Jewelry should not upstage you. I pick one hot point on my body that I’m going to highlight. Let one area do the singing – you don’t want to hear three songs at once.

I’ve always thought the back is one of the most beautiful parts of a woman. I’ve created four versions of the front-to-back necklace which actually gives you two necklaces in one. I love the way...

It doesn’t matter how precisely the onion is cut as long as the person chewing it is happy.

For a while, I became an atheist; now that I’m grown up, though, I’m not hard-edged enough to be an atheist. Even though I live with a flaming atheist, I love going to temple. I...

I am a sufferer of endometriosis. I didn’t want any young women to go through what I went through. I thought that people should know about it.

I’m the kind of girl who thinks about what she’s gonna cook for dinner when she’s finishing her lunch.

You don’t need expensive classes and all kinds of weird equipment if you really want to be in shape. There are great ways to do it that are very economical, it just takes a time...

Whether I’m making a recipe or a piece of jewelry or a white-rose-and-jasmine tea or the perfume, I like to think of myself as a happy little sorceress, and if I could just have a...

I love to use a lot of spices when I cook, so we actually cast a real peppercorn in gold and then just made a bead out of it for necklaces and earrings.

I grew up a vegetarian. Then, because I grew up in the states, I started slowly eating meat. First it was bologna sandwiches, or pepperoni on pizza.

People always comment about my clothes. They don’t think a fashionable woman can love food and be knowledgeable and actually cook.

If you like a wine that you drink, now with your phone, it’s so easy. Just take a picture of the label. You learn about it. You learn where it comes from and what the...

Wine, like food, is so emotional. If you think about it, so much of the courting ritual is surrounded by wine and food. There’s a built-in romance to wine.

I never Tweet about my daughter. Never. I just want to be respectful of her privacy. My job as a mom is to know when to open my mouth and when not to.

Where is it written that a smart woman can’t also be stacked?

You don’t want your jewelry to make you look fat. A lot of what’s out there now does – you just wind up looking like a Christmas tree.

I think wine is such a big universe that it’s kind of like food – it’s intimidating to a lot of people, myself included.

I have great empathy for all the contestants that come on ‘Top Chef,’ whether they go home right away or they make it to the finish line. It’s a very vulnerable position they put themselves...

I wasn’t like those girls who give birth and are back on the runway. It took me probably six months to gain 45 pounds and I would say it took me double that time to...

During the course of filming ‘Top Chef,’ I gain 15 lbs., so I’m used to needing two dress sizes.

All chefs are like Jewish mothers. They want to feed you and feed you and impress you. It’s an eagerness to please.

I was lucky to have a successful career as a model, but that was just a way to pay off my college loans.

Every country I would go to, even if it was just on a modeling job, I would go to their markets. If I went to Morocco for ‘Elle’ magazine, I would be in the spice...

I’m not of the American ilk that, you know, your lover needs to be your best friend and know you inside out. I think he should know you well enough to please you. Otherwise, what...

I know most people use their phones to tell time, but there’s something very romantic and beautiful about a timepiece.

I’m not attached to things at all. I’m very lucky to have quite a few beautiful things, but if I look back at my life, I was often happiest when I had very little.

I don’t have any stigma attached to my body. When I’m in my own private space, I have very little on.

For a long time, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was desperate to find something that fit me and I just decided that if I could organically make...

Part of my job as a food writer is to describe food. So my work on ‘Top Chef,’ I feel, is an extension of that. When we give a criticism to the contestant, we want...

I’m not tough. I’m tenacious.

Flowers die and wine gets consumed. Both are lovely. I appreciate both. Wine and roses. I actually had someone bring me a lobe of foie gras once.

I tend to sleep in the nude… I’m a sensual-leaning woman. You have to use the word ‘leaning’ or it sounds like I’m boasting.

From the simple stringing together of lemon garlands for the goddess Durga, to dividing the prasadam or blessed foods for the children first, I came to associate food not only with feminity, but also with...

Whenever I’m in sync with the trends, it’s always an accident. I still love wearing clothes I’ve had for ten years. I think understated luxury is the chicest thing.

In truth, I am a single mother. But I don’t feel alone at all in parenting my daughter. Krishna has a whole other side of her family who loves her, too. And so Krishna is...

The cookbooks and the writing in general have been a real bonus, but it’s not something I’ve ever pursued… I’ve been lucky, I guess.

I really like to sometimes go into food detox and eat very simply.

I work out all the time! I don’t just sit around and eat burgers whenever I want. Oh, if I could I probably would, but I don’t.

My first taste memory is pickle. Even as a kid, I was really weird. I liked chillis. I used to climb up the shelves in my grandmother’s pantry. The pickle jar was kept right at...

I usually doze off between 7:30 and 9 p.m. while putting my baby to sleep. Then I suddenly wake up remembering I’m an adult with no bedtime. I spend the next four hours catching up...

I am as omnivorous as it’s possible to be. I always say there’s nothing I won’t eat and nothing I won’t wear.

My mom was scared of the old Times Square so I was never allowed to go. Now I’m scared of the new Times Square, so I still never go.

I’ve always had a fantasy to write a cookbook, because everyone wants to know what a model eats.

I’m an immigrant kid who came to America from India when I was very young and grew up in New York City with a single mom and really was influenced by all of those immigrant...

I love seafood. I’m not a vegetarian but I’m probably a pescetarian.

I was the first Indian model to have a career in Paris, Milan and New York.

People are thrown off by someone who looks feminine, but is also strong. It’s not that pretty girls aren’t smart, it’s that women aren’t strong.

Every city has a Donald Trump; ours is just the Trumpiest.

I’ve been a model for 15 years, and I’ve been on ‘Top Chef’ for eight seasons, and before that I had other cooking shows, so I’ve learned a thing or two about how to camouflage...

I like me better naked. I don’t mean that in a vain way… When you put clothes on, you immediately put a character on. Clothes are adjectives, they are indicators. When you don’t have any...