Padma Lakshmi Shares Her Favorite Childhood Treat: ‘Gimmie All the Spicy Salty Stuff’
Padma Lakshmi has a sweet (and spicy!) spot for lemon pickle.
In a video she posted on Instagram Thursday, the Top Chef host, 51, shared her ultimate childhood treat. “In western homes or American homes, children usually grow up wanting to lick the bowl after batter or before a cake is made,” she said in the Instagram Reel. “But I always wanted to lick the bowls and spoons from pickle-making because that was my jam — the spicy, salty stuff!”
Throughout the video, she bottled up lemon pickle. As she licked the mixing spoon, she whispered “so good,” referring to the dish she just made.
“Anyone else do this as a kid??” she wrote in the video’s caption. “Let’s be real I still love it! Gimmie all the spicy salty stuff.😋”
The cookbook author then teased a new recipe for lemon pickle. “What’s your favorite thing to eat with lemon pickle (also called achar or oorga)?” she asked her followers. “Lemon pickle recipe coming soon!! 🍋.”
Lakshmi, who was wearing a red, billowing robe, acknowledged her casual look.
“Btw, please pardon my just-out-of-the-shower look. 😅🚿,” she wrote.
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Earlier this month, the TV personality won big at the James Beard Media Awards and the Critics Choice Real TV Awards where she snagged multiple awards.
For starters, her Hulu original travel series, Taste the Nation: Holiday Edition won a James Beard Media Award for Visual Media — Long Form. In honor of the win, Lakshmi shared an Instagram post to her feed about her career thus far.
“I’m absolutely elated! I can’t believe I’m here. I have always kind of felt like an outsider in my life. Either I wasn’t Indian enough or American enough, but I always had a deep love for food,” she wrote. “It was this passion that led me throughout life, but I came to this career later than most. During the early seasons of @bravotopchef I always felt like people were thinking, ‘why are you here?’ And I think we all feel that way sometimes. We all put that on ourselves and that was certainly true for me.”
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While Lakshmi admitted she “had a lot of imposter syndrome,” she said her work with the ACLU is what pushed her to create Taste the Nation. “I wanted to give my platform to people who don’t often have that opportunity and let them tell their stories as they see fit. Because I believe that everybody has a story, every human being, you just have to be willing to listen,” she said.
The award-winning cookbook author also made sure to acknowledge her family, particularly her grandmother, in her post. “I wish my grandmother could have been here to see this award. She taught me how to cook and taught me about life through food and she would have been so proud,” she added.
At the Critics Choice Real TV Awards on Sunday, Lakshmi did have a very special family member watch her take home three awards — her mom, Vijaya.
Lakshmi won Best Show Host for Top Chef and Taste the Nation, and she also accepted two awards for the Top Chef cast — Best Culinary Show and Best Competition Series, which tied with RuPaul’s Drag Race.
In one of her acceptance speeches, she said the Bravo competition show has been the “privilege of my life.”
“I really value all of the people who I’ve worked with for 16 years. They’re like a surrogate family to me. And speaking of family — I’d like to thank my mother who’s here today,” she said.
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While on stage at the Critics Choice Real TV Awards, Lakshmi also gave a funny nod to how long the 16-year-old show has been on the air.
“On behalf of our whole big crew on Top Chef, thank you so much for this award. It means the world to us. We’ve been around since The Sopranos,” she quipped with a laugh. “And we are still at it.”