Willows Whiten, Aspen Quivers as the Lady and the Shallots Come to Town: "Top Chef" Semifinal Gets Underway

Snack is reporting that the remaining cast and crew of Top Chef are reconvening in Aspen, Colorado, to film the show's semifinal.

Earlier, Tom Colicchio told Lesley at Eater LA that he would be in Los Angeles "until we tape the final show. The reveal is live, we taped everything up until that. We haven't told them who won yet."

This seems to be a little bit of a contradiction, but perhaps it's just a question of semantics, finale vs. semifinal.

At any rate, Snack, reporting that Tre Wilcox has been on vacation in New York, seems to imply that Tre is participating in the semifinal/finale. We can't say we're surprised.

Update: Apparently some kind of filming is going on. Gawker reports that Eric Ripert's wife said the fish-lipped seafood wonder is "in Aspen being a judge for 'Top Chef!'"

Padma Lakshmi "Shines" in First Post-Divorce-Announcement Appearance

Padma, Lady Rushdie, made an appearance last night at ABC Carpet and Home in New York at a party for the release of Mothers, an album of what New York Magazine says are "remixed African songs," the proceeds from which are supposed to go to "malnourished children in Africa." New York says the party was supposed to feature Deepak Chopra, who was a no-show, and describes Padma as "low-key." Padma herself told Paper Magazine that "she has not been out partying since her recent divorce from Salman Rushdie, but had to show support for...this worthy cause."

We say, shine on, Padma.

N.B. The woman in the middle with the, uh, costume tits is Patricia Field, costume designer for Sex and the City and The Devil Wears Prada and power lesbian. The woman on the left is DJ Donna D'Cruz, head of the company putting out the record, and who "hail[s] from the same corner of India" as Padma.

Amuse-Biatch Heterosexual Monday: Padma Lakshmi Alive and Well and Guest-Starring on "Dame Chocolate"

Or so it would appear from this Greg Kadel photograph in GQ, which illustrates an article in which, according to the subhead, Padma discusses "why being stripped naked and covered in chocolate has always been her fantasy."

Of course, it turns out to be the usual GQ choc-teasing, and no such details are forthcoming.

And while she may not be guest-starring on Dame Chocolate after all, she certainly has been living a little telenovela of her own. Indeed, possums, we were quite worried about the Lady Rushdie after her Bravo blog posted this message:

"Due to personal reasons, I will be taking some time off from my blog. I want to thank all of you who have left messages of support for me."

We, more than anyone, know just how difficult and taxing (right hand on forehead, left hand on breast) blogging can be. We envisioned her sitting at home, fetchingly ensconced in a fainting couch, her hair picturesquely disarrayed on the antimacassar, one hand clutching a balled cambric handkerchief scented with orange-blossom water, the other hand gripping a spoon newly emerged from a container of Chubby Soon-to-Be Ex-Hubby ice cream, as she bemoaned the end of her marriage to Sir Salman Rushdie.

Naturally, then, we were pleased to read that whatever personal reasons are keeping Lady Rushdie from her electronic goose-quill pen haven't completely incapacitated her. To wit, this mention in The Hollywood Reporter:

"Padma Lakshmi, co-host of the popular Bravo reality series "Top Chef," was at the gym when a friend called to tell her about the show's two nominations. "I was lifting dumbbells when my friend Christina called. She said: 'You're going to need a dress. You're going to the Emmys.' " The nominations came just in time, Lakshmi said, and hopefully will give the top-rated show an added boost as they prepare to shoot the finale in Aspen, Colo. "It's a nice thing to happen right now," she said. "It'll give ('Top Chef') a shot in the arm. I'm really happy and proud to be a part of that crew." Before taping begins for the next season, which takes place in Chicago, Lakshmi is preparing for the release of her book, "Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet," in the fall and looking for an apartment in New York."

And, according to the New York Daily News, she has of late become a fast friend to, and turned up on the front burner of, 67-year-old "[b]illionaire Ted Forstmann..., whose consorts have included Elizabeth Hurley and Princess Diana...." Forstmann's company, International Management Group, "is due to announce a slate of endorsement and licensing projects for Lakshmi."

So let's see. Going to the Emmys. Consorting with a billionaire. Shopping for a luxury apartment. Yup, if we had those kinds of personal reasons, we wouldn't be blogging either. Padma may go to the gym, but she is definitely no dumb belle.

