Episode 378: Padma Lakshmi

Our guest this week is Padma Lakshmi, host of TV's reality show, "Top Chef." Her famous line is "please pack your knives and go." Padma packed her knives, cooked her way around the world, then came home to write her new book Tangy Tart Hot Sweet: A World of Recipes for Every Day. Her food, including Two Hens Laughing, is some of the most alluring to come along in some time.

Great smoked fish lured Jane and Michael Stern to Duluth, Minnesota (in the winter, no less) and the Northern Waters Smokehaus. Also in Duluth, the Damiano Center is feeding hundreds of folks every day with perfectly good food that stores, restaurants and farmers throw away. It's the kind of good-news story we love.

Zoe Francois and Jeff Hertzberg stop by to tell us how we can make our own artisan bread in five minutes a day (no kidding). Five-Minute Artisan Bread is from their book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery that Revolutionizes Home Baking.

Christopher Kimball of Cook's Illustrated fame is back for another round of Stump the Cook, and David Wallechinsky, author of The New Book of Lists, reveals the one he claims isn't yet complete.

Broadcast dates for this episode:

• December 15, 2007 (originally aired)

• December 27, 2008 (rebroadcast)