Padma Lakshmi: My Favorite Chili Recipes

Padma Lakshmi brought the food and the inside dish to the Today Show on Tuesday.

When the Top Chef host stopped by the show, she offered up not one, but three, chili recipes for fans to try out this fall. Oh, yeah, she also opened up a bit about the new season of Top Chef, kicking off Wednesday.

This season, Padma and her team headed to Boston, including stops at Fenway Park and Plymouth. "Yes, I love Boston. I went to college in Massachusetts," she said. "And so much of our country's history begins there."

She also revealed that the show has broadened her fan base: to teens. "It's funny. One time I went to a Bar Mitzvah [and the kids came up to me] like I was Justin Bieber or something," she recalled.

Back to the food. Padma's three recipes included turkey chili, white chili and Rajma (aka vegetarian chili). "The weather's gonna get cold; there's football," she said of home chefs hitting the kitchen to cook up chili this season. (Watch a clip below.)

The fun didn't end there. In addition to cooking, Padma also modeled a pair of geometric platform heels. However, you probably won't see her cooking in them anytime soon. "I mean I just would never wear these ever," she shared. "It is nice for the shape. It gives you a shapelier silhouette."

Previously, Top Chef judge Gail Simmons revealed what makes this season different from the previous one, which took place in New Orleans.

"Almost everyone in the city of Boston, I think, was really happy to have [Top Chef] there, and we were really excited to give the show a new look and feel," she told the Boston Globe about the show's 12th season. "We went from New Orleans last year, where everything was Cajun and super-Southern, to New England, which couldnít be more different. It just gave us a whole new set of ingredients to work with. We had a lot of fun there."

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[Sources: Today Show]