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Padma Lakshmi
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Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir Kindle Edition

by Padma Lakshmi (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 2,221 ratings
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A vivid memoir of food and family, survival and triumph, Love, Loss, and What We Ate traces the arc of Padma Lakshmi’s unlikely path from an immigrant childhood to a complicated life in front of the camera—a tantalizing blend of Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone and Nora Ephron’s Heartburn

Long before Padma Lakshmi ever stepped onto a television set, she learned that how we eat is an extension of how we love, how we comfort, how we forge a sense of home—and how we taste the world as we navigate our way through it. Shuttling between continents as a child, she lived a life of dislocation that would become habit as an adult, never quite at home in the world. And yet, through all her travels, her favorite food remained the simple rice she first ate sitting on the cool floor of her grandmother’s kitchen in South India.

Poignant and surprising, Love, Loss, and What We Ate is Lakshmi’s extraordinary account of her journey from that humble kitchen, ruled by ferocious and unforgettable women, to the judges’ table of Top Chef and beyond. It chronicles the fierce devotion of the remarkable people who shaped her along the way, from her headstrong mother who flouted conservative Indian convention to make a life in New York, to her Brahmin grandfather—a brilliant engineer with an irrepressible sweet tooth—to the man seemingly wrong for her in every way who proved to be her truest ally. A memoir rich with sensual prose and punctuated with evocative recipes, it is alive with the scents, tastes, and textures of a life that spans complex geographies both internal and external.

Love, Loss, and What We Ate is an intimate and unexpected story of food and family—both the ones we are born to and the ones we create—and their enduring legacies.

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  1. Print length
    310 pages
  2. Language
    English
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    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Ecco
  5. Publication date
    March 8, 2016
  6. File size
    1754 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Startlingly honest… Not only is it a deeply revealing and personal book, but an evocative one filled with lovely turns of phrase.” — Daily Beast

“[A] surprisingly engrossing memoir/tell-all/cookbook.” — AV Club

“[An] appealing new memoir...The savoring of meals and snacks can be described as evocatively as the preparation.” — USA Today

“[An] open, thoughtful memoir.” — Seattle Times

“An absorbing memoir… An intimate, revealing portrait, far different from the woman blazoned in the tabloids.” — Kirkus Reviews

“[A] substantial and edgy memoir, LOVE, LOSS, AND WHAT WE ATE, stands out amid the ebb and flow of today’s global celebrity-consciousness as the work of someone seriously dedicated to multiple achievements…. This is a true gem of a memoir for reading, tasting, sharing and learning.” — Book Reporter

“There is more to the memoir than Lakshmi’s turbulent personal life. She also writes lovingly of her mother and extended maternal family in India.” — Los Angeles Times

From the Back Cover

Long before Padma Lakshmi ever stepped onto a television set, she learned that how we eat is an extension of how we love, how we comfort, how we forge a sense of home—and how we taste the world as we navigate our way through it. Shuttling between continents as a child, never quite at home in the world, she lived a life of dislocation that would become habit as an adult. And yet, through all her travels, her favorite food remained the simple rice she first ate sitting on the cool floor of her grandmother’s kitchen in South India.

Poignant and surprising, Love, Loss, and What We Ate is Lakshmi’s extraordinary account of her journey from that humble kitchen, ruled by ferocious and unforgettable women, to the Top Chef Judges’ Table and beyond. A memoir rich with sensual prose and punctuated with evocative recipes, it is alive with the scents, tastes, and textures of a life that spans complex geographies both internal and external.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00BATIKO8
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ecco; Reprint edition (March 8, 2016)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ March 8, 2016
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1754 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 310 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 2,221 ratings

About the author

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Padma Lakshmi

Padma Lakshmi

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Padma Lakshmi is an Emmy-nominated food expert, television producer, host and The New York Times best-selling author.

She is the creator of the critically acclaimed Hulu series Taste the Nation, nominated for a 2021 Gotham Award for Breakthrough Series, which has just been greenlit for a second season. Lakshmi serves as host and executive producer of Bravo’s two-time Emmy-winning series Top Chef, which has been nominated for 32 Emmys, including her two-time nomination for Outstanding Host for A Reality-Competition Program. Its new season will be premiering in spring 2021.

