From famous celebrity TV host Padma Lakshmi to the world’s youngest sommelier Alpana Singh, a successful panel of Desi women were the flavor of the night this past Tuesday at the prestigious literary and political Newspaper The Economist's event at NYC’s Vermillion restaurant. Vermillion hosted the event titled “Unconventional Leading Indian Women In the Culinary World Tonight” and DesiHits! was of course there to check out what these culinary divas had to say!

The panel also included Rohini Dey the woman who left her successful career at Mckinsey & Co. and The World Bank to open up Vermillion, a restaurant that puts together the spices from Latin and Indian cusines. The head chef of the restaurant, Maneet Chauhan, was also a panelist. All of the women spoke about their career paths and what led them to their successful ventures! They also shared their expertise within their culinary profession.

It turns out that Padma Lakshmi’s love for Desi food forced her to create healthy versions of her favorite dishes to maintain her hot bod for her modeling career: "Taking out the crèmes in certain dishes and even substituting butter with non fat yogurt on my baked potato made such a difference," she said.

Padma Lakshmi got her recipes published in a book and seven years later the food guide was still doing well! This opened doors for a hosting career at America’s Food Network, which eventually got her the gig as a host on the popular show "Top Chef." Lakshmi answered all questions, even the ones off topic on her baby’s name! All Lakshmi said was that the baby will have a traditional Sanskrit name. Lakshmi was very happy to be at the event and she told DesiHits.com: "How incredibly forward thinking of The Economist to do such a panel and to have the forethought to know that the room would be jam packed."

It was surprising to hear how Rohini Dey left her stable career at the World Bank to start a restaurant. Rohini said she loved her job but she decided to take a risk and she knew that Latin and Indian spices would work well together! And with her talented head chef Maneet Chauhan, who graduated from the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, Rohini opened up Vermillion restaurant that now has locations in Chicago and New York.

We enjoyed a five-course meal prepared by Maneet Chauhan and her team while listing to the stories of these intriguing women. Chauhan told us about each dish in the menu which included butternut squash soup with cilantro coriander oil and marinated langoustines over Indian flattened rice, "Poha," and Paella.

The guests enjoyed these Latin and Desi flavors as they listened to the star-studded panel. When asked about what their parents thought of their careers Singh said: "My parents thought that sommelier was a medical specialty." The crowd roared with laughter as Singh continued to talk about her career and even gave some tips about wines that go well with Indian foods!

A night for true food lovers!