Padma's Leggy Product Placement

by Sara Bonisteel, Posted Mar 26th 2009 @ 5:30PM

Nothing comes between Padma Lakshmi and her bacon.

The "Top Chef" host's commercial for the Western Bacon Thickburger at Carl's Jr. and Hardee's is something out of a bad soft-core food porn movie. The first part of the spot is innocent enough as Lakshmi -- identified as an "author/culinary expert" -- breezily drifts through a farmer's market carrying a plastic bag filled with veggies.

It's when she hits what looks like a New York City stoop, hikes up her skirt and pulls out her fast-food feed bag that things turn nasty (and so henceforth we'll call her Ms. Lakshmi).

In voice-over, Ms. Lakshmi describes her teen adventures sneaking out to scarf down a Western Bacon before dinner as we consumers of pop culture see spicy sauce dripping all over her hand and her leg. Fear not for her pumps! Ms. Lakshmi's just keeping the sauce there for later -- finger-lickin' later.

"It's a beautiful love song to food," Ms. Lakshmi says in a press release ... if your idea of a beautiful love song to food is Warrant's "Cherry Pie."

(The Slashfoodie in us couldn't get beyond the suspension of disbelief. If Ms. Lakshmi's supposed to be in New York, where DID she get that Western Bacon? The closest Hardee's is 60 miles away in Shirley, N.Y. That's what we'd call a winning Quickfire challenge.)

[Via Grub Street]

Filed Under: Food Porn, On the Blogs, Feast Your Eyes, News, Features
Tags: food porn, FoodPorn, padma lakshmi, PadmaLakshmi

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

3-26-2009 @10:19PM Laughingrat said... Ah, misogyny. Is there anything it can't sell?
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3-27-2009 @2:06AM Bernie B said... Classier than the ad Paris Hilton did with them. Maybe?
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3-27-2009 @11:49AM T. Butler said... Mmmm, factory pork. When pigs stand in the own pee and poo all day, you can taste it. Yeccccch, Padma.
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3-27-2009 @12:20PM Barry said... What a klassy move...
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3-27-2009 @6:01PM Ren said... Only 900 calories & 2040mg of sodium. What, no diet Coke with that?

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3-28-2009 @5:00AM doodahgald said... Carl's Jr. ..... porn goes mainstream. Is there ANY woman who won't slut it up for $$$ ?? revolting, deplorable, and NOT what women should strive for. We've come a long way, baby.........right into the gutter.
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3-27-2009 @7:25PM disbelief said... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padma_Lakshmi

She was brought up vegetarian, well documented, when exactly did she "sneak out for... " when by her own words she is "on occasion squeamish" eating "foods from other cultures"?

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3-28-2009 @1:58AM JudgeJudy said... Bacon for the Muslims. Beef for the Hindus. And a big hunk of meat for just about everyone else. Think she has any issues about the peoples of her homeland?
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