It was a hard decision to give up a normal job. I worked hard to get through school. You go from building a fire station to an eating contest.

I can't tell you all my secrets to how I can eat so many. Someone out there might copy it. But I will tell you this: The night before the competition, I sleep only four hours. That means when I actually do eat, my stomach will want to digest the food quicker.

Winning tastes pretty good.

Maybe in America there's more of an emphasis on food than there should be. But when I look out at the audience during a competition, some people are shocked, but most people are smiling.

Nobody knows better than I do what the pressures of party leadership can do to a young family. It tore mine apart.

It's really hard juggling, trying to carve out a time to have a family and be a mom and have a career, especially a creative career.

I'm a different person who's not my father or my mother. I want to be treated differently from them. I am myself, Twinkle Khanna. I am proud of being the daughter of such illustrious parents, but I would not like to be compared with them time and again.

I grew up in a Southside suburb of Chicago. It was idyllic. But I was plunked into a family that was not artistic and didn't know how to deal with my emotions.