Padma Lakshmi is a total dreamboat. The 42-year old Emmy-winning host of Top Chef is five feet nine inches of flavor-savvy Indian-American hotness. Padma started modeling when she was 18 and she reached the top of the high fashion world. Padma has appeared on numerous magazine covers, and she followed that up with successful stints as a TV host, actress and author. And oh yea, she can cook like there’s no tomorrow.

Padma speaks five languages, so you know she has a super stash of hidden recipe gems that she can pull from cookbooks you can’t even read. When an attractive woman can cook, that’s pretty damn sexy, but when you combine peak levels of gorgeous with an ultra-gourmet set of skills, the result is something way past sexy. It’s almost criminal, really.

Padma is working with Nespresso to promote a new single-serve espresso machine. She gave us a demonstration and shared a new recipe with us, the Padma Lakshmi Cardamom Cappuccino. We also chatted about top chef, meat preparation tips and guilty food pleasures. Here’s the interview:

And if you want to try out the recipe, here’s are the details:

Padma Lakshmi Cardamom Cappuccino

Ingredients

  • 1 capsule of Indriya of India
  • ½ cup milk of your choice
  • ½ tsp of brown sugar in the raw
  • ¼ tsp of powdered green cardamom
  • Pinch of crushed raw unsalted almonds
  • Grind of nutmeg

Recipe Steps

  1. Pour the Indriya of India Grand Cru into a cappuccino cup
  2. Mix the milk of your choice with the brown sugar in the raw and powdered green cardamom and froth the milk using the Aeroccino milk frother
  3. Fill the cappuccino cup with the prepared frothed milk over the Espresso
  4. Top with the crushed raw unsalted almonds, a grind of nutmeg and a pinch of cardamom