As women were not taught to demand or negotiate to our full potential. We're not taught to advocate for ourselves at the expense of maybe ruffling some feathers the end of the day like you don't need friends. You have friends for friends. You need jobs, you know, and you need to be respected at work.
I'm Carly's a chicken. I'm Danielle Weisberg. Welcome to skim from the couch this podcast is where we go deep on Career advice from women who have lipped it from the good stuff like hiring and growing a team to the rough stuff like negotiating your salary and giving or getting hard feedback. We started the skin from a couch. So what better place to talk it all out then where it began on a couch.
Hey, everyone. This show might sound a bit different today because we're skimming from three different couches. The skim is still working from home for the time being because of covid-19 today Padma Lakshmi joins us on skimmed from the couch. She is the host and executive producer of Top Chef on Bravo a job. She's been doing for over a decade and one that we very much enjoy. She's also an author and an
Kitt as the co-founder of the endometriosis Foundation of America and as an ambassador to the ACLU her new show Taste the nation debuts on Hulu this month, it takes audiences on a journey across the u.s. And explores the rich food cultures of various immigrant groups Padma. We are very excited to have you with us today. Welcome to skim from the couch.
Hi guys. Thank you for having me on this is like one giant Skype call so it's how but I feel it.
At home because it's how I talk to most of my family all over the world. So I'm used to it.
Oh good. Alright. Well, we are very excited to have you and we're going to Jump Right In which is going to be with our standard first question to skim your resume for us.
Okay. I graduated college with a ba in theater and American literature. I spent most of my 20s living in Europe modeling and then when I was 27, I co-hosted my first show on E talion Television, and I have just
And some movies and some TV shows as an actor and then I basically wrote a cookbook that came out in 1999. That was my first cookbook called easy exotic which you know, frankly the title makes me cringe now, but at the time it was, you know, trying to explain in the title that I was going to make many Cuisines more approachable and easier to do at home for the you know, larger public and in a way, it's been what I've been doing ever since then.
Then in my career, I did a series called Melting Pot which is an in-studio cooking show on the Food Network. My particular show was called padma's passport. I also did a documentary series on food. In other countries called Planet food and along the way, you know, I did some odd acting jobs like I was in glitter and I don't know if I knew that I have also been a syndicated New York Times columnist.
As well as had a style column in Harper's Bazaar and I've written for other Publications as well such as Vogue Etc. I started doing Top Chef in 2006. I had been with the show since its second season. We are just wrapping up our 17th season. And since then I have produced three other books tiny tart hot and sweet another cookbook love loss and what we ate a
Moire and an encyclopedia of spices and herbs. I started a foundation for Women's Health 10 years ago called the endometriosis Foundation of America and I am an ambassador for both the ACLU and the UN development program which made me a Goodwill Ambassador last year.
So you have a lot of free time. Yeah. Yeah why it's something people should know about you that they can't Google, you
know, I've been honest.
In the public eye for for so long that I'm not sure there actually is anything that you can't get out out of my personal life from Google sadly I box I don't know but people know that too because they say seen it on my Instagram.
What is the most ridiculous rumor than that? You have seen published about you. That's not true
that I've been involved with certain people that I've not even met. Yeah that I
Or my daughter have a two billion dollar trust fund. We do not
that must be
weird to read about it is that I have breast implants. I do not actually would like a breast reduction but I scar really badly. So I'm not going to do that either stuff like that, you know just fun
stuff. Yeah, you know normal things. So I'm really curious, you know, you grew up shuttling between two continents the US and India, I want to hear
How your love of food and interest of food like where it came from and how your experience is growing up kind of shaped what really has been a career that you've sort of cobbled together to be very uniquely your own I
was always interested in food and challenging my palette from a very young age and I later learned why but you know, even when I was three years old, I would seek out the really spicy pickles and my grandmother's kitchen.
