Entertainment, TV, Television - Marine Corps Times

Salman Rushdie’s wife returns to host ‘Top Chef’

As her international food adventures began, Padma Lakshmi could stay close to home.

She was growing up in New York. Lakshmi — now host of cable’s “Top Chef” - sees it as an ideal place to start.

“We had so many restaurants right there — Thai, Mexican, Indian, Moroccan,” she says. “You didn’t have to leave.”

She would leave soon enough, living a global life.

Lakshmi was born in India, grew up in the U.S., and studied in Spain. She’s modeled around the world and acted in Italy, India, Britain and the U.S.

Along the way, she married author Salman Rushdie, 59, whom she declines to discuss. She learned five languages, apparently quite well. During this phone interview, she paused to take another call; after chatting with a friend in Italian, she was back to accent-free English.

This seems to be a fine background for a food expert. Lakshmi credits her mother for making the move, shortly after her parents divorced.

“In the ’70s, in India, it was difficult for a divorced woman to have a good life,” she says.

So the mom moved to New York and found a nursing job. Lakshmi stayed with her grandparents for two years, then moved to the U.S. at 4.

This was the start of a cuisine journey by mother and daughter. “She was an adventurer in that she was immensely curious,” Lakshmi says.

That’s a trait Lakshmi is glad to inherit. There are others.

“I’m very lucky,” she says. “I’m blessed with being tall and having a high metabolism.”

In her early days, as a supermodel and (as a teen) a vegetarian, the 5-foot-9 Lakshmi weighed only 115 pounds. Now, at about 37, she’s 125 to 128.

During the modeling years, Lakshmi found that the world was like her old neighborhood — a place to sample variety.

She wrote two cookbooks and hosted two Food Network series — “Padma’s Passport” and “Planet Food.” She was a logical “Top Chef” host.

“They had asked me to host the first year, but I had just signed to do a miniseries,” Lakshmi says.

She joined for the second round and returned for the third, which is just starting.

This isn’t limited to the usual reality show-host duties. Lakshmi also presides over the judges’ table, getting an equal say.

She also mingles with the contestants. And occasionally, she doesn’t feel like the tallest kid in class.

One contestant, simply listed as Chris, stands 6-foot-8. “He’s definitely a head taller than most of the other people,” Lakshmi says. “It’s a challenge for the director; all of a sudden, the camera has to swing up.”

Chris, 31, is a private chef for rich families. He’s from California, lives in the beach community of Venice, and is a former volleyball player.

He’s part of a widely varied set of contestants. “They bring such different life experiences,” Lakshmi says.

They represent a vast culinary world, much of which she has sampled.

On the tube:

— What: “Top Chef”; the third season, set in Miami, is just starting (June 13).

— When: New episodes are 10 p.m. Wednesdays; reruns are frequent.

— Where: Bravo.

— Did you know?: Few of Lakshmi’s acting roles have been seen in the U.S. She did, however, play Princess Bithia in ABC’s miniseries remake of “The Ten Commandments.”