It is not long after Lakshmi’s 38th birthday. “I’m probably one of the few models or actresses who will just tell you my age. I feel good. I really like the way I look,” she says while snacking on the almonds, olives, and dried plums she’s laid out in the living room of the modest East Village apartment she moved into after her marriage with literary giant Salman Rushdie ended in the summer of 2007.

The living room’s focal point is undoubtedly the swing. A businessman friend had it made for her after she searched, without luck, for one on Craigslist and eBay.

Lakshmi jumps out of her chair to demonstrate. “You really swing!” she squeals, her slippers dropping to the floor as she glides from her kitchen counter to her green velvet couch.

Though Pamela Anderson cavorted in the nude on the swing in her living room while hubby Tommy Lee played the piano, Lakshmi claims hers isn’t so naughty. “I thought it would be really romantic thing to have,” she muses, “If I can’t sleep, I come out here and swing in the dark.”

The swing contributes to Lakshmi’s idea of a little bohemia. Her life downtown is very different from when she was attached, for just over three years, to Rushdie.

When asked if she misses married life, she thinks for a moment and answers resoundingly, “No”.