Amuse-Biatch Photoessay: Freudians, Start Your Engines (Though It Was Sara Mair Who Made a Cigar)

Scattered Pictures of the Mils. She Left Behind: Amuse-Biatch Remembers the Way They Were

Oh, possums, we always knew our Padma was trendy, and now Time Magazine agrees, turning Lady Rushdie into the poster girl for the rising divorce rate in India, where "this week's announcement that Salman Rushdie and Padma Lakshmi are splitting after just three years of marriage is front page news across" the entire country. Indeed, the Bombay-based Daily News & Analysis is dubbing Padma "the woman who broke Rushdie's heart."

Kleenex in hand (minds out of the gutter, possums), we turn to our misty, water-colored, Padma-Lakshmi's-own-website-assisted memories of the way they were:

The New York Daily News, September 27, 2006, at the Metropolitan Opera's gala premiere of Anthony Minghella's version of Madame Butterfly:

Salman Rushdie: "There was a certain inevitability about the plot." Padma Lakshmi Rushdie: "The Americans don't come out very well." Salman: "What can you do? They go around plucking flowers and then they pluck off."

The London Daily Mail, July 2, 2007

Salman Rushdie..., who is worth around £8 million [$16 million], is said to still be in love with his 36-year-old wife but has accepted the marriage has no future."

Filmfare—March 2004

When a woman leaves Salman Rushdie self-confessedly content with being "just the boyfriend", puts him on a diet of thair sadam, aka good ol' South Indian curd rice, and declares, "I have immense respect for him, but I also have respect for myself," you approach her with some admiration.
...
As she admits with ringing laughter, "I'm talking too much about Salman, it's obnoxious really, but I can't help it because I'm in love!"

The Observer—Sunday August 8, 2004

"I would never have said that I'd be able to fancy him [Salman Rushdie], but he's very charismatic, he's got a great sense of humour, he's endearing, he's a real charmer, he's a good flirter, and he loves women.' The only thing she doesn't like about him is his beard. It plays havoc with her skin.
...
Food, Lakshmi believes, is the 'main socialisation of our times' - by which she means, I think, that it brings people together. But is it also the way to a man's heart? (Not that she must require much help in that department.) 'Oh, yes ,' she says. 'Get some green seedless grapes, take them off the stems and freeze them. They become like hard, little marbles. They're great to feed your lover in bed. You can imagine the rest. But use the green ones, not the red ones because the red ones stain the sheet. Just keep them in the fridge - you never know when a date is going to end up back at your place.'

British GQ, December 2004

Lakshmi hadn't read any other future husband's books and was so taken aback by Rushdie's knowledge that she mistook him for a family friend. So how did he win her over? "Any woman who has heard him speak for five minutes would just melt," she says. "He's very charismatic. I think he's very handsome, very beautiful and very sexy."

Whether the bespectacled gent at the shoot today could ever be described as "very sexy" has been debated in the press ever since the couple got together. The Sun, with a nod to Mrs Merton, headlined its Lakshmi profile "So, dear... what first attracted you to millionaire novelist Salman Rushdie?"

Scurrilous GQ correspondent Toby Young reported that Rushdie's friends had dubbed the model "Pashmina Lickme" and feared the union wouldn't last. Such was the press' appetite for rumours of the couple splitting up that Rushdie and Lakshmi had to issue a statement last year to counteract claims that she found him "boring" and that she wasn't "intellectually stimulating enough" for him.

Hollywood Life, September/October 2006

What is your favorite painting?
The Lovers, by Rene Magritte, which is at the Prado in Madrid, Spain. It's of two people kissing, but they have white cloth over their faces. It's eerie.

The London Sunday Times, April 2, 2006

“There’s nothing useful about being married to [Sir Salman Rushdie], though. I think it works against me. I do have it easy in that I can take business class instead of coach, but I would have that if I was married to anybody.”

“In fact, I’d have to be really dumb to think that being with a writer was going to help with an acting career. I live in America. They don't give a shit about that stuff.”

“Dude, sometimes I try to say I shouldn’t go to things [parties] with him [Sir Salman] but ... I'm fucked if I do and fucked if I don’t.”

So Sayeth Lady Rushdie: Padma Refuses to Take the Blame

Well, possums, it's early yet, but it seems as though this divorce has become, with apologies to Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, the war of neuroses. Yesterday, Sir Salman Rushdie struck the first blow, pointing the henna'd finger of blame at Lady Rushdie, via his publicist Jin Auh, who put it thus: "Salman Rushdie has agreed to divorce his wife, Padma Lakshmi, because of her desire to end their marriage."

