PADMA LAKSHMI

For a while, I became an atheist; now that I'm grown up, though, I'm not hard-edged enough to be an atheist. Even though I live with a flaming atheist, I love going to temple. I love all the rituals.

Part of my job as a food writer is to describe food. So my work on 'Top Chef,' I feel, is an extension of that. When we give a criticism to the contestant, we want to make sure we tell them why it's not working and why it would work if they did it a different way.

I love clothes, but really I don't have that much to say about skirts. Before I was writing, I went to fashion shows only when the designer was a good friend and I was there to show support.

I think wine is such a big universe that it's kind of like food - it's intimidating to a lot of people, myself included.

You don't want your jewelry to make you look fat. A lot of what's out there now does - you just wind up looking like a Christmas tree.

I usually doze off between 7:30 and 9 p.m. while putting my baby to sleep. Then I suddenly wake up remembering I'm an adult with no bedtime. I spend the next four hours catching up on reading, e-mails, and other adult pursuits until I collapse for good until sunrise.

People are thrown off by someone who looks feminine, but is also strong. It's not that pretty girls aren't smart, it's that women aren't strong.

Every city has a Donald Trump; ours is just the Trumpiest.

Wine, like food, is so emotional. If you think about it, so much of the courting ritual is surrounded by wine and food. There's a built-in romance to wine.

Flowers die and wine gets consumed. Both are lovely. I appreciate both. Wine and roses. I actually had someone bring me a lobe of foie gras once.

I never Tweet about my daughter. Never. I just want to be respectful of her privacy. My job as a mom is to know when to open my mouth and when not to.

One thing that happens when you're pregnant is that as your stomach starts to stretch. It itches! So I have to keep my belly really lubricated. Every morning, there's a buttering ceremony after I get out of the shower. It's really like basting a turkey with body butter.

I work out all the time! I don't just sit around and eat burgers whenever I want. Oh, if I could I probably would, but I don't.

I am as omnivorous as it's possible to be. I always say there's nothing I won't eat and nothing I won't wear.

I'm an immigrant kid who came to America from India when I was very young and grew up in New York City with a single mom and really was influenced by all of those immigrant cultures bumping up against each other.

I was the first Indian model to have a career in Paris, Milan and New York.

I've always thought the back is one of the most beautiful parts of a woman. I've created four versions of the front-to-back necklace which actually gives you two necklaces in one. I love the way they swing and catch the light as a woman is walking away. You almost want to pull on it and stop her!

I grew up a vegetarian. Then, because I grew up in the states, I started slowly eating meat. First it was bologna sandwiches, or pepperoni on pizza.

For a long time, I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was desperate to find something that fit me and I just decided that if I could organically make a professional living out of the things that interested me, then I would be a happy person.

I'm not tough. I'm tenacious.

I am a sufferer of endometriosis. I didn't want any young women to go through what I went through. I thought that people should know about it.

During the course of filming 'Top Chef,' I gain 15 lbs., so I'm used to needing two dress sizes.

I've been a model for 15 years, and I've been on 'Top Chef' for eight seasons, and before that I had other cooking shows, so I've learned a thing or two about how to camouflage certain areas and how to draw the eye to a preferable area of the body.

Whether I'm making a recipe or a piece of jewelry or a white-rose-and-jasmine tea or the perfume, I like to think of myself as a happy little sorceress, and if I could just have a little general store with all that stuff and give people a sense of my taste, that would be lovely.

I really like to sometimes go into food detox and eat very simply.