Padma Lakshmi goes on a food tour of America on ‘Taste the Nation’
A nation with great taste
Padma Lakshmi on “Taste the Nation” has boiled up a US cookout. From NY bagels to Louisiana Creole to Nigerian eats in Houston she’s stewed up a pot inside our food and history. What it means to be American.
Padma: “I’m 52. A late bloomer. Single mom. No time for social scenes. I work. I hunker down. Never see sunshine. Walk, but not in the sun. Get back, I write a book. Doing a new one now for Knopf. I box three times a week. Go home I get a drink. I live here. I’m in the new issue of Sports Illustrated. I’m a New Yorker. I came here at 4. I love New York.”
Me, I stared desperately hunting a facial zit she might’ve gotten from some cranky eel. Nothing. She’s gorgeous.
“Borscht is robbed from the Ukrainians. Russians do it differently. Their beets are redder. Puerto Ricans like tomato ketchup on their pasteles. Appalachia I did fufu. Cambodian immigrants cooked me amok trei in Lowell, Mass. With Afghan Americans, it was Kabuli palau. And I played banjo.”
A Time 100 inductee. Ex-husband’s Salman Rushdie. Her “Top Chef” on Bravo got 42 Emmy noms. Best-selling author, ACLU spokesperson, UN Goodwill Ambassador, co-founder for the Endometriosis Foundation. Visiting scholar at MIT, Ellis Island Medal of Honoree.
Her Hulu show streams. “All episodes drop,” she said. She then dropped me to host a screening of her new Season 2.
Go on, call your mom
Mother’s Day’s coming. I want to do good for all mamas.
A Mount Holyoke historian wrote me hunting a WWII group photo which sang wartime at NYC’s Stage Door Canteen and included their school. Anyone has such photo, contact PO Box 81252 in Springfield, Mass.
More. Katie Krimitsos — one husband, two kids, a parakeet, a dog, plus aches and pains in places we can’t mention — created the podcast series “Women’s Meditation Network.” It gives all bra sizes an hour’s daily respite.
The thing’s downloaded through Apple and Spotify.
More. Following his mother, a new king who only yearned to exist inside his divorced mistress’ pants deserves such pomp and poop? How about divvying those trillions of pounds it cost for horses, uniforms, sabers, beaver hats and rehearsals to nations and persons of need — then shipping that ermine to a used fur shop?
The royals? Princess Anne last smiled in the womb, others wrestled divorce, one maybe diddled a youngin’, Harry dressed as a Nazi then married what could be a temp. And this king thing’s ruling with his ex-playmate?
More. Buying mama a trinket this year? Here’s the new Tiffany: outside stand more guards than in Guantanamo Bay. Wearing black.
To enter you’re asked, “Have you an appointment?” An “appointment” required to look at a silver bracelet? Trying to browse? Another black-dressed creature appears at your side. Their phone dictates where exactly they will walk you to locate what you want.
Fifth Avenue Association, pay heed! LVMH already owns 57th and Fifth’s three corners with Vuitton, Tiffany, Bulgari. Watch the wobbly future of Bergdorfs. Soon we’ll need an armed LVMH security guard’s permission just to cross that street.
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.