Now Lady Rushdie reminds us, via her own publicist, Christina Papadopoulos, that when you point the henna'd finger of blame, there are three other henna'd fingers pointing back at you: Lady Rushdie "has agreed with her husband-author, Salman Rushdie, to end their marriage." (That "husband-author" business thrills our little CompLit-major soul to the core. It's as if Galatea had turned on Pygmalion, as if we were watching Ibsen's A Blow-up Doll's House.) "After an 8-year relationship including over three years of marriage, Lakshmi regrets that their mutual efforts failed to make the marriage work," the press release added.

Oh dear, Salman Rushdie truly did win the Book Her Prize with this one, didn't he?

Breaking News: Padma Lakshmi-Starring "My Fair Lady" Was a Limited, Two-Week Engagement Only; Sir Salman Rushdie Ground Beneath Her Feet

Possums, please forgive our primitive, Perez Hilton-level artistic abilities, but really, we're in shock. Having just this past Friday decided that no one could possibly give up an aristocratic title and the chance at transatlantic business-class airplane tickets, it turns out that Padma Lakshmi is that rare individual who can, indeed, forgo these luxuries.

And so, scarcely two weeks after becoming Lady Rushdie, Padma is divorcing her husband, or, as Miss XaXa put it, "Salman Rushdie is now divorced from reality...tv." In a statement released to Reuters, Sir Salman's spokesperson let on as how he "has agreed to divorce his wife, Padma Lakshmi, because of her desire to end their marriage." We guess that documentary must be done.

From ring finger to middle finger, just like that. Ouch!

Update: According to the ever-reliable Daily Mail (whose headline pun, "Satanic Divorcers," is not up to par), the "towering" Padma will still be able to keep the title of Lady Rushdie "unless she reverts to her maiden name or remarries. " A friend of Sir Salman's says that Sir Salman is "still very much in love" with Padma, but that she's just not into him, and describes the couple's relationship thus:

"He's totally self-centred. If you asked him about Wimbledon, 20 minutes later he would still be talking about himself. My impression of her is that she's very photogenic, but in the flesh, she's not sexy. She's incredibly dull. I have no idea how they existed on a day-to-day basis."

Apparently, they also have the most wonderful, loyal friends.

Lady Rushdie Makes a Knight of It with a Man Not Her Husband; Amuse-Biatch Is Rodgers & Hart-Broken As It Asks, Is the Lady a Tramp?

Possums, from what we’ve seen of Padma Lakshmi, it certainly seems clear that “she gets too hungry for dinner at eight” and wouldn't “bother with people she’d hate,” but that does that mean that, as Page Six is suggesting, Lady Rushdie is a tramp? As Sir Salman might have put it, the ground beneath our feet is shaky indeed. According to the New York Post:

“While [Sir Salman] Rushdie was being knighted by the Queen of England last week, [Padma] Lakshmi was spotted hanging out into the wee hours at the Rose Bar at the Gramercy Park Hotel with a well-known chef who was there without his spouse. ‘They seemed to be quite interested in what each other had to say,’ said a witness. ‘They were oblivious to the people around them.’ Sources say Lakshmi has also forged a friendship with an unidentified billionaire. A friend of the model said she and the chef ‘are just friends - and like any marriage, she and Salman have their ups and downs.’ A rep for Lakshmi declined to comment.”

Miss XaXa, ever the romantic, was duly horrified. “You mean that while Helen Mirren was touching Salman with a sword to make him a knight, Padma might have been involved with a different kind of sword?! Say it ain’t so!”

We reminded Miss XaXa that our own on-set source from last season had mentioned to us that Padma discussed divorcing Salman Rushdie as soon as a documentary on him was finished filming, and then there was the report in March about bearded lady Diane Von Furstenberg bemoaning the upcoming divorce as well.

“I don’t care,” said Miss XaXa. “Once your husband gets knighted, a woman says to herself, ‘Yes, Sir, that’s my baby.’”

Eager to stanch our bleeding sense of chivalry, we concurred, “An aristocratic title and the ability to fly business class—who would give those up?”

So Sayeth Lady Rushdie

Possums, it is once again time for "So Sayeth Lady Rushdie," our occasional feature highlighting the surprisingly wise pronouncements of that bikini'd Oracle of Delphi, Padma, Lady Rushdie. Without further ado, let Her Ladyship speak:

"Why do you need more books?"
The London Sunday Times, March 11, 2007

Answer given by Lady Rushdie, owner of 250 pairs of shoes, to a question by her husband, Sir Salman, about why she needed so many shoes.