Lakshmi is co-founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America (EFA) and an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Artist Ambassador for immigrants' rights and women's rights. Lakshmi was also appointed a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

She established herself as a food expert early in her career, hosting two successful cooking shows: Padma’s Passport, and Planet Food and writing the best-selling Easy Exotic, which won the “Best First Book” award at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Lakshmi followed this with the publication of her second cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet and her memoir The New York Times best-selling Love, Loss and What We Ate. She later published The Encyclopedia of Spices & Herbs. In August of 2021 she will publish her first children’s book Tomatoes for Neela.

Additionally, Lakshmi is a visiting scholar at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She has received the 2018 Karma Award from Variety, as well as the 2016 NECO Ellis Island Medal of Honor.

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
2,221 global ratings
Enlightening story
4 Stars
Enlightening story
I loved Padma's honesty, courage , and humble attitude towards life . She rose above some of the prejudices people can have, especially in America.I was glad to see that she is very proud of her heritage and background . I experienced some of the same things she did with respect to relationships and she helped me become more forgiving of myself and others. I recommend this book to many people and of course I loved her recipes but haven't tried all of them yet .
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Top reviews from the United States

Brain Belliveau
5.0 out of 5 stars Book fantastic, delivery was worst than terrible.
Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2024
Verified Purchase
The book is fantastic. The delivery sucked. Amazon delayed my delivery twice. Each time they said I could cancel, which I tried., but the system would not let me, rigged? I missed a signing with Padia Lakshmi. Thank you so much Amazon.
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sbrisend
4.0 out of 5 stars A Life Story Well Told
Reviewed in the United States on November 1, 2016
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I read this for a book club and had mostly positive and a few mixed feelings. This memoir is honest, which makes it compelling at times. Her story as an immigrant is both inspiring and poignant. I enjoyed the author's emotional articulation of food as a strength and refuge. I respected her decision to be true to her daughter's need to know her father. However I was conflicted about some of her choices about and around men - too complex to explain here, but suffice to say, not every woman would be comfortable with many choices. Yet I consistently admired her ambition, initiative and courage to own responsibility for her mistakes. I enjoyed insights into Indian food that I'd never thought about, such as what the author defines as comfort food, and the joy of making chutneys and pickled peppers. Makes me hungry for Indian food even now. Given the US is facing a critical election a week from today, I appreciate the personal stories of both Lakshmi and Hillary Clinton. A disturbingly high level of misogyny in America discourages, discounts and disparages the telling of women's stories. So I am grateful that one more ambitious, successful woman has chosen to give an honest accounting of her mistakes, her many accomplishments, and her life. (And to be clear, I view her ambition positively, in contrast to Rushdie, who appeared to find it inconvenient.) The writing is solid, not sophisticated. Overall it's a life story well told.
40 people found this helpful
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Julie
3.0 out of 5 stars Good in parts, forced in others
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2016
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As a lover of food and fashion, a Top Chef fan and a mother, I was interested in Padma's story. Much of it is interesting (her childhood, split between India and the US), her rocky romantic life with high-profile men. But much of her writing was repetitive (she would make and re-make the same point over and over again). Moreover, she seemed eager to justify her actions--from her choice to model, to dating a married man--to the reader/public, which felt a bit forced.

Some of her actions and opinions are simply not my style (e.g. eating her placenta), but that is obviously more of a subjective thing.
8 people found this helpful
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D.P.
5.0 out of 5 stars Hot and Sweet. Her short but vivid introductions to the wonderful ...
Reviewed in the United States on March 27, 2016
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I knew Padma Lakshmi was going to write a book when I first read through her cookbook Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet. Her short but vivid introductions to the wonderful recipes transported me into her past. In my vast collection of cookbooks, that’s one I reach for frequently. While there are only a few recipes included in her autobiography, each one looks delicious but also reflects poignant, sometimes cathartic, sometimes comical moments in Lakshmi’s life. She describes food as a sensory and often sensual experience, intertwined with memories of places and people. It’s a joy to read.

