Padma Lakshmi | The New York Observer

Sweet Fancy Moses: Manhattan Pastry Potentates

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:18:24 -0500

Last week, as the scrubbed and smirking mugs of Tom Colicchio and Padma Lakshmi continued to advertise Top Chef’s sixth season in Vegas all over town, Bravo announced an open casting call for the series’ latest iteration, Top Chef: Just Desserts, on Sunday, Nov. 8, at Craftsteak.

“It’s about time!” exclaimed Zak Miller, pastry chef at Kefi, Gus & Gabriel and Anthos (where his specialties include a concoction involving beet yogurt and tahini). “I...

Rushdie, Redford, Ruschka Pick Up Plaques at Cipriani

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:22:49 -0400

British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie was one of the first to arrive at the National Arts Awards at Cipriani 42nd Street on Monday, Oct. 5. Known as a champion of freedom of expression, the author ruminated on the current challenges faced by the world of the arts, and the particular struggle of the written word.

“It’s very tough right now wherever you look with the arts,” he told the Transom, citing Conde Nast’s closing...

Adam Moss's First (or Second) New York

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:43:23 -0400

In this week's Observer, New York Magazine editor Adam Moss talked to John Koblin about his use of coverlines, telling him, "A piece of music can’t all be big moments. It needs big moments and small moments."

And sometimes, it even rhymes.

This week's New York features a cover package called My First New York, that starts with a curtain-raising essay by Adam Sternbergh about his first memories of New York ("murder, mayhem, killer...

Vegging Out: Sir Paul and Stella McCartney Espouse Meatless, Hybrid Lifestyle at Eco-A-List Bash

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:57:55 -0400

“My daughter is getting an award so I’m a proud duh-dee!” Paul McCartney told the Daily Transom at the Natural Resources Defense Council’s annual Forces for Nature benefit at 583 Park Avenue on Monday, March 30, where his daughter, fashion designer Stella McCartney, and Discovery Communications’ CEO David Zaslav were honored for their respective environmental work.

Mr. McCartney, wearing a lightweight European aristo scarf indoors, was accompanied by his lady friend, M.T.A. board member Nancy Shevell,...

Paper of Record Uses Lounging Padma Lakshmi to Promote Web Site

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 15:47:41 -0500

What's Padma Lakshmi's favorite part of The New York Times' Web site? According to a video of the model-turned-author- turned reality competition hostess, it's Bill Cunningham's 'On the Street' audio slide shows. (Weirdly, she does not mention the Books section where she might be at risk of running into her ex-husband, Scarlett Johannson-nuzzling author Salman Rushdie.)

Ms. Lakshmi's video is one of several celebrity testimonials for the paper's Web site included in a...

Happy Rocking Thanksgiving!

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 11:56:48 -0500

It's always a little strange when holidays come to reality-television shows, since you know it had to have been taped, well, beforehand, and so everyone is just faking that it's Thanksgiving. Such was the case when the Top Chef crew headed up to a downright balmy Rochester, N.Y. (they cooked outside for the elimination challenge) to cook Thanksgiving dinner for the rock band, Foo Fighters. ...

Head Games! Tom Colicchio's Pate Now a Sex Symbol

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:57:59 -0500

This morning, Top Chef host-judges Padma Lakshmi and Tom Colicchio treated the food press to a conference call to discuss the upcoming fifth season of the show, which was mostly filmed in Brooklyn. Besides learning that guest judges will include Eric Ripert, Dave Grohl, Martha Stewart, Lidia Bastianich, Wylie Dufresne, and Marcus Samuelsson, we found out that Ms. Lakshmi usually "gains about 10 to 15 pounds over the course of [filming] … I always...

Bleeding for Zaha: Chanel and Karl Lagerfeld Can Only Hope to Contain Her

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:45:39 -0400

In an age where Damien Hirst errata have joined gold and United States government bonds in the shrinking pantheon of safe investments, can contemporary art still be dangerous?

