TV: Padma Lakshmi's new food show, Top Chef

Youch:

“Top Chef” offers the reliable, although perhaps not always intentional, hilarity of its blunt product endorsements and of its host, Padma Lakshmi, a k a Mrs. Salman Rushdie, a model-turned-actress whose epicurean musings are less riveting than her sluggish, mouth-full-of-molasses style of speech and strenuously come-hither poses.

As she makes her costume changes you can almost read her thoughts: “Does this skirt go with hamachi?” “Is this too much cleavage for a chicken liver canapé?”

But you can get similar sorts of comedy and sociology elsewhere in the world of reality television.

That's from the New York Times review of the show, written by Frank Bruni (generally the review is more positive about the show). Last time the Times was rough on Padma, the husband didn't it take lying down.

Witnesses say Rushdie walked up to [Guy] Trebay at a National Arts Club event three days later and said, “If you ever write mean things about my wife again, I’ll come after you with a baseball bat.”

Slate also has a review of the show - less positive overall but it spares Padma, simply calling her "foxy."

Here's a recent interview with her.

EXPRESS: Are there any dishes your husband asks for?
LAKSHMI: He's an omnivore and eats anything and everything. I still don't know his favorite dish after seven years together, but he does like it when I make him fried okra. It's very hard to make Indian okra the right way.

Comments

[Black]

I am not going to comemnt on this one lest salman Rushdie leashes out his weapon on me ! The pen is mightier than the sword.

[Jim]

Padma made a great host on Season 2 of Top Chef. Has anyone heard whether she will be back on Season 3? I understand that they are getting ready to cast for the new contestants.