Book 2 Post 2

Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir 

For the second book of this semester, I decided to choose Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir by Padma Lakshmi. I was fascinated by the summary as it traces through the life of Lakshmi and her love for food. When I first picked this book, I had no idea what a food memoir was. Therefore, it was fun to read how food can serve as a fundamental element in shaping Padma Lakshmi's philosophies in life.

In the memoir, Padma Lakshmi walks us through her journey as it changed from an unlikely path of an immigrant childhood to a complicated life behind the camera. Before Lakshmi started her career in entertainment, she learned that what we eat is an extension of how we love, comfort, and navigate through life. Regardless of the locations, Lakshmi's favorite food remained the simple rice she ate from her grandma's kitchen. Growing up as an immigrant and a minority, Lakshmi often struggles with identity issues. The book centers around a reoccurring theme of being an outcast and the inability to fit in. Lakshmi discusses the hardship she faced being an American Indian and how cooking serves as a coping mechanism to mask her insecurities. 

I would highly recommend Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir. Being an immigrant and someone who enjoys food, I love how Lakshmi uses her passion for food to tackle some of the societal taboos and standards. In Chapter 1, Lakshmi began with her book with her divorce from her now ex-husband, Salman. I was surprised by how honest and sincere Lakshmi was to her readers. Walking away from a marriage is never easy, and for Lakshmi to begin the book with something so intimate and personal, it shed light on her bold personality. Lakshmi went on reassuring her readers that it is okay to feel lost or confused. That is just part of life. Lakshmi concludes her memoir with her philosophies of life, telling her readers to embrace uniqueness, cherish our roots, and appreciate life with a small bite of food.