And and I would get in trouble for that. So, you know, I was always hanging out in the kitchen because also I realized very early that that is where all the action is. That's where all the family gossip is traded. That's where big decisions were made. You know, that is where a lot of information and power was located in my grandmother's house growing up and also, you know, I had a really different childhood depending on where I was every summer when school
Let out for three months, I would go to my grandma's house in South India. So while I've done most of my schooling and in the u.s. I still am very connected to that culture and that you know that part of my family that still lives there when I came to the US for much of my childhood. My mom was a single mother and I was a latchkey kid and you know, I know she knew that she would be really tired when she came home. So I started cooking really early by early. I mean like fifth grade and making
dinner for her, you know, I wasn't allowed to turn on the stove, but I could turn on the oven. So I would make her enchiladas out of canned beans and salsa and you know put melted cheese on top and just do casseroles like that or make a salad. I was always good at cooking. It's just something that naturally came to me and it's not because you know, I have such exceptional technical skill. It's because I have a really sensitive palate and the nose of
Bloodhound, so if I go to a restaurant in Morocco or Bali or whatever and I eat something I can pretty much detect what's in it or at least enough of the flavor that I can replicate the dish in my own kitchen at home.
Like when did you realize that that wasn't something that everyone had
when I was filming Top Chef in Seattle because we were filming at the science center there and we had a break in filming and I had my daughter.
Daughter with me. She was three at the time and we were just going to the children's part of the museum and there was an Italian researcher and it was a whole exhibition about the senses for kids. And she said do you want to test yourself and see if you're super taster and I always thought that was like a mythical thing like a unicorn or G-spot, you know,
I
didn't really believe it. Although I could vaguely remember
You know hearing that term so it's a really simple tab test. You know, I've always been scared of putting tabs in my mouth because I'm risk-averse, but I figured this was being given to me by an academic and scholar and researcher. So it's just a little Tab and you know, they put various tabs there just like white little dots of paper and you have to report what you taste and there are certain people who have more taste buds than others that is to say that they can detect
Flavors that other humans cannot
you know, we're obviously all remote right now because of covid-19 and we've all seen just how hard the restaurant and hospitality industry has been hit by the pandemic and it's just interesting to think about the role of food and this and the enormous food insecurity the restaurant shuttering workers filing for unemployment and more people cooking at home and thinking about food in a new way and I'm curious what your hope is for people to take away from this.
I mean it is a colossally unprecedented time. You know, I think we obviously weren't expecting it. It's been tragic for all of us, but it's especially been tragic for people in the service industry and in the food industry and I think there will be a long period of time until the restaurant industry recovers, you know, it's not only the chefs and the waiters or the dishwashers. It's also the
people who provide the food to them like local farms butchers fishmongers dairies all of it. And so they are suffering to and you know food scarcity and food issues in this country are a really big topic and I think we need to revise and review our food policies like on the one hand. We have Farm subsidies and we asked Farmers like store their grain or whatever and then on the other hand we are.
Selling food stamps for those low-income people. So there's a definite disconnect in our food policy and the legislation that currently exists. So the food system not only the restaurant industry, but the actual food supply in this country is also broken and needs to be fixed because we have plenty of food in this country to feed everyone comfortably we really do but we just don't have the
ocean and that to me is a huge problem that already existed way before covid but like a lot of other things that problem has become a disaster and precipitated because of covid so I do think that there's a way forward I think it's going to take a lot of work and gumption. I think it's going to take a lot of cooperation and I do think that restaurants will really have to rethink how much real estate they need and some a lot of those mom and pop restaurants that we love.
Will transition to staying predominantly takeout and delivery. Like they'll be a lot more, you know high-end delis or you know, like in Europe where you see Gastronomy has and I think a lot of restaurants will make that transition because we all love to sample different foods. We all you know don't have time to cook. We all want to socialize over food food is such a vital part of every ritual in our culture whether you get you know when you get married when you have a
Funeral you take a casserole when you you know want to go out on a date you ask someone to dinner. So we're going to have to have that stuff. Anyway, we just may rethink the way it's packaged due to the economic situation. We find ourselves in
you started out as a model and you moved into the culinary World. Those are very different worlds. Did you ever get nervous about you know moving from one to the other I think imposter syndrome is something that we
Talk about a lot and clearly. I mean you've done this so well, it's like now you're synonymous with food and food media and restaurants, but back then when you were thinking about making this transition, what were some of the first steps? How did you begin to think about it?
