Nigella Lawson pushes the rulebook further away as she approaches 25 years as the world’s most celebrated female gourmand. At the heart of this rebellion is hope for change. It may be very gentle; it can happen without condition. Knowing the iconic writer and television cook, it will almost certainly come accompanied by a simmering, sultriness that enriches every recipe. Yet, regardless, a revolution nonetheless may well be on its way, she hopes.
It all begins with what the 60-year-old deems is a greater awareness of the power, emotion, sentimentality, and community of cuisine than we’ve perhaps experienced in a generation. The problem is, while the sexiness, romance, and resplendence of food is something we contemplate often, we don’t follow through and celebrate the magic anywhere near enough.
While her life on camera and in print form flourishes, away from the sanctuary of the kitchen, the past decade hasn’t been incredibly kind. Having worked through the pain of losing her mother, sister, and husband – the year 2021 marked the 20th anniversary of John’s death – she, in 2013, saw the end of her marriage to Charles Saatchi, while more recently, a high-profile court case brought into the spotlight a far greater reveal of her private life than the food connoisseur would have wanted.
“Setbacks come to all of us,” she reflects, “and I’ve always been of the mind that they should serve to help you appreciate what you have; rather than what you’ve lost or what you crave.”
From her first book, How to Eat: Pleasures and Principles of Good Food in 1998, there was something so unapologetically confident and blunt, and a further 13 have solidified Nigella’s position and confidence. From How to be a Domestic Goddess to Nigella Express and At My Table, these have been backed with multiple TV series, the most successful of which have often included festive versions, from Nigella Bites (2001) to Simply Nigella (2015) and the recent Cook, Eat, Repeat, from 2020.
Additionally, the presenter has launched a multimillion-dollar cooking and tableware range. However, when not working as a campaigner across women’s rights and wellbeing projects, her focus always comes back to the elegance and innocence of a recipe.
STRIPLV: What still enchants you about the kitchen? LAWSON: I think it’s the fact cuisine has an ability to entertain and enchant. Through work, family, distractions, disappointments, we can still reset back to a place of serenity over something as simple as a bowl of linguine, or a hunk of the simplest sourdough, or better still a perfectly measured Negroni Sbagliato [her favorite cocktail], and to have that power over a person, is terrifying. (Laughs) What saddens me is the fact we allow ourselves to fall short of truly immersing ourselves in all that splendor; we hold back. STRIPLV: As a professional, do you feel you have the power, perhaps the responsibility, to change that? LAWSON: Well, firstly, I would never refer to myself as a professional. I’m not. There are many great chefs and cooks all over the world who are much better than I am. What I feel I can bring to the kitchen is passion, fun, potential, and excitement. You know, I’m tired of the snobbery. I want the sexiness and the romance of food. Do I feel a responsibility in communicating that? No, because it’s up to the individual; however, I do feel it’s important to show people what’s there, so at least they can make their own minds up and feel the excitement of embarking on their own food journeys. I will push my ideas, but I’d never be so bold to suggest there aren’t better. STRIPLV: What’s your favorite food or dining situation? LAWSON: Well, I struggle to look past Christmas. It’s a fact we do wind down a bit; it’s the bounty of food that presents itself that you just don’t see at other times of the year, and for me, it’s that emotive sentimentality about years past and people departed. To celebrate those memories with special friends and family in the homeliest of settings is incredibly special, and only Christmas can give us those feelings, but that doesn’t mean you won’t achieve it at other times of the year.
STRIPLV: How did you cope with lockdown, particularly in being away from your grown-up children (Mimi and Bruno)? LAWSON: Well, actually, I enjoyed many aspects of it. I used cooking for myself as a kind of journey to link me to people and places. It was an adventure and certainly not the first time in my life I’ve cooked alone. I think the lack of a definite endpoint was probably the most challenging thing. Obviously, I was very connected across social media, and actually, I really appreciated the time to dedicate myself to other people online and invest in their lives. Usually, I am rushing from one place to another, but finally, I could actually immerse myself in these wonderful strangers. At such an uncertain time, I was confronted by people expressing their lives and their fears. In some conversations, food became secondary, but I knew it was also one of the things that would help us knit some sanity back into our lives.
STRIPLV: So what is it that you want to restore in cuisine? LAWSON: Well, over the years, I feel we may have lost something in food… amidst the chaos and the clamor of careers and commitments. I truly hope people have, over the past year or so with lockdown, rediscovered food as being more than just a necessity. I hope people have allowed themselves the time to learn about cooking and to love it again. I want food to regain that special, inherent value in our lives. When other things were taken away from us, I hope we remember it was one of the staples we could always go back to and rely upon. There’s a real chance to reset our expectations and understanding of what food is, and that really excites me, as it should everyone else. STRIPLV: What’s the biggest mistake many of us make in the kitchen? LAWSON: A lot of people subscribe to this illusion that we need to cook restaurant-level food at home. It’s ridiculous and a really dated notion that we need to get rid of. It’s impractical and unrealistic. I learned a long time ago that there is much more art, not just in the food, but in connecting with people over food. I love food, but I do believe it should be a contributor to a great evening and not the centerpiece of a dinner party. Interaction, laughter, learning new things about people, exchanging ideas on life, culture, arts, literature, and things you have done, read, seen. That’s what a great evening should be about. I’ve said it many times, but I stand by it: if the only thing that the guests are talking about the next day is the food, that’s not good. I’m also really driven by the idea that a good host needs to be seen to be enjoying themselves too. What use is someone whose contribution to an evening is just in serving others? STRIPLV: Where are our eating habits going in 2022 then? LAWSON: I think greater spontaneity is a real emerging bi-product of what we’ve all been through. Maybe it’s a Covid thing, and maybe it’s just me getting to that stage of life when I have more to gain or less to lose. I feel that when we lose spontaneity, we lose ambition and energy in creativity, and that seems a real pity. I won’t be someone who complains about not hugely being in control of my destiny. Eat healthily, exercise regularly, but be unpredictable. Expect challenges but embrace ideas. I’ve never really felt I have control over the future. I’m not sure I even thought I would make it to where I am now, so to labor over-controlling and planning life seems completely futile to me. STRIPLV: So you’re not a fan of categorizing and giving structure to food in the way you might find in French cuisine, for instance? LAWSON: I don’t like it. The whole point of food is to bring people together, not to separate them based on their tastes and preferences. I don’t want vegetarian-only or meat-only. I don’t like to see a vegan section. I want all my guests sitting around the same table to share the same experience. That’s the way I was brought up, and it’s really stuck with me. STRIPLV: You seem comfortable and confident in who you are, now? LAWSON: I am now, though my early days were filled with insecurities. I just was never sure being a food writer was enough of a vocation. I had a fear people were mocking me, that they’d think it was a pointless, self-important, conceited thing to put into words. Food, ultimately, is the most subjective thing you can think of, so I’ve always really been of the mind that inclusiveness of taste, flavor, aroma and occasion means never casting judgment. After all, what I may revel in, someone else may hate, and vice versa. STRIPLV: What would be the most significant thing you’d take from a career in food if it all ended tomorrow? LAWSON: What we put in our mouths is a totally personal choice, and whether we are seeking comfort, indulgence, image, simple contentment, or a need to refuel, we must allow ourselves that experience. What I’ve learned over the years is denying yourself things will only make you unhappy, and, inevitably, you’ll eventually succumb to those vices at some point in the future, so what’s the point? Food is just the most wonderful thing, and we owe it to ourselves to have a great time with it. Feel exhilarated, feel passionate, feel good, feel full.