There’s an episode of 30 Rock in which comedy writer Liz Lemon (Tina Fey) decides to play hardball when negotiating a talk show development deal with her mentor, Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin). Jack fires back by threatening to launch the show with Padma Lakshmi instead, to which Liz replies, enraged: “THEN WHO’S GONNA HOST TOP CHEF?!”

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This voice was ringing in my head last June, when Lakshmi announced that she would be stepping down after 19 seasons as the host of the cooking competition. Though Lakshmi was not Top Chef’s original host (that would be Katie Lee), she’s been the face of the show for longer than most fans have been watching, along with regular judges Tom Colicchio and Gail Simmons. It was hard to imagine the show going on without her. And yet, it barely took 20 minutes of the new season to put my inner Liz Lemon at ease. Season 21 picks up without missing a beat as Season 10 winner and frequent guest judge Kristen Kish steps into Padma’s role with a veteran’s confidence.

This would’ve come as quite a surprise to the 28-year-old Kristen Kish who debuted on the show in 2012.

“I never wanted to go on Top Chef,” Kish told me via a Zoom interview last........

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