Well, you know, it was kind of a fluke. I'll be the first one to admit that I got that first book contract because I think it was just like a marketing Ploy like everyone wants to know what a model eats. I don't
Think anyone thought that it would actually be a good cook book or do well in said because it won a prize in Versailles people started noticing and at first it was hard because you know the response I would often get even by journalists by the way. And even after I had won the award was like well do models really eat? Yes. We really eat. We're just fucking freaks of Nature's also there was no other instance in the media where there were
I was talking about food except like how to drop five pounds in a day or something. Right? So I faced a lot of that and it made me insecure and then when I started doing Top Chef I did suffer from a lot of imposter syndrome. I think women in general when we're making our way in our careers and we enter the workforce and in business, which is often male-dominated. It's very common to second-guess yourself, you know, we also have been
raised because of the patriarchy with a different set of rules than our male peers have and so that really plays on your psyche whether you are conscious of it or not and the food industry is no different. It is extremely male-dominated and I think the only other industry that's more male dominated in America's perhaps the military. So I also have never been a chef. I've never worked in a restaurant. I'm a food writer.
I would come I would consider myself a culinary spelunker. You know, I really love traveling and going to different countries and learning about the food and learning about the people through the foods. They eat.
I want your job. You can
come along you can ride along.
Don't say it. If you don't meet it. I do mean it. It's nice
to have people come on because they look at it with fresh eyes. Just the point when you're tired, but you know, I it took me a long time.
To get over that and then one day I mean not one day was certainly process but I just realized that you know, I had my own set of experiences and I obviously knew enough to do my job. Well or else they wouldn't have renewed my contract again and again and I am the audience's representative in Top Chef as well as on taste the nation. I am not looking to from a place on high, you know mandate my
Words of food wisdom on anybody like I'm Master judge I judge, but I don't know that my judgment would be any more valuable than anyone else's judgment who has, you know decided to go to a fancy restaurant dress up get a babysitter for their kids and go out with their spouse or partner and spend $100 a head on it. Like we all have very fully formed opinions about food. I just hopefully have a greater.
A breadth of knowledge of different foods,
who do you go to for career advice?
That's a tough one. That really is a tough one because I never knew anyone in the entertainment business. I never knew any writers. My mom is a retired nurse. My step-dad is a plumber and I had to learn everything the hard way for myself and I wish that I had had a couple of mentors even if they weren't in my particular field just like older.
business women who could you know remind me of things I wouldn't even know to ask for I've made it my mission to Mentor, you know a few girls in their 20s so that they didn't have to go through the bullshit that I went through, you know, so that like I could tell them hey tell those people that you're not going to sign the contract unless they call my lawyer and tell them that you know, I'm an investor in your business and that I can't let you sign this contract or just saying have you thought that you should
Should ask for you know, every time you're on screen. You should ask for not only your name to be put on a graphic but also the name of your company because you're not being paid that much and you're doing it to help your business and if they say no then say Okay compensate me for what? I think I'm worth little things like that as women were not taught to demand or negotiate to our full potential. We're not taught to advocate for ourselves at the expense of maybe
Fling some feathers and you know think about it like when somebody says, oh my God, that guy is so ambitious. It's neutral at best right but when they say, oh my God, that woman is so ambitious. It's immediately traditionally thought of as a negative. Well, you know, it's not because at the end of the day like you don't need friends you have friends for friends, you need jobs, you know, and you need to be respected at work. And so I've made it my mission to do
That these days I would go to honestly my agent Nancy Josephson. I took me a while to get a really powerful good agent and I love her so much and she's been in the business for a really long time and she's kind but she's super sharp and she's a good source of information and I'm so lucky. I have
her I want to start talking about you as an advocate and an activist you started talking about.
