Reading Padma Lakshmi’s list of job titles nearly requires one of those comically long, never-ending cartoon scrolls. During her long and illustrious career, Lakshmi has been a television host, model, author, entrepreneur, and activist. And despite being a fixture of Top Chef for 19 seasons, she does not consider herself an actual chef, let alone a famous one. “I’m not a chef and I’m barely a celebrity,” Lakshmi tells me on a late-February video call.

She is, however, back in the food television game. The first episode of her latest venture, America’s Culinary Cup, airs on Wednesday night on CBS at 9:30 P.M. As per usual, Lakshmi’s role is multihyphenate. In addition to hosting the show—which pits celebrated chefs from across America against each other in kitchen-based competition—she’s also the creator and producer. Though she might not consider herself a professional cook, Lakshmi definitely knows what she’s doing in the kitchen, both when preparing the actual meal, and when inviting friends and family over to enjoy it.

We spoke with Lakshmi last month to learn more about how she operates in the kitchen, plans a dinner party, and acclimates to a new city.

Start the morning with an elixir

Padma Lakshmi: “I drink an elixir every morning that we make here at home. The recipe that we use is one whole lemon, one whole orange, a one-inch knob of ginger, a one-inch knob of turmeric root, fresh, both of those. Actually, it’s a rhizome. Anyway…black pepper. I think those are the five things we put in it. Oh yeah, honey! We have a beehive here at the house. We blend all those things up and they’re kept in the fridge. The first thing I do is I drink a shot of that every morning.

“Then I also drink a very unpalatable hooch along with that, which is made of collagen powder and a dried herb called bhringaraj, which is an Ayurvedic herb used to fortify your hair, nails, skin, and joints. We mix those two up, and if I’m going to the gym that day, then I add some creatine powder to that. I usually don’t breathe and just drink that whole thing. It’s about eight ounces. Bhringaraj I knew about because of my heritage. I’m Indian, so I was aware of it, but I didn’t start taking it until a few years ago. I just felt I needed a little bit of support.

“As the decades wear on, I found that my self-care has increased. In my 20s, I would eat a deep-fried beef and cheese burrito, have a Coca-Cola, and go to sleep right away. Now I wash my makeup off before I go to sleep and I get up and I do these things, just as a measure to preserve my health and wellbeing. I found that the repetition of it is also good mentally. It adds structure to my life, because my professional life is quite unstructured and unpredictable. These little rituals are important for me. I feel like, OK, at least I’m doing something. But the elixir of citrus, turmeric, et cetera, that was just because I was getting little colds here and there. I have a teenager who lives with me, who brings in all kinds of germs from school. So I just started drinking that and, touch wood, I have not been ill in the winters. Now I love the taste of the elixir. The other one, it looks like swamp water and it tastes like bong water. My bong water used to really actually smell good. I would add rose water, or orange blossom water, with an ice cube to my bong water.”

Tailor your dinner party to the people you’re hosting

“If the people are known to me, I try to remember what they liked [the] first [time] they came to my home. I will make that for them. Ask what people’s dietary restrictions are. There’s nothing worse than making a big spread and someone tells you they’re on a cleanse. That’s happened to me. It’s horrible.