A newfound, around-the-world inspired cookbook that is certain to be all-the-rage within the Rugged Elegance community is called Easy Exotic by Padma Lakshmi. Lakshmi is the Giorgio Armani, Alberto Farretti, Ralph Lauren, Sonia Rykiel, Trussardi, Emmanuel Ungaro, Valentino Indian fashion model turned Bollywood film actress turned Food Network hostess whose focus in life is food, fashion, film and her famous husband, Salman Rushdie.

Miramax Books released Padma's cookbook called Easy Exotic : A Model's Low-Fat Recipes from Around the World in the fall of 2000.

David Rosengarten from The Food Network calls Lakshmi's work "...truly sensual food... from the world's most sensual cookbook author! Delicious."

Her 57-year-old controversial award-winning author / Iranian husband, Salman Rushdie calls it his favorite cookbook. An unbiased opinion, of course.

Salman Rushdie is the novelist who has written eight books including the upcoming Shalimar the Clown (a novel to be released September 6th 2005).

While Rushdie puts the finishing touches on Shalimar, Padma is working furiously on a second cookbook.

She also just launched a film production company called Lakshmi Films. Her first film will be based on Norma Klein's 1981 book Domestic Arrangements.

by Padma Lakshmi

Padma's first venture in publishing introduces her audience to dishes discovered from a variety of cultures -- Spanish, French, Italian, Indian, East Asian and Moroccan.

She offers healthy, low cholesterol meat and vegetarian dishes.

Examples include:

Stuffed Bell Peppers (Spanish)
Sauteed Steak in Red Wine & Shallot Sauce (French)
Fiery Farfalle (Italian)
Tandoori Chicken Salad (Indian)
Vegetarian Chili (Indian)
Bali Baked Fish (Asian)
Wild Mushroom Couscous (Moroccan)
Poached Pears with Raspberry Sauce (an international dessert)

In an interview with Travel Savvy Keija Minor asks Padma how she found the recipes that she shares in her cookbook.

Padma's response:

Basically, I love to eat and I have a very sensitive sensitive nose. If I taste something, I may not know the ingredients exactly, but I can duplicate the taste in my own kitchen solely out of the desire to eat it again. Many of my Indian dishes have been passed down to me by my mother, grandmother or aunt. I took recipes that I loved and adapted them, substituting certain ingredients to make the dishes low in fat.

In addition to cooking, Padma has a passion for shoes. This spring, she is featured on the cover of Shoo Magazine.

Just as her husband loves books, Padma loves stillettos. Evidently, she has a closet full of 250 pair.

This summer, a glossy, high-end Fashion and lifestyle magazine for Indian American women goes national with Padma on the cover.

Nirvana Woman illuminates the unique heritage and the fusion of Indian and American style, music, and culture with cutting edge fashion spreads, insightful articles on everything from healthy living to heartache, and engaging profiles of movers and shakers in the worlds of fashion, media, entertainment, the arts and business.

The editors of Nirvana Woman state that:

With almost two million Indian-Americas living in the United States, including more than 400,000 women, the fusion of Indian culture is becoming increasingly visible in American society, bolstered by the success of Indian-American authors such as Jhumpa Lahiri and Arundhati Roy and films like Bend It Like Beckham, Monsoon Wedding and Lagaan...

and fashion models-turned-film stars-turned-food authors like Padma Lakshmi.

Nirvana's cover story on Padma: "From Runway to Reel" is on page 102.

Padma's second book, currently in-the-works, will also have recipes from around the world.

The author says she finds it difficult to limit herself to a particular cuisine.

An advocate of eating internationally, she believes people -- in their twenties and thirties (and forties, as we do) -- eat Chinese one night, and then Japanese the next night, and then French, and then Italian.

Padma and Salman live in New York, a melting pot of international cuisine.

When Keija Minor from Travel Savvy asked her, "Any tips for cooking for someone you're dating?" Lakshmi said:

Like everything else, it's not what you do; it's how you do it.

Cook something simple -- not like your trying to impress, but just like you want to eat at home. I wouldn't make my best dish the first time I cooked for someone because where do you go from there? I would start off simple. I think there's a lot to say for restraint.

Right now there's a tendency to overdo things. You know how you see that woman who wears all her jewelry at once? You don't want to be that woman in the kitchen.

Cooking is all about making a good impression, showing them you care, showing them how smart you are, what good taste you have. Don't cook for people you don't like or care for. I've tried it and I don't do a good job.

For someone who won over her husband with her Chicken Curry dish, I concur.

Easy Exotic is a "Rugged Elegance Select Book of Taste" suggested for that hard-working mother in your family.

Mother's Day this year is early -- May 8th. Don't forget.

Inspire & Be Inspired.

Here's to healthy, adventuresome, soulful, "deliciously, exotic" living!

~ Jennifer Carolyn King, Rugged Elegance, LLC