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Padma Lakshmi Turned a Mixed-Berry Pie Into a Call to Action

The viral dessert was just the latest way the Top Chef host—who is a voice for immigrants, women, and sexual assault survivors—has spoken truth to power.
Padma Lakshmi
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It was the Fourth of July and Padma Lakshmi wasn’t feeling particularly patriotic. Lakshmi, 49, doesn’t bake often, but on the holiday she traditionally makes a dessert for her daughter, Krishna. So she decided to get creative. She whipped up a mixed-berry pie and used the crust to spell out a simple yet powerful message: “Close the Camps.” She captured a photo of her American-flag-inspired confection and posted it on Instagram with the caption, “While we celebrate the Fourth, there are refugee families legally seeking asylum in this country being detained and forced to sleep on concrete floors with aluminum blankets and no medical care. This is a stain on our nation and we need to do something now. Contact your representatives tomorrow to demand they #CloseTheCamps.”

The Top Chef host’s pie went viral. Celebrities like Busy Philipps and Amy Schumer shared it on their own pages, and fans everywhere baked their own subversively star-spangled desserts in homage.

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Lakshmi was born in Delhi and grew up between India and New York before settling in California—a journey that has shaped her activism. “I was separated from my mother because she immigrated to this country and I stayed back with my grandparents, so this is something that’s very close to my heart,” Lakshmi tells Glamour. “In my case, it was done in the most gentle, loving, caring manner. I was left in the bosom of my extended family who took care of me. And I still suffered trauma because of that. Because in those developmental years, from age two to four, to not see either of your parents, it’s really, really damaging.”

With the renewed restrictions on immigration in the U.S. under the Trump administration, Lakshmi felt compelled to take a stand. She got involved with the ACLU, and then it occurred to her that the medium she was best suited to use to create change was food. At first she considered another cookbook. But then Hulu reached out and Lakshmi signed a deal with their upcoming kitchen vertical to create a show all about the cuisine of immigrant communities. (It will also be Lakshmi’s first solo series.)

“The Hulu show came about because I’ve always felt strongly that the kind of food that is produced by immigrants is the most interesting and delicious. And after the election I started getting really incensed about what was happening with the Muslim ban and family separation,” she says. “[I’m using] food in a way to explain what this country really looks like. Who are Americans today, and who are the new Americans shaping [culture] today?”

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These are questions that Lakshmi has tried to answer throughout her career. On any given day you can find her throwing a comedy show to benefit abortion access, protesting alongside McDonald’s workers calling for sexual harassment reform at the fast-food chain, or baking a pie that packs a punch.

“She is 100% about supporting women, and she’s been doing it since before everyone woke up to that,” says her close friend and Cherry Bombe cofounder, Kerry Diamond. “I remember seeing her on CNN years ago on a segment about a terrible gang rape in India, and she was speaking out on behalf of women then, on a subject that a lot of celebrities wouldn’t go near. The same with her work on behalf of endometriosis sufferers. She’s never been afraid to tackle painful subjects. I think it’s because she faced so much growing up. It’s almost like she’s speaking up for the young Padmas out there.”

Last fall Lakshmi opened up about another painful hardship from her adolescence. In an essay for the New York Times she wrote that she was raped at 16 by her 23-year-old boyfriend. Lakshmi was inspired to come forward after Christine Blasey Ford began speaking out about her alleged assault at the hands of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “I was in college when the Anita Hill hearings were going on, and I couldn’t believe that 30 years later I was sitting watching TV again, and it was happening all over. I just bit the bullet and decided I was going to write this thing, not knowing the effect that it would have on me personally, because I hadn’t really dealt with that,” she says. “I hadn’t told anybody. I had just buried it so deep down and like millions of other women and many men and boys it’s happened to. So it was cathartic.” Cathartic, but also really painful. Both mentally and physically. “Eventually it was great, but those first couple of weeks, I was kind of shaking and I would weep at weird times. But it was also very moving because women would come up to me and say that it had really helped them, or that somebody in their life had written to them because they felt guilty reading that piece. That they had forced themselves on them, things like that,” she says.

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The heaviness is real, but so is the sense of purpose she gets from using her own voice to lift up the voices of others. When Indian-ish author Priya Krishna first met Lakshmi, the food star was twerking in her living room. “It was when twerking was just becoming a thing. Padma was like, ‘Do you know how to twerk?’ And then she just did it,” Krishna recalls. “I’d just gotten my first job in food and was figuring out how to navigate this world, especially as a South Asian woman. She just scooped me up and took me on as a mentee. We would go to the temple every Diwali and celebrate together. Throughout my career she’s given me opportunities and been a cheerleader this whole time. She’s someone who doesn’t just talk the talk about helping other women and helping other women of color. She actually is out there doing it and actively seeking younger women of color, who she can help to push forward.”

Because as Lakshmi puts it, “Change always comes slower than you think it’s going to. If we want to do something about inequality, we have to do something active and concrete in our daily lives. Mentoring is my way of accelerating change and equality for the next generation of women of color in food, media, and publishing.”

This year has made one thing clear: Women are showing up, stepping up, and taking what they deserve. From politics to pop culture, women aren’t just leveling the playing field—they’re owning it. As we ramp up to our annual Women of the Year summit, we will be highlighting women across industries who do the work every day. Whether it’s the CEO of a multinational retail corporation, a James Beard Award–winning chef, or the World Cup champions, here are the women you need to know right now. So far Glamour has celebrated women in sports, beauty, and style. Up now: 12 women who have made the food world more equitable, more ambitious, and so much more delicious. From an MIT-trained flavor scientist to a chef who’s created a new canon in Southern cuisine, these women have expanded our minds and our palates. Mmm. Dig in.