LET NIGELLA INDULGE YOU
Look who’ s back on TV with her gargantuan kitchen island, leopardprint chopping knives, and that unmistakable voice...
PICK OF THE WEEK
NIGELLA: COOK, EAT, REPEAT
Monday, BBC2, 8pm
Now, more than ever, we all need a little touch of self-indulgent luxury in our lives. And who better than Nigella Lawson to show us the way? The nation’s favourite domestic goddess is back to share the joys of cooking for pure pleasure in a new six-part series – in her words, ‘a celebration of the power of food to transform every single day’. You’ll be left drooling over not only the dishes she serves up but also the dream lifestyle she inhabits, complete with a kitchen island so large you might expect to find it as a topographical feature on Ordnance Survey maps.
But however extravagant the setting, the recipes Nigella gives us are eminently accessible, thanks to her precise and easy-to-follow instructions and the alluring way she spices up traditional methods with a refreshing disregard for the staid, tired rules of convention.
This week’s episode features fish fingers with an exotically Indian twist, plus a chocolate tahini pudding cake that makes good use of over-ripe bananas – Nigella even shows how to turn the fruit’s skins into a curry. Her commonsense tips also include how you can avoid peeling vegetables, and the essential secret for contact-lens wearers when preparing hot chillies (use spatulas, not your hands, to avoid stinging your eyes).
It’s three years since she was last on the BBC, but Nigella’s many fans will be delighted to see that the distinctive look and feel of her shows are largely unchanged. So it’s welcome back to colourful, sumptuous dishes – lit so beautifully that it’ll take deep reserves of willpower to resist licking the screen – accompanied by a musical soundtrack that would hardly be out of place in an adult-rated movie from the 1970s.
With her gift for words and clear enunciation, Nigella has always been a one-woman breed apart from her rival TV chefs: who else could describe how English mustard ‘produces more than heat – it seems to dance on the edge of bitterness’ as she does in one poetic aside?
And as the series gets under way, look out for the kitchen utensil that sums up Nigella’s unique style: her chopping knife with a leopard-print pattern handle.
Look no further for the must-have gift for any aspiring domestic goddesses this Christmas.
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