Padma Lakshmi Talks James Beard & Being A Woman In The Food Industry

I stumbled into it completely by accident. I had to gain 20 lbs for my first acting role. When I finished filming the movie, I went back to modeling and wanted to lose the weight in a healthy way. I have always loved to cook, and I just took the fat out of my cooking by making the recipes I loved most as healthy as possible. A small cookbook came out of that endeavor. I thought I did it just on a lark and never expected it to be much of anything. During my book tour, I appeared on the Food Network a couple of times and they offered me a development deal. The rest as they say, is history.