More to the point, can contemporary art be dangerous when it's held in something of a polyurethane uterus, a haute-culture billboard designed by deconstructivist goddess Zaha Hadid, deposited on Rumsey Playfield in Central Park (after stints in Hong Kong and Tokyo), and...

Fashion Week Model Forecast: "Skinny Models, Skinny Models"

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:23:52 -0400

Thursday night, on the eve of Fashion Week, a noir-ish crowd including Kelly Osborne, nightlife-loving model Agyness Deyn, designer Henry Holland, Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi, and the ubiquitous Misshapes DJs wandered through Christie's galleries at a preview party for the auction house's fall sales of Postwar and Contemporary Art, Impressionist and Modern Art, and Resurrection: Avant-Garde Fashion. The latter was present in abundance, on mannequins dressed in vintage Versace and pale, generously eyelinered...

Morning Memo: Heidi Montag Kisses Off Correspondents' Dinner; Graydon Carter's Indoor-Air Act

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 09:04:11 -0400

Heidi Montag reportedly bailed on the White House Correspondents gala when MSNBC wouldn't adhere to the demands of her manager and boyfriend Spencer Pratt for first class tickets for the pair, even though only Ms. Montag was invited. [P6]

Padma Lakshmi is apparently cozying up with IMG owner Teddy Forstmann since her divorce from Salman Rushdie. [P6]

Graydon Carter lit up a cigarette in the presence of Mayor Bloomberg at his annual Tribeca Film Festival...

Today at the Tribeca Film Festival: Baby Mama at the Ziegfeld

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:10:42 -0400

The Tribeca Film Festival kicks off its seventh year tonight at the Zeigfeld Theater with the big sparkly premiere of Baby Mama. The movie is about a single and successful businesswoman (Tina Fey) who hires a working-class woman (Amy Poehler) to be her surrogate. Can you believe we’ve gotten this far along in life without a wacky surrogate movie? Ms. Fey and Ms. Poehler will be hitting the red carpet on 54th street,...

Mmmm ... Padma Lakshmi Buys in East Village for $1.65 M., Replaces Fifth Avenue-Bound Parker Posey

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:28:16 -0500

A basic tenet of East Village celebrity physics dictates that whenever a comely actress moves out of the neighborhood, another must instantly come to take her place. Furthermore, because hip people inherently drift ever-eastward into the once-grimy lettered avenues, that new starlet must move in closer to the river than the one she’s replacing.

According to a source, the 39-year-old indie actress Parker Posey, who late last year listed her three-room apartment...

Can She Sizzle Sans Salman? Top Chef Tart Swoops into Strand

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:23:09 -0500

On Monday, Nov. 19, Padma Lakshmi, the former model and comely host of Bravo’s reality series Top Chef, read from her latest cookbook, Tangy, Tart, Hot & Sweet (Weinstein Books, $34.95), at the Strand Bookstore near Union Square.

One might be forgiven for thinking that the title of Ms. Lakshmi’s book, along with her first, Easy Exotic, is a nod to her on-air personality. But one would be wrong.

“I...

Eat This, New York

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 07:15:43 -0400

Tonight, safely past the May sweeps afterglow and Sopranos finale frenzy, New Yorkers will be tuning (and D.V.R.-ing) into yet another television obsession: Top Chef.

The show kicks off its third season at 10 p.m. on Bravo, this time trading Los Angeles for Miami Beach, but bringing all the usual players: the flinty-eyed and dignified Tom Colicchio of New York’s Craft restaurant (and all its little Craft spawn);...

Salman Rushdie's 1001 Manhattan Nights

Sun, 16 Apr 2000 20:00:00 -0400

On a recent Sunday evening at Babbo restaurant, a literary agent regarded a plate of beef-cheek ravioli. Waiters crisscrossed the room with orders of pasta. The restaurant was full. The city was quiet. It was the kind of peaceful, comfortable night that has been falling over Manhattan for quite some time now.

Suddenly, the conversational hum began to sputter. Someone famous was moving through the room. The agent looked up from dinner to see writer...