Host Padma Lakshmi (‘Taste the Nation’) is Just Getting Started

Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture, Film Interviews, Tv & Film

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2024

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

To close out the holiday weekend, we're revisiting our conversation with writer, food expert, and television host Padma Lakshmi.

At the top, we discuss her Hulu docuseries Taste the Nation (4:40), a formative episode in El Paso, Texas (8:14), and how the show connects to Padma’s personal history (11:59). Then, she reflects on her childhood in New York City (14:07), a heartbreaking event at seven (17:30*), and her unexpected entry to the modeling industry (25:14).

On the back-half, we walk through the early years of her trailblazing career (33:52), the patriarchal systems she fought back against (38:58), and her painful essay in The Times in response to the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (44:00*). To close, Padma talks about her powerful work through EndoFound (45:30), the activist underpinnings of Taste the Nation (49:21), and the stories she hopes to tell in years to come (52:44).

*At this time-code, there is a discussion about sexual assault.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Once upon a time, Amazon Music met audiobooks and listeners everywhere rejoiced.
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0:06.6	Because now they could listen to one audiobook title a month from an enormous library of popular audiobook titles, including romanticity,
0:15.3	autobiographies, true crime, and more.
0:19.3	Suddenly listeners didn't mind sitting in traffic or even missing their
0:22.6	flight amazon music unlimited now includes audible no way download the amazon music app now to
0:28.2	start listening terms apply hello podcast fans it is i bruce valanche for over 25 years i worked on the
0:37.0	academy awards so you didn't have to.
0:40.4	In that time, I've seen and heard things that should not be seen or heard or certainly felt.
0:47.8	And now, for the first time, I'm sharing all my behind-the-scenes stories and firsthand knowledge about the Oscars.
0:55.7	The blood, the blood, the sweat,
1:03.1	the tears, the slap, all the things you didn't see. So join me as I use humor and insight to break down the Oscar awards of the past to explain how and why your favorite movie didn't win,
1:09.9	why some actors and some directors had to fire their agents,
1:13.9	and how the whole process works or sometimes doesn't work.
1:19.0	This is The Oscars. What were they thinking?
1:22.8	Available wherever you get podcasts.
2:16.2	Thank you. wherever you get podcasts. This is Talk Easy. I'm Stan Forgo, so welcome out the holiday weekend, writer, food expert, and television host, Padma Lakshmi.
2:23.9	We sat in the spring of 2023 as her docu series, Taste the Nation, return for its second season on Hulu.
2:25.3	A month later, Padma announced her exit from Top Chef, where she appeared as host and judge
2:30.9	for 19 of its 20 seasons.
2:37.4	The departure was partly motivated by her desire to make a different kind of program. On Taste the Nation, she breaks bread with all kinds of immigrant and
2:44.1	indigenous communities across America. She visits a Nigerian community in Houston, Cambodian immigrants in Massachusetts, Afghan-Americans in Washington, D.C., each of which, Padma highlights, has brought their unique culture by way of food to America, not as an act of reclamation or erasure, as some insist, but as an offering. And so as we move away from
	...

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