Nigella takes the biscuit
WHY COOKING QUEEN SET A CHEEKY CHALLENGE FOR MASTERCHEF CONTESTANTS
She might not have the childhood connection to our iconic Tim Tams, but Queen of the Kitchen Nigella Lawson totally approves of a Tim Tam slam. Ask her to narrow down her absolute favourite biscuit though, and she baulks at the thought.
“It was pretty harrowing naming just 18,” she laughs down the line from her London home.
The domestic goddess set a biscuit challenge for the top 24 contestants in this just launched new series of MasterChef. The season-13 hopefuls have to identify her top-18 favourite bickies. Beaming in from a locked-down London, it looks like Lawson is standing right next to judges Jock Zonfrillo, Melissa Leong and Andy Allen. That is, until Allen tries to hand her one to sample.
“I really did feel strange – seeing the judges and the contestants and talking as if you were really there, it felt very sci-fi,” Lawson says. “The great fallback is not being able to eat the lovely food, but until technology improves … it was lovely to do but I really can’t pretend it was anywhere near as good as being there. And being in Australia. I do hope it won’t be too long before I can get back there.”
LOCKDOWN LIFE
It’s Monday morning in the UK when we chat and Lawson says she’s been up for a long time ready for another week as they merge into one another. She jokes she’s not sure what month it is, let alone which day as she goes through London’s third harsh lockdown alone – her children Mimi and Bruno, in their 20s, live elsewhere. “You do think time would go so slowly and yet the days sort of slip past,” she muses “It is strange though, human beings adapt so quickly that now I think I can’t imagine what it would be like to go out at night and things like that. I mean how did we manage that? It’s like being a child – have your supper and you go to bed.
“I’m lucky I have my work and roof over my head. And space and food on my table. Even so, the only way to get through is to be very much in the present. You can’t be making plans and can’t think about the whole time stretching out in front of you. You do actually have to be – not even a day at a time – just in whatever you are doing.” Lawson adds, with a laugh, she’s grateful her children are not young.
COOKING FOR COMPANY
She hasn’t been lonely, which she partly attributes to the busyness of finishing her book Cook, Eat, Repeat. And the 61-year-old has learned to relish solitude.
“At the very beginning, I couldn’t read or watch TV but somehow I wasn’t bored or lonely. Cooking has been a real help. It’s absorbing and I’ve always enjoyed cooking for myself. And now I’ve been able to wallow in it.”
Cook, Eat Repeat is her 12th cookbook – another delicious and delightful combination of recipes, interwoven with essays about food. And there’s another gorgeous TV series to accompany it. Typically Lawson’s programs end with a feast, with friends and family gathered at her house all sharing delicious food. Perhaps because of the pandemic, this latest serving doesn’t have any of that. She pauses when asked if she is missing cooking up such feasts for friends.
“It’s strange I don’t miss it as much as I thought I would. I have done some cooking for people. Friends who haven’t been well that I have sent food over to. That seems to have somehow satisfied some of my feeding urge. I do feel that I can’t wait to cook for people again but it’s not just about the food, it’s just having people over and chatting, so essentially you could have dried biscuits and whatever and have people in your house and I’d be thrilled. Although, maybe I might flip when I have to start doing it again. You never know – but I don’t think so.”
WRITER’S BLOCK
Lawson confesses she worries she will never write another cookbook again – not through lack of food inspiration, but rather a lack of story or theme.
“When I wrote my first book (How To Eat), I already had another idea for my second but every other time I think ‘Well I’ll never write another book’. I say ‘I’ll never do anything ever again. I’m finished’. And all my friends say ‘yeah, you say that every time’.
“I do need to take a breather – one of the things about being in lockdown is it’s pretty hard to refill the well if you like. I do have some ideas on the backburner but I don’t have a sense of which one will creep up. I have to cook with no book in mind and see what will come out of it. It’s hard when there aren’t some people to feed because I can’t cope with food waste. There’s only so much – even if that one person is me – only so much that one person can eat.”
Lawson knows exactly where she’ll have her first meal out once lockdown ends – outside at The River Cafe on the Thames. And once international borders open, she’ll head to Italy.
“I have a real hankering for Venice – I’ve spent a lot of time there in my life. I’d quite like to go rent a flat by myself, mooch about and cook all the delicious food.” Nigella Lawson heads up Superstars Week on MasterChef Australia, starting Sunday, 7.30pm, Ten
Cook, Eat, Repeat, streaming ABC iview