Padma Lakshmi Covers Page Six

Gorgeous mom-to-be Padma Lakshmi strikes a sultry pose on the cover of the new issue of Page Six magazine. The 39-year-old Top Chef host, who is expecting her first child, talks fame and food in the interview, and reveals why she doesn't mind the baby weight.

On her philosophy on looking good: “You can eat and work out, or you can be the person who only eats a cucumber every day. I’d get really irritable if all I ate was a cucumber, so I have to work hard.”

On her pregnancy weight gain: “One of the reasons I think I’ve gained weight pretty quickly during my pregnancy is that I’m not exercising as much as I do normally...I can’t. I’m feeling tired, and I have this business to run. You hope that with age, what you pay for in gravity, you gain in gravitas. I’m sure my thighs looked better when I was 25, but I think my mind is better today.”

On why fame is really cool: “I went to a bar mitzvah on the Upper East Side last year, and not to toot my own horn, but I might as well have been Michael Jackson to these 13-year-old boys and girls. There were something like 30 children around me, and they were all practically hyperventilating. I had this swarm of little kids going, ‘Oh, my god! Oh, my god!’ Kids are so authentic, so pure, and they’d be telling me, ‘My sister and I had an amuse-bouche contest, and we need you to tell us who should have won.’ I think that’s really cool.”

On her divorce - her ex is writer Salman Rushdie - and career goals: “I [have been] reconstructing my life and putting it back together in a way that looked more appropriate to who I was. At this point in my career, I’m still growing. Jewels, spices and teas - I sound like Magellan.”