"But I do have a weakness for mistletoe. I keep it up practically until Easter!"
YOU Magazine, December 19, 2004

















And speaking of keeping it up, our favorite quote of the week: "Very nice sausage," Lady Rushdie's reaction to Brian Malarkey's barbecue dish.

As Miss XaXa said, dangerously skirting stereotypes, "Chino Latino?!? Brian, honey, you should have called it the Dirk Diggler." And then, turning to us, "She loves the sausage and shoes?! My God, I've been all wrong about her."

(Straight male and lesbian readers of this blog, please feel free to thank us for the photo of the Tamil temptress.)

Bravo's Big Picture: The Birdcage

Except that, as Miss XaXa pointed out, with Tom Colicchio and Norman Van Aken in the picture, it ought to be called The Bear Cage.










"Well," we reminded Miss XaXa, "Lady Rushdie does seem to have a thing for bears."

Did somebody say bears?










"Forget The Bear Cage. With these two, bear pit is more like it."

"Well, Bravo's Big Picture has been The Untouchables of late. Maybe we ought to call these two The Unbearables."

"Considering that tonight's the hot tub episode," said Miss XaXa, "I sure hope they're called the Unbare-ables. There are some things I just don't need to see, and floating manboobs are on that list."

"You don't have to worry," we reassured Miss XaXa. "It looks like Casey's bazooms are the ones doing all the floating."

And then, being constitutionally incapable of leaving well enough alone, we went a pun too far. "With Sandee, and Padma, and Tom and Joey and Howie, couldn't we call this episode, Lesbian and Tamil and Bears, Oh My?"

Miss XaXa did not deign to respond.

Under Lady Rushdie's Umbrella-Ella-Ella-Eh-Eh-Eh

Possums, as you head off for the first full weekend of summer, which may involve rain for some of you, we thought we would offer this little tidbit about Lady Rushdie, since our Padma Lakshmi Weekly Fashion Review feature seems to have been made obsolete by the fact of an actual wardrobe budget this season.

Lesley Abravanel, the nightlife columnist for the Miami Herald, was one of the guests at the "upscale barbecue" featured in this week's episode, and she had this to report:

"I just remembered something else: Padma must be a total diva because she had someone following her with an umbrella until it was time to film. I didnt see an umbrella over Gail! "

The thing is, this rather makes us like Padma more. That's the spirit, Milady!

So Sayeth Lady Rushdie

Possums, to celebrate our hostess’s ascension from mere Padma Lakshmi, 28th Most Beautiful Lady in the World, to Padma, Lady Rushdie, we are inaugurating an occasional feature, “So Sayeth Lady Rushdie,” to share with you a few of the memorable pearls of wisdom fallen from Her Ladyship’s rather fetching mouth (and which we found on Her Ladyship’s website).

Without further ado, dixit Padma:

“There’s nothing useful about being married to [Sir Salman Rushdie], though. I think it works against me. I do have it easy in that I can take business class instead of coach, but I would have that if I was married to anybody.”

“In fact, I’d have to be really dumb to think that being with a writer was going to help with an acting career. I live in America. They don't give a shit about that stuff.”

“Dude, sometimes I try to say I shouldn’t go to things [parties] with him [Sir Salman] but ... I'm fucked if I do and fucked if I don’t.”

--The London Sunday Times, April 2, 2006

Breaking News: 28th Most Beautiful Lady in the World Officially Earns the “Lady” Part of Her Title

Possums, we have received word from across the pond that, in the immortal words of Tom Jones, “she’s a lady, whoa, whoa, whoa, she’s a lady.”

Yes, indeed. With the announcement that Salman Rushdie has received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II as part of the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, Padma Lakshmi, as the wife of Sir Salman Rushdie, may now henceforth be called Lady Rushdie.

Unfortunately for our Padma, at least according to Wikipedia, she, as the wife of a knight, is “officially styled Lady [Rushdie] as a courtesy title only.” This is of little importance, of course, for, as Padma’s own website reminded us last year, “Padma is the 28th most beautiful lady in the world! That is, according to England-based Harpers and Queen.”

And that’s no courtesy title. Congratulations, Lady Rushdie.

However, do be careful, possums, when addressing her. As she told Esquire in 2006 for the “10 Things You Don’t Know About Women” feature, “We don’t think it’s cute to be referred to as ‘the little lady.’”