Your experience with endometriosis decades ago and you are also an advocate versions around immigration and gender and racism and work with the ACLU In This Moment. It's a moment for I think reflection and action across the country and society and that the culinary world has been plagued by issues. Most recently the editor-in-chief of bone Appetit step down. There was a another
ignition there today. How do you bring that sense of activism to what we're seeing now in The Culinary world, but also beyond that
I was shocked when I heard what was going on at Bon Appetit. I really was shocked was I shocked about the Bro culture? No, I was not I had been hearing Rumblings of behavior like that for about a year from employees there. I Mentor somebody who works there.
So, you know, I I heard about it some I did not think that the racism and sexism extended to unfair pay practices at a big corporation like Conde Nast that is crazy. And so that really Disturbed me and I'm not surprised because even you know, I've been on TV for a long time as you guys said like I know
Known in the food World in media. I'm known internationally for it. But even I have trouble getting some times as many people's to cover stories, you know of projects I'm doing or whatever then people for my colleagues who work half the amount of time that I do and I can't you know, I could never figure out why that was and it's like this invisible undertow, you know of the ocean you're entering in you.
There's a force that's working against you, but you don't know what it is and you don't know how to address it by your actions because guess what it has nothing to do with your actions. And when I heard this whole story I was like, oh well that explains a lot, you know, you know as a brown woman, I hate to talk about and I don't hate to talk about it, but I hate to use that as an excuse or a crutch or even it's icky to me to like say well, of course.
Course, you know it's harder for me because I'm a person of color like nobody wants to say that nobody wants to jump out and blame, you know their lack of forward movement or where they think you should be at on on something that they can't control. But if we don't talk about it if those people hadn't come forward thank God they had the courage to come forward we would still be where we were three weeks ago, and I hope that more of it happens. I'm really happy that it happened.
To be honest, it's a long time coming
speaking about courage you in 2018 wrote an op-ed for the New York Times where you detailed that you were sexually assaulted as a as a teenager. Why was it important for you to publish it? And why at that point in your career, did you feel like it was the right time to do it?
I actually don't know that it was the right time in my career. I don't know when the right time would be for something like that. Frankly.
Lee career-wise, but I don't think that I would have even spoken about it. It's a cabin on hearings hadn't been going on. I think it was in all honesty an instance of meeting the moment, you know Trump tweeted on a Friday night. Well if it was so bad, why didn't she report it? You know, why is she coming forward now and then there was a hashtag of why I didn't report and you know, I sort of tweeted out a couple of things that night because
A lot of women were speaking out and I thought yeah, it doesn't mean anything. There's so many reasons why we don't report and then I went to bed and I felt really uneasy because I thought
You know what happened to me was really serious and it deserved more than a tweet.
And I felt like I had let my 16 year old self down that I just used my experience in that way to be, you know, tweeting something and dashing it off. And so I woke up on Saturday and I really thought about it and then I spent the whole weekend writing that piece and you know ripping off.
A 33 year old Band-Aid is no joke and I think had I had time to think about it longer. I may not have even done it to be honest. I just knew that the Cavanaugh hearings were coming up. I knew it was topical. I knew that if I was going to make a dent and that that horrible experience had any value it was to use it in that moment. Just say you know what? There's no upside in reporting it ever because you just get triggered and victimized again.
And then talking about the experience in the context of you know, the Kavanaugh hearings. I don't know. I don't know if Cavanaugh did the things that dr. Ford says he did only two or three people know that for sure but what I do know, is it demanded further investigation, you know Justice Clarence Thomas and that whole episode with Anita Hill demanded more investigation and more time, you know, and people keep saying like
Well, you're going to ruin a man's life by, you know, preventing him of this job and I was like wait, it's a job this other person may or may not have been sexually assaulted and so it was really sad for me. You know, I'm 49 years old and I was in college and I watched it on TV with all my college roommates when it happened with Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas and then I watched it on TV again with my daughter and that was a really depressing.
