This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)

Is Padma Lakshmi a model-turned-TV-star who's grown accustomed to the finer things? Or a down-to-earth mom who reuses takeout containers for her leftovers?

Is she warm and hospitable, the kind of person who's excited to share her food with you? Or is she frank and snarky, the kind of person who compares her favorite dish to old bong water?

Is she an Indian who grew up partly in America, or an American who grew up partly in India?

Or is she all of the above?

This week on The Sporkful, Dan sits down with cookbook author, food writer, and Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi. Padma talks about some of her earliest food memories from her grandmother's kitchen in India, her struggles to adjust to life in the US, and how she deals with the judgments people make about her body, and her brains.

Plus, Dan and Padma nerd out Sporkful style on Padma's leftover tamarind rice and the Indian dish panipuri (above), which is a type of chaat, or Indian street snack. There are countless varieties of chaat but most involve some kind of crispy fried dough, often potato and/or chick peas, and some combination of salty, tart, sweet and spicy additions.

This week's episode of The Sporkful podcast is up! Listen through the player or iTunes/Podcasts app. (And please subscribe!)

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Interstitial music in this episode by Black Label Music:

- "Simple Song" by Chris Bierden

- "Out To Lunch" by Chris Bierden

- "Legend" by JT Bates

Photos: FlickrCC/Garrett Ziegler