Long before Padma Lakshmi ever stepped onto a television set, she learned that how people eat is an extension of how they love, how they comfort, how they forge a sense of home, and how they taste the world as they navigate their way through it. Shuttling between continents as a child, she lived a life of dislocation that would become habit as an adult, never quite at home in the world. And yet, through all her travels, her favorite food remained the simple rice she first ate sitting on the cool floor of her grandmother's kitchen in South India. This is the extraordinary account of her journey from that humble kitchen, ruled by ferocious and unforgettable women, to the judges' table of Top Chef and beyond.