Padma Lakshmi

Padma Lakshmi (pronounced [ˈpəd̪maː ˈləkʃmiː]; born Padma Parvati Lakshmi Vaidynathan; September 1, 1970) is an Indian-born American author, actress, model, television host and executive producer. Her debut cookbook Easy Exotic won her the "Best First Book" award at the 1999 Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. She has been the host of the US reality television program Top Chef since season two in 2006, for which she received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program. In 2010, Top Chef won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program. Her debut memoir Love, Loss and What We Ate was released on International Women's Day, March 8, 2016. 2Early life Padma Parvati Lakshmi Vaidynathan was born in Madras (now Chennai), India. Her father was a executive with the pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Her mother, Vijaya, is a retired nurse who specialized in oncology. Her parents divorced when she was two years old, and both parents later remarried. Lakshmi is her mother's only child, but she has a younger paternal half-brother and half-siste