In the chaos of New York City, where silence is a rare commodity, author, television host and culinary icon Padma Lakshmi wants people to know that wellness isn’t just about what you eat or how you exercise, but how you live, dress, and honor your body.
Standing in Union Square’s farmers market, her hands delicately selecting vibrant heirloom tomatoes, Lakshmi embodies her own philosophy in motion. Her partnership with the mobile farming game Hay Day brought her here today, transforming her in-game silo into real farm-fresh produce at their pop-up farmer’s market. She’s dressed in her signature New York uniform: blue boot-cut jeans paired with a classic black and white striped top, punctuated by bold red booted heels that add just the right pop of color. It’s practical New York efficiency meets intentional beauty, a visual representation of how she approaches everything in her life.
“Time is the best luxury,” Lakshmi tells Forbes in an interview, and today proves it. Between filming, cookbook deadlines, and her advocacy work, these moments at the market aren’t only about gathering ingredients, but being mindful in how she eats and cooks.
Lakshmi’s New Ventures Celebrates America’s Culinary Tapestry
Lakshmi’s latest projects reflect her evolution from exploring global cuisines to celebrating America’s diverse food landscape. Her television show “America’s Culinary Cup” on CBS and her cookbook Padma’s All American (releasing in November 2025) represent a homecoming of sorts, after years of international culinary exploration on “Top Chef” and cultural immersion through “Taste the Nation.”
The cookbook isn’t just recipes but “a culinary scrapbook of my life,” documenting her journey through 24 different American communities over five years of intensive travel. The book reads like a love letter to America’s immigrant communities, reflecting her travels from the Cambodian enclaves of Lowell, Massachusetts, to the vibrant streets of Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Arizona, Miami, Rhode Island, Puerto Rico, and El Paso. Each location brought new flavors and new stories, woven together by the common thread of people making home in America through food.
Among her most cherished discoveries were the Filipino recipes she encountered outside of San Francisco. Having grown up with Filipino food in California, these weren’t entirely foreign flavors, but revisiting them through the lens of community connection gave them new meaning. Her arroz negro with chicken and rice exemplifies her ability to find universal comfort in seemingly disparate cuisines. “It’s sort of like an Indian kichidi but with chicken and it’s really delicious,” she notes. Her chicken adobo recipe, enriched with coconut milk, bridges her Filipino experiences with her Indian heritage, creating something entirely new yet deeply familiar.
Between each chapter, she profiles the people who opened their kitchens and hearts to her: home cooks, restaurant owners, community leaders who trusted her with their stories and their grandmother’s recipes. It’s this element that transforms Padma’s All American from a simple cookbook into a testament to how food preserves culture while creating new American traditions.
Lakshmi Views Food As Medicine
Lakshmi’s relationship with food as medicine didn’t begin in a television studio or cookbook but was forged through decades of undiagnosed pain. For years, she battled endometriosis symptoms before receiving a diagnosis in her mid-30s, learning firsthand that food could be both comforting and curing. This experience fundamentally shaped her understanding that wellness is deeply personal and often misunderstood.
“I am a big believer that food is medicine and comfort. On a given plate, not only is it more nutritionally good for you, but also visually appealing to have lots of different colors,” she reflects. This philosophy extends beyond nutrition into every aspect of her life, including how she presents herself to the world.
Despite being a lifelong New Yorker who gravitates toward the city’s signature black palette, she describes her style as “both eclectic and effortless” and deliberately incorporates pops of color. Just as she champions colorful plates for optimal nutrition and visual appeal, she champions colorful self-expression as an extension of holistic wellness.
How Lakshmi Integrates Fashion And Wellness
“Most New Yorkers will tell you, we are doing seven things in one day, so we want to be comfortable,” she explains, but comfort doesn’t mean compromise. Her approach to dressing mirrors her approach to eating: practical yet purposeful, accessible yet aspirational. Her collaboration with Hay Day demonstrates this. The mobile farming game partnership allowed her to connect digital engagement with real-world wellness practices, turning virtual farming into actual farm-to-table cooking. Similar to her children’s book Tomatoes for Neela, she wants young minds to learn about where food comes from while celebrating the natural sources of the earth. Her goal, for food and fashion alike, is to encourage others to embrace more color in their lives.
Solitude Is A Luxury, According To Lakshmi
Besides eating well and dressing to express oneself, the most relatable aspect of Lakshmi’s wellness philosophy is her embrace of solitude in a world that demands constant connectivity. “I am a big believer of alone time and I’m around people a lot, but inherently I’m a loner,” she admits. In a profession built on social interaction and public appearances, she’s learned that wellness requires boundaries. Her self-care rituals are carved from stolen moments: a 10-second meditation with closed eyes, a massage when schedules allow, a workout, or simply finding “silence and space” in an increasingly noisy world. These micro-practices acknowledge the reality of modern life while refusing to sacrifice personal well-being. At 54, Padma Lakshmi has “finally figured out the version of wellness that works for her,” that understands that sometimes the most radical act of self-care is simply showing up as your authentic self, comfortable in your own skin, nourished by your own choices, and dressed in your own truth.