Padma Lakshmi said daughter Krishna is `eating and talking

Any number of television's competition shows seem to take special — perhaps sadistic — pleasure in dispatching their also-rans to reality's netherworlds. "The Apprentice" sends the defeated off with "You're fired!," the vanquished in "Survivor" have their torches snuffed out and the unlucky in love on "The Bachelor" are left without a single red rose.

"Top Chef" has its own exit strategy — "Please pack your knives and go," host Padma Lakshmi gently tells the culinary castoffs — but like the small group of reality shows that celebrate artistry more than delight in failure, the cooking series succeeds best when its contestants excel at the task at hand. Tellingly, the single episode from "Top Chef All-Stars" that the show's producers submitted for this year's Emmy Award concluded with an exceptional twist — not a single chef was sent home.

Speaking about her daughter, she said to OK! magazine: 'She's great. She's growing, she's eating and talking up a storm.'

Asked about her milestones, she added: 'Just the usual. She's a really good eater, which I'm really happy about. She likes black-eyed peas and kale. Just the normal stuff.

"Top Chef" has done well enough in the ratings and in popular culture that it has spun off in numerous directions: There's "Top Chef: Just Desserts" and "Top Chef: Masters," a planned "Top Chef Juniors," several "Top Chef" cookbooks, a board game, knife sets and aprons.

In the recently concluded eighth season of "Top Chef," the show for the first time created an all-star hybrid. It's a realm that lies halfway between the regular competition, largely populated with up-and-coming chefs (some of whom can scarcely fillet a fish), and its spinoff "Top Chef Masters," which features established luminaries operating at the highest end of cooking.

By picking only highly placed runners-up from its earlier seasons, the makers of "Top Chef All-Stars" risked creating something that was neither fish nor fowl: There might be no epic flameouts, as is the case in the regular "Top Chef," nor the kind of eye-popping virtuosity that's a staple of "Top Chef All-Stars.