Like a lot of people, I had no idea who Padma Lakshmi was until she popped up on the second season of Top Chef as the new host. I loved everything about this book. I love the way she tells her story. Most of us have stories that revolved around food. We all have memories of the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners of our childhood or particular dishes that our grandmother made. Lakshmi talks about learning to make a dish that all of the women in her family make and it brought back memories of me as a little girl, sitting in my grandma's kitchen watching closely as she made biscuits. I made them myself in my grown up kitchen two weeks ago and the memories came back so strongly that I cried when I tasted them. Our entire lives can be described through the meals we've had and made and laughed or cried through. Laksmi weaves her story together perfectly like the perfectly written recipe.
