakshmi was discovered as a model when she was 18. She soon became one of Helmut Newton’s favorite subjects—he often trained his lens on the long scar on her arm, the result of a car accident when she was younger. She starred in a few movies and television shows before penning two cookbooks, Easy Exotic and Tangy Tart Hot and Sweet. But it was when she brought together her beauty, brains and tastebuds on Top Chef that she really became a favorite outside the fashion set.

She quickly reeled in viewers who loved the idea of watching a bona fide model chowing down on fried bits and pieces—on camera, no less. She nabbed contestants, celebs and normally crotchety chefs because, as Andy Cohen put it, “She’s great to look at, fun to listen to and natural on camera.” 
Cohen, Bravo’s executive vice president of development and talent, Top Chef producer and host of Watch What Happens: Live, has a playful rapport with Lakshmi. During his post-season wrap-up with the entire season’s cast, he inevitably pulls out chef contestants swooning over Lakshmi. “There was a breakfast-in-bed challenge, and a lot of guys were going nuts,” he recalls. “The male chefs sometimes have dreams about her. Who can blame them?”

And women love her just as much. Regular Top Chef judge and author Gail Simmons remembers noticing Lakshmi before they had even met, when she was working for Jeffrey Steingarten at Vogue and someone had sent them a copy of Lakshmi’s Easy Exotic. “I remember thinking how great it was to see a beautiful woman who loved to cook,” says Simmons. When Simmons began hosting her own show, Just Desserts, she looked to Lakshmi for advice. “She was the first person I went to with questions and insecurities about how I would do.”

Lest anyone question her culinary chops, Eric Ripert, the Michelin star-winning chef behind Le Bernadin, is quick to note that she has a very refined palate and deep knowledge of food.
The show has also been a constant in her life of late. At 42, Lakshmi seems to finally be settling peacefully into her role as mother, entrepreneur, author and TV goddess. But it’s been a bit of rough ride getting here, one that has played out painfully in the gossip columns, starting with her 2004 marriage to, and 2007 divorce from, author Salman Rushdie. Next came news of her pregnancy with daughter Krishna, now 2 and a half, a custody battle with Krishna’s biological father, Adam Dell, and a relationship with Teddy Forstmann, the billionaire philanthropist and CEO of IMG who was 30 years Lakshmi’s senior and who passed away in November 2011.

Lakshmi is open and honest about her four-year on-off relationship with Forstmann and the impact he had on her life. “I don’t really feel like I’m single right now. I feel like the person I’m with is dead. 
I miss him every day,” she says.

“The most valuable part of Teddy was his enormous heart. The more people gossiped 
publicly about me, the tighter he held my hand,” Lakshmi explains. “Not only privately, but publicly. He understood me in all my flaws and subtleties. His presence in my life was resolute, consistent, 
unwavering and loving. And that’s what a real man is. I have no problem saying, with great humility, 
that Teddy was the man in my life who possessed the greatest emotional wisdom. He had more manhood in his pinky fingernail than most men.”

Forstmann, who already had two grown sons he had adopted, treated and loved Krishna as his own, says Lakshmi, which counts for more than anything else.

It is motherhood that has brought her the greatest joy. Her daughter is remarkably eloquent for a toddler. But then again, she can already understand a second language, Tamil, Lakshmi’s mother tongue. Krishna has a near-perfect golden tan and dark blond hair. It’s a pixie cut that has grown out from when Lakshmi shaved her daughter’s hair as part of a traditional Hindu ceremony where one symbolically cuts off unwanted traits from past lives and starts fresh in this life.

“Krishna was very proud of her shaved head. I prepared her for it,” recalls Lakshmi. “Her grandfather and uncle shaved their heads in solidarity, and at the time, whenever she watched her favorite video of Alicia Keys and Jay-Z [singing “Empire State of Mind”], she’d say, ‘Mom, look! Jay-Z shaved his head in solidarity.’”

Lakshmi admits that the best part about motherhood has been what great company her daughter is. “It’s a pleasure being with her rather than out doing all the things I was doing before, not because I should or because it’s my duty but because Krishna’s the funnest game in town.”

