She's incredibly beautiful, totally accomplished, and brings an extra kind of hotness every week on Bravo's "Top Chef". Have you met Padma Lakshmi?

Alright, I admit, she's one of the main reasons why I watch "Top Chef". All shows should have hosts this gorgeous. But she's not just there for eye-candy. Not only is she a chef, but she's also a supermodel, actress (both in Hollywood AND Bollywood), Food Network personality, fashion icon, award-winning author and UN ambassador.

She already has two cookbooks to her credit: Easy Exotic- which covered her experiments on delicious low-fat recipes, and Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet- a collection of international recipes that are easy to prepare, yet elegant and memorable.

Other Interesting Things You Might Want To Know About Padma

• That scar on her right arm? She got it from an accident when she was 14. According to Wikipedia:
  

  The accident happened on a Sunday afternoon on her way back with her parents from a Hindu temple in Malibu. She remembers a loud bang, looking out the windshield and realized the family's red Mecury Sedan was airborne. Padma describes the event in the Vogue-April 2001 edition as "Flying in a car felt like an exhilarating hallucination, an unbelievable ride that oddly remains one of the most beautiful images in my memory." The car flew 40 feet down an embankment directly into a tree. The tree trunk fell directly on top of the car. She remained conscious, covered in glass, for the 40 minutes it took for the paramedics and firefighters to get through the traffic. They used the "jaws of life" to extract the family from the crumpled car. A helicopter landed in the middle of the highway to air lift her parents away while an ambulance carried Padma to the hospital. Fortunately, everyone survived. Her injuries included a fractured right hip and a shattered upper right arm which resulted in her famous 7" scar.

• Padma is of Indian-American descent. She was born in India (on 01 September 1970), but spent most of her teenage life in the United States.
• Padma Lakshmi was once married to Salman Rushdie. They divorced on July 2007, just a little after three years of marriage.
• She was named number 66 on AskMen.com's "The Top Most Desirable Women of 2008" list. Personally, I think she really could've ranked higher.
• "Top Chef" isn't her first TV show. She also hosted The Food Network's "Melting Pot: Padma's Passport", and the Discovery Channel's "Planet Food".