Nigella dreams of cooking for Charles Dickens
If you think you’re a klutz in the kitchen, think again. The Domestic Goddess Nigella Lawson thinks cooking is not just for the few. In her latest show Nigella Express, which premieres on March 7,
In a phone interview with media from
“There’s nothing which made me feel that cooking is only for the few,” she says. “In terms of ability, I don’t think it’s some great art that only the gifted can accomplish. I think we all want to eat and the human race would have fallen out of the evolutionary loop a long time ago if you needed to be an expert in order to be able to cook. I think everyone can cook. And I think the key is to have recipes that are simple and that encourage the beginner and don’t intimidate.”
In some episodes of Nigella Express, Lawson reaches out for a number of Asian condiments, such as wasabi and Thai green curry paste, for her recipes. While she puts down comments that it is to give her cooking a global flavor, she says it is more out of necessity.
“It’s probably a reflection of the fact that those sorts of ingredients are now widely available in supermarkets where I come from. Therefore, when I think of them, I don’t think I’m giving too much work to my regular domestic viewers or readers. I also think that because I was concentrating on food that was fast to prepare, I needed ingredients that had a quick and punchy delivery. And a lot of those ingredients have that. So, in a way, my impulse, if you like, is always concentrated or directed towards the taste and the food. I’m not a very strategic cook. I am an impulsive and greedy cook.”
While the new show is no different from her previous shows, she admits that the focus now is on food that is quick to get from the stove to the table. “In Nigella Express, I have absolutely concentrated on food that has very few processes, very few steps, and is simple, direct and speedy,” she adds.
She adds, though, that she is not an enemy of slow cooking. In some of her books and shows, she has recipes that take many days of procedures, too.
“I’m not an enemy of slow cooking, but I certainly don’t have the time to cook any recipe which actually needs three hours of constant work and chopping and whisking and so forth. I’ve got too many things to get done. In that sense, I’ve got a lot in common with my viewers, because I have a job and I have children and I love cooking, but I can’t just say, “Oh, I’m going to spend all afternoon on this one dish.”
Yes, Nigella does have dream dinners, and the person she most wants to cook for is Dickens — “I think I’d rather love to cook for Charles Dickens and then have him write about it afterwards. That would be fantastic to see one’s meal enshrined in a page of Dickens.”
Don’t you agree?