She’d have more children if she could, but given her single status and the problems she has had 
with endometriosis, it’s unlikely. Medically, she wasn’t supposed to have Krishna. “I found out I couldn’t have kids when I went to freeze my eggs at 30,” she says. “I’d already had five surgeries [for endometriosis] and the doctor said, ‘Miss Lakshmi, I have some bad news—your ovaries are 
actually older than you are.” But against the odds, Krishna was conceived and born. To wit, Lakshmi says, “I’m not going to tempt fate. I have a healthy, vibrant daughter, and I’m thankful.”

With a toddler around, holidays are big in the Lakshmi household. “We take the staunch position that every holiday is worth celebrating to the fullest of our capabilities, and we are not prejudiced about that at all.” And there’s a lot to cover, starting with daily prayers and celebrating Hindu holidays like Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights in early November. Then there are the Jewish holidays with Krishna’s father’s side of the family. “And finally Christmas. We started getting a tree with Poppy,” Krishna’s name for Forstmann. It’s Krishna’s job to put the bronze angel on the top of the tree.

Today, Lakshmi is waiting for her daughter to return from preschool for lunch. Lakshmi’s own favorites are comfort foods she ate as a child, like a tamarind soup and certain curries that are tied 
to her roots in Madras. But New York City is home, too, where her mother worked as a nurse at 
Sloan-Kettering. She spent much of her childhood on the Upper East Side and attended P.S. 158. 
“I grew up in Carl Schurz Park. I had my first kiss behind Gracie Mansion.” She has distinct culinary touchpoints that only a true New Yorker could have: sugarcane and tamarind from the shops in 
Spanish Harlem; exotic vegetables from Chinatown; lasagna night on Sundays at Elio’s.

At home, there’s no bacon ice cream or corn foam in sight. Just hot tea with milk. “I’m not doing carb-free,” she says. “And it’s just for one month. It’s a poem so I remember it: No meat, no wheat. No fried food or cheese. No alcohol, no sweets.” She freely admits that the hardest part will be skipping fried food. “I love salty, crispy things.”

This story first appeared in the November issue of AVENUE Magazine with photos by Tiffany Walling McGarity and John McGarity.

By Lorraine Duffy Merkl

Matchmaker, matchmaker, go back to L.A.

Bravo’s reality series Millionaire Matchmaker is filming this season in Manhattan instead of Los Angeles. The show’s star, Patti Stanger, will fit in quite nicely with those competitive New Yorkers who often don’t live up to their own hype.

We all know them: the colleague who sharpens a pencil and acts as though they’ve cured cancer; the friend who must one-up you even if it’s over one more slice of bacon on his BLT; and the mom who declares her child “gifted” even though his class rank or position on the team is no more impressive than anyone else.

Watching the program’s wacky west coasters embarrass themselves on dates has given me hours of amusement. Now that it’s in my own backyard, though, I’m not laughing.

First, let’s define “millionaire.” On both coasts, Stranger’s are not the high-society, captains-of-industry types, but more of the millionaire-next-store ilk. They aren’t exactly inaccessible; but, as are those who work paycheck-to-paycheck, often just too busy for “the hunt.”

Enter the abrasive, Jersey-born Stanger (note: the doctor cannot heal herself, and remains unmarried), who bills herself as a third-generation matchmaker with a phenomenal record of helping wealthy people find their soul mates.

Except that she doesn’t. What puzzled me from watching the L.A. franchise is her abysmal rate of failure. Why would anyone put their business on national television and week after week disprove their bragging rights that they are the best at what they do?

In the show’s first NYC episode, her challenge was to set up two owners of a very lucrative Internet businesses. The million-dollar man was 40-years-old and looking for a wife. Patti honed in on the problem: His usual choice of young, hot party-girl does not a Mrs. make.

She set up a mixer for him to meet more serious, accomplished, age-appropriate women, of which New York has a plethora. But also invited twenty-somethings. (Why? Didn’t she say they were his downfall?) Guess whom Mr. Creature-of-habit chose and whose date didn’t work out?

Stanger, like all those who screw up their assignments, looked for someone else to blame—in this case, her intern.

