Padma Lakshmi has put dating on the back burner while raising her teenage daughter and continuing to foster her culinary career. "It's really difficult to navigate, you know, being a single mom and being lucky enough to have the full career that I do and also dating," Lakshmi, 55, exclusively told Us Weekly while promoting America's Culinary Cup. "I think dating at my age is precarious." The America's Culinary Cup host and executive producer confessed she's "much more guarded" about letting someone new into her world now that she's older.