That goddamn it have we really not come at all far, you know have we just not made any strides in the decades that have come in between and so that's really why I wrote it. I wrote it because I was angry. I don't think it was a conscious measure decision on my
part when I think about how you had a role as an advocate and a lot of different facets of your life and one we just obviously just talked about with your new show Taste the nation you're exploring.
During food culture and different immigrant groups around the u.s. Obviously, you know and especially right now, I think everyone is having a much-needed Awakening as to how much both food Publications the food industry have long held a white Centric view point. What are the changes that you hope this show creates and that you hope that you begin to spearhead.
Well, I mean you bring up a great question. It wasn't just how Bon Appetit treated some of
Employees and how they paid them. It was also the lack of diversity in the stories in those mainstream Publications. I hope that this inspires others to be curious about the neighbors who live right alongside us, you know, we're all happy to order Pad Thai or sushi or whatever. But what do we really know about the people who make us that food? And what should we know? And and I think those are those stories are in.
Interesting. I think it's much more fun to read stories that you haven't heard before then read the same old. You know how to make the best potato salad. How do you know me? Like you can Google that shit you don't need another article about it. And so I think you know my main impetus for doing the show is because I saw so much smack being talked about with immigrants from Washington, and this is my rebuttal to that.
you know, I'm hoping that if people watch this show, they will understand that the humanity of the little Thai lady there who I'm in her kitchen cooking is no less valuable than the humanity of Trumps grandfather who also was an immigrant three generations ago and you know, there's been a lot of chatter about what is a real American and that's been hijacked and and what is real American food and who gets to decide that well, unless you're a Native American
Second you two are either an immigrant or descendant of an immigrant. You don't have any more claim to this land because you got here a hundred years ago than somebody who got here 10 years. Well, as long as they abide by the law as long as they work hard and that was the promise of America. You know that anybody could come here and that's why I wanted to show that Ty story because that woman who's now, you know in her seventies talks about how when she came here as a war bride.
With her American GI her mother-in-law was so kind to her and took her under her wing and treated her like a daughter and I wanted people to hear those stories to hear that America does have this beautiful welcoming tradition of you know, making people feel at home of being gracious of being inclusive that these are not new ideas. I just wanted to remind people of the positive spirit with which this country has embraced.
Grants for decades and decades
that was great. But also when you're talking about all of the different dishes, I'm now just going into all the food related questions that I have for you. There's a lot car you want to move to our lightning round. Hi Padma. Here's how it goes. We're going to ask you questions Rapidfire you have to answer as quickly as possible. What is replaced your morning commute
the daily podcast from The New York Times and NPR
while we're all working from home and taking precautions during covid-19.
What's the restaurant or dish you miss the most
spoons? Oh Pizza in New York City.
Oh, that's a good one. What's become your go-to meal and covid
honestly just simple lentils and rice and really homey comfy food that I can eat out of a bowl.
What's your greatest advice
nachos after midnight?
What's the last show you've been to watch?
Oh my gosh. I just binge watched Game of Thrones.
As for the first time since covid because I have never in a million years could dream about having that much free time in my regular life, but I was like, okay, it's either now or never so I dove in and I have to say I really enjoyed it except for the last few episodes.
Yeah. It's so it's so good. I was I was a big fan and I agree with you on the the end. What is the most common cooking mistake? You see people make it home
that they don't chop all their vegetables before they start.
Oh my gosh. That's such a pain.
Of mine, I love chopping before. Yeah, because you know, if you
have everything arranged then you're not frazzled. Do not even turn on that stove unless you've read through this recipe twice and you have all of your vegetables and if possible arrange them in the order that they go in the pot on the court on the counter. Sorry Dad. It's like welcome to
my welcome to my cooking show. Do you like to heat the pan with olive oil in it or wait till the pan is heated.