Her other client, the million-dollar woman, didn’t fare any better. This time though, Stanger laid the fault at the feet of the single-mother, who was deemed too picky. Then, like those GOING OUT OF BUSINESS store salespeople who can’t convince you their cheap wares are “better than Sony,” Stanger yelled at her paying customer, “There’s the door. Go.” She declared the rejected men “great,” even though they didn’t meet the client’s requirements.

Yet none of this stops Stanger from proclaiming, “New York needs me.”

Like we need another bagel store.

This is yet another NYC reality show that does us no justice. For her get-togethers, Stanger manages to find the handful of women here who don’t own a little black dress, as well as guys who don’t own suits. Giving her license, by the second episode, to snap with superiority, “This is the fashion capital of the world, yet no one knows how to dress.” Where is she looking? Not at the elegant denizens on Madison, or Boho chic-sters downtown or the tailored execs in Midtown. She also claimed that, “No one here gets mani/pedis or waxes.” How does she explain the nail salons on practically every corner?

If you really want someone to help you snag a rich New York spouse, forget Millionaire Matchmaker and seek counsel from someone who’s already done it for herself. Anyone got an email address for Melania Trump?
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Lorraine Duffy Merkl’s debut novel Fat Chick, from The Vineyard Press, is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.

• Like to take our clothes off and can make it sound as though we are doing some great public service. In Bethenny’s case, she is saving the animals via PETA. Kelly is doing it for all womankind, showing everyone that 41-year-olds can still have Playboy-caliber physiques.

• Go to parties and forget to bring our party manners, hence ridiculing, as well as arguing with, the hostess, as LuAnn and Jill did when Ramona invited them for a day on a yacht; and Alex did at Jill’s Saks party, where Ramona also took on both LuAnn and Kelly.

• Get a job or a man—or both—and then dump our friends. Bethenny has a best-selling book, a husband, a successful brand and a new reality show on the way. Jill who?

• Pretend to be who we’re not. LuAnn is no longer married to the count, yet still clinging to that Countess title for dear life. Would being simply LuAnn from the Hamptons really be so bad?

• Think we know more than everyone else. Alex and Simon have kids; so naturally, they’ve written a book about how to raise children in the city. Thank goodness. I don’t know how we’ve managed thus far. Jill has written a book based on advice from her sage mother, because apparently she thinks no one else has one.

• Attend exclusive fashion shows, dine at expensive restaurants, carry designer luggage that costs as much as some people’s rent because there is no recession in the Big Apple

This whole bunch confirms what those outside the city already believe—that we are shallow, petty and rude. Oh yes, and as with every season, everyone is made aware that there are obviously no black, Latina or Asian women/wives of means in New York City.

The New York reality star who just might save us in the eyes of those who live outside the tri-state area is PR maven, entrepreneur and single mother Kelly Cutrone, star of the other Bravo show Kell On Earth.

Cutrone moved here two decades ago from upstate New York, surviving on her wits and networking skills. She worked her way up to owning People’s Revolution, which represents predominantly fashion clients. The show chronicles hard work in a cramped office, where there are no Ugly Betty hi-jinks, Devil Wears Prada bag swinging/coat flinging and no one dances through the hallways singing “Think Pink.”

Kelly’s two partners are Robin and Emily. The trio prove that NYC women can work together without backstabbing one another and talking about each other when one leaves the room. The rule of the office is that everyone stays until the work is done and they all leave together.

Yet, for all the commune-like ethos, account executives and interns come and go, as do clients, which is realistic in a fast-paced and competitive place like this town. It also shows the effects the economy’s downturn has had on business: clients that don’t pay, diversifying to keep afloat and Cutrone personally funding the business to keep everyone in paychecks.

Most of all, though, the rest of the country might begin to see us as nose-to-the-grindstone workers, thanks to Cutrone’s mantra, which is also the title of her new book, If You Have to Cry, Go Outside.

Maybe the Real Housewives will take that advice, then not be let back in.

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Lorraine Duffy Merkl’s debut novel, Fat Chick, from The Vineyard Press, is available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.