In what reads like a parody of a celebrity endorsement but is apparently completely serious, former Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi has enthusiastically thrown her support behind Kamala Harris, claiming that the Vice President’s skills as an amateur cook prove she could be a “great” president.
Padma Lakshmi ladled on a thick layer of identity politics with a sprinkling of aromatic wishful thinking in a New York Times op-ed published Saturday. Tellingly, her article makes no reference at all to the soaring cost of groceries — certainly a top-of-mind concern for any home cook, and one that voters are thinking about a lot heading into November.
Instead, Lakshmi spins a warm-fuzzy metaphor of Kamala Harris as nourisher-in-chief, then stretches the metaphor to its breaking point.
“The way she talks about food, and access to food, is also a way of opening doors and building consensus about who Americans are,” she wrote, noting that the vice president’s skills in the kitchen will translate to the Oval Office.
“Cooking well requires organization, attention to detail, patience — and the impulse to bring people together. In a divided country, these qualities can help Ms. Harris be a good, even a great, president.”
Lakshmi wrote: “In cooking, Ms. Harris displays the very qualities this country sorely needs — her care, and her ability to tell a new kind of story about what it means to be American.” She added: “I want a president who is intent on nurturing and nourishing all Americans.”
Lakshmi’s Times op-ed represents the latest effort by celebrities to define Harris as a “likeable” candidate, with Democrat elites and their media allies shielding her from substantive challenges about record-high consumer prices and unprecedented levels of illegal immigration under her watch.
Her op-ed makes not a single reference to the soaring cost of groceries, with food inflation continuing to hammer tens of millions of American households. Under the Biden-Harris administration, the cost of groceries has surged by more than 21 percent — the worst in nearly 50 years.
A recent Financial Times poll found that 78 percent of voters said food inflation is a major drag on their financial situation.
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at
