NEW YORK (Diya TV) — Padma Lakshmi, the award-winning television host, author, and culinary ambassador, is returning to bookshelves later this year with her latest cookbook, Padma’s All American: Tales, Travels, and Recipes from Taste the Nation and Beyond. Drawing on years of travel, family traditions, and her acclaimed Hulu series Taste the Nation, Lakshmi offers more than just a collection of recipes, it’s a celebration of the diverse flavors and stories that make up the American culinary landscape.
“This isn’t just a cookbook,” Lakshmi told People in an exclusive interview. “It’s a scrapbook of our lives in food over the last six-seven years.”
That personal touch comes to life in more ways than one. A particularly special aspect of the book is the collaboration with her 15-year-old daughter, Krishna, affectionately nicknamed “Little Hands.” Lakshmi shares parenting responsibilities with her ex-partner, Adam Dell, and says Krishna played a hands-on role in the cookbook’s development.
“She helped me test and develop recipes,” Lakshmi said, noting that Krishna even contributed a recipe of her own. Lakshmi recently gave fans a glimpse into their creative process on Instagram, sharing a video of Krishna tasting a “rustic, beautiful soup” from Italy called ribollita, a hearty Tuscan dish made with vegetables and day-old bread.
“You can also see in the photos how she’s grown just in the years it took me to put this book together,” she told People, highlighting how the project has become a visual and emotional timeline of their shared journey.
Padma’s All American pulls inspiration from Lakshmi’s archives and the cross-country travels she undertook for Taste the Nation, the Hulu series she created and hosts. The show explores immigrant communities across the U.S. and the ways they’ve shaped regional American cuisine.
“I’ve always thought the most exciting pockets of American food are in immigrant enclaves,” Lakshmi said in her People interview. “American food is more regional than folks realize, and what makes it so great are all these influences on our national cuisine.”
Lakshmi’s cookbook is expected to reflect the multicultural threads of her television work, interwoven with stories, family photos, and deeply personal anecdotes. It also marks her first major release since stepping down as host of Top Chef in 2023, ending a remarkable 20-season run that made her a household name.
Her departure from the Emmy-winning Bravo series was a pivotal moment, but Lakshmi continues to focus her energy on storytelling through food in other forms. Whether on screen or in print, she remains committed to elevating voices and cuisines that are often overlooked in mainstream culinary media.
With Padma’s All American, she offers readers a seat at her family table, filled with dishes shaped by memory, migration, and motherhood — all filtered through a lens of warmth, exploration, and authenticity.
The cookbook is expected to be released later this year.