If you are curious about Padma Lakshmi, this book lets you listen to her story in her own words. But it also has so many themes that many can relate to. For instance, what sort of internal conflict does a girl from an Indian family face when asked to model for Helmut Newton? It’s a story many immigrants face – being pulled between a traditional past and a very loving family, and a future that requires one to shed some of those traditions and risk disappointing some loved ones. Certainly this is a wonderful immigrant story, as Lakshmi describes her life as a young immigrant in the US, teenager in California, a model in Paris and Milan and ultimately a New Yorker at heart - her story ends on a happy note in an iconic New York moment at Rockefeller Center's ice skating rink. But this is not just an immigrant’s story. It’s about someone who fits in, doesn’t fit in and is trying to fit in at various stages of her life, someone who resists falling in love while falling in love, someone who says no to a comfortable life in search of a better one, someone who has bagged a highly coveted job, but learns to navigate through and rises above being perceived, at times by herself, as someone with less experience to offer than her peers. She addresses the many triumphs of her life such as rewarding careers, cookbook author, jewelry designer, but also her significant struggles with divorce, heartbreak, loss, endometriosis, through all of which she just keeps moving forward, as there is no other choice. This is a beautifully written story. She has a lovely way of describing smells, tastes, sentiments, and none of it feels forced. Unlike the ebbs in her life, her writing flows effortlessly.
7 people found this helpful
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carilynp
4.0 out of 5 stars ... not just referring to the recipes in Padma Lakshmi’s LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT WE ATE
Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2016
Verified Purchase
A juicy memoir and I am not just referring to the recipes in Padma Lakshmi’s LOVE, LOSS AND WHAT WE ATE.

Lakshmi delicately weaves her love of food with recipes from her childhood and Indian heritage that will make your mouth water along with stories about her family who have been instrumental in shaping the woman she has become. Along the way, there are relationships. She does not hold back. We learn about the birth of her daughter. The joys and the struggles that she has suffered in becoming a mother. What made her become an advocate for endometriosis.

For all of you Top Chef fans, there is enough goodness to keep you satiated too.
​
What you will find from reading this book is that Ms. Lakshmi is way more than a pretty face. She is a woman of great intelligence and hear her roar. Additionally, what I learned from listening to her speak so eloquently and hearing her answer questions in depth at Town Hall in Seattle last evening – Ms. Lakshmi is intelligent, well read, well spoken, articulate, a true friend, a devoted mother, daughter, a believer in culture, and a mentor to many. She is someone to watch.
4 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars A page turner
Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2024
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An enjoyable page turner. Well written and heartfelt.
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Top reviews from other countries

Perush24
5.0 out of 5 stars Best read 2020
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 16, 2020
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Beautiful narrated book. Loved every page 💛
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Bekxy Kuriakose
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written brutally honest memoir
Reviewed in India on May 1, 2016
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The world knows Padma Lakshmi as the beautiful exotic Indian born model who became famous first as Salman Rushdie's wife and then later as host of the famous food series Top Chef...

When I finished reading her memoir I was struck by how superficial my knowledge and impression had been about her.....she has led a dazzling and famous life but it was also in equal measure a hard life be it growing up as an Indian immigrant in US and facing bullying and hazing at school, living without her biological father, a life scarring car accident at the age of 14 and in her teens and adulthood living with the pain of endometrosis (diagnosed very late ) - the treatment of which involved several surgeries.

The book opens not in a chronological fashion but with how she met Salman, their affair, marriage and divorce...you the reader is immediately hooked on...the book then goes into her childhood, days spent growingn in her grandparents house in chennai and the flavours and spices she came to love and eat

Her modelling days in europe and trysts with food experiments and her coming back to America and building her career again and ultimately hosting Top Chef all make for very interesting reading. Her favourite recipes are also given- (The only part I didn't care for). Along the way the men who came into her life and exited and her constant effort to maintain her dual identity of belonging to both east and west too are fascinating. No doubt the most important event during the later part of her life was the birth of her daughter Krishna when doctors had told she may never conceive.

All in all a brilliantly written honest to the core memoir which can make you teary eyed too in certain places....every woman And man should read this book!!!
13 people found this helpful
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Shyam Sundar
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Read
Reviewed in India on September 25, 2016
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Such a great book by Padma. It takes us deeper into her life as a child in india, growing up in america, working as a model in europe and later years of her life. It is written with so much details and how everything affected her profoundly. A must read for her fans. Of course it has a few recipes that she adores.
3 people found this helpful
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anu sharma
4.0 out of 5 stars Very nicely written.
Reviewed in Canada on May 13, 2016
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Interesting read. Very nicely written.
One person found this helpful
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cartoon
4.0 out of 5 stars a charmed spicy life
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 4, 2016
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Know very little about Padma , apart from that beauty and the beast famous relationship but I bought this as I love a good food memoir and it was also a Books and Books recommendation. I can see that this might not be for every one , she has had just a charmed life from modelling to tv , people do prefer a pity me struggle memoirs. I feel she glossed over her modelling days , giving a sugar coating of forgetting some one the more unsavoury elements of that world. She painted herself quite naively yet appeared for Helmut Newton! I did warm to her rather OTT love life of rich unsuitable men, honest health issues and now I am now going to try recipes .
One person found this helpful
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