I love watching cooking shows on TV - all kinds and all chefs. I can (and do) easily while away the better part of a day mindlessly watching people saute and stir-fry.*
Nigella is one of my faves as far as TV viewing goes. I know she's completely over the top, but I can't help but feel enthused when I watch her glide seamlessly through the kitchen and her life. Sadly, though, I've never really been a huge fan of her recipes. I've got a couple of her books, sure, but they are not the ones I turn to when I need inspiration or to check on an idea. For some reason, our food styles have never really meshed. Until now...
Nigella's new book 'Nigella Kitchen' (oddly named...ought there be an apostrophe s?) is wonderful. It's part cook book, part food-autobiography (which is lovely - stories about people's connection with food are often more appealing than the food itself), but the recipes are lovely as well. And really, I feel I need to credit Nigella with my return to the kitchen and the foodie blogging. My lifestyle has changed immeasureably of late - I have become a commuter living in a house with someone who routinely works at the office until 8 or 9pm (after a 7.30am start). This has meant major adjustments, most notably for me, in the form of how and what I cook. To be honest, it's all been a bit dreary recently and I've found the very thought of having to cook something (anything) when getting home after an hour and a half commute at 8.30pm just far too much. I become immobilised and suddenly have a complete mind-blank. I know I'm meant to be a kitchen 'planner' which means you don't have to think at that time of night, and generally I do plan, but the last couple of weeks got away with me.
Enter Nigella.
Her beautiful book with its lovely, wholly realistic approach to feeding