I wait till the
pan is heated because what happens is you put the olive oil or whatever voyle on and then you turn it on and you can get distracted and not know when it's actually hot or too hot and smoking but if you let the pan get hot and you put oil in it, you know, it's just a matter of 30 or 60 seconds before that heats through and you can start cooking right away.
Okay. I've got two more final questions. What's the worst piece of advice? You've gotten
that you shouldn't listen to what anybody?
He says you should just go after your dream. No matter what you should listen to what people say because maybe they have some good advice or counsel for you. You know, Nobody Does it in a vacuum? And so it's really good to weigh your options and you need to push through the open door. Like, you know, I really wanted to be an actor and I was in movies and TV shows, you know in various countries actually, but I wasn't getting the roles that I really wanted and
The food thing was taking off and I did have people near me, you know, even like an acting teacher who was like don't give up on your dream and you know don't get sidetracked and and all this stuff but you know, you never know where your success is going to come from and the Only Rule that I follow is try to do something you love for a living because you will be better at it and you will be much happier as a human.
Okay last question who's someone you think we should have on the show?
Oh, that's
Great question. I think you should have Tony Tipton Martin on the show. She is a historian a scholar and a cookbook author. She's African-American. She just wanted James Beard award for beautiful African American cookbook called Jubilee and before that she wrote another amazing book called The Jemima code. I've had her on Top Chef. She's fun. She's articulate. She's smart and she's kind will you introduce
us? Sure.
Had not such a treat to talk to you. I'm sad we couldn't do this in person because I really just want to go out for a meal with you. Yes.
Well, when all this is over, maybe we can do that too.
Hi everyone. We're trying something new during this time of economic uncertainty 8 we want to take a moment to Spotlight some new female founded companies. We've heard from many incredible skimmers who are leading small businesses and we will be introducing them to you each week on skin from the couch.
The link in our episode description for how to submit yourself or a friend.
Hey everyone. I'm Shanna Denny CEO and co-founder of dog drop and at Dog Drop. We are a dog care company helping dog parents all over by providing them more accessible don't care and I'm the CEO of dog dropped career Wilk. So we started Dog Drop because a few years ago. I actually got a dog then copy and I realized immediately that I need needed support in basically every aspect of taking care of her at this time. I was working for a start-up wasn't
Getting an office sign dive. I was working out of co-working spaces and running all over town for meetings and I didn't essentially know what to do with my dog at that time. I looked into other Solutions whether that was dog walking apps or other dog daycares, but there wasn't something that really met my type of lifestyle. And so essentially we started talking with other people looking for a solution for myself and Poppy and ultimately realized that we were going to build something to meet this new.
Generation of dog parents needs it's been a really interesting time to launch a physical location business. We actually just launched in January 2020. So literally two months 8-10 weeks before covid-19 and fortunately we are deemed an essential business. So we were able to stay open and operate during these times and we're really excited to see that this has been a huge proof of concept. So even if you're at home working from your apartment, which
Now more than ever are doing they're able to drop their dog off for one to three hours to socialize exercise run around been really cool to help out the community as we know essential workers and Frontline workers have had a lot more responsibility and stress added in the most recent months. We've actually been offering completely free dog service to essential workers and trying to give back and ways that we can for us. We've been hyperlocal for the you know, the first part of our business
so we're really focused on our community in downtown Los Angeles where you know moving into deep the DDC space with some products that anyone has access to we want to get to the point where we're helping any dog parent provide the best care they can to their dog, but we've been you know building a business here in Allah and as kind of female Founders Square Founders, and we've really been able to build a community around this with other people and kind of a support and growth and understanding what investors are really
Interested in especially right now during all these times investors are really looking to invest in whether it's people of color or non-traditional Founders. And that's something we really support So if you're out there listening and your non-traditional founder, we'd love to kind of share some tips of how we've been able to navigate this and get back by some of the best feces out here in Los Angeles and continue to grow that community and give that opportunity to everyone so you can find us on
Ram at dog dropped Co Saudi OGD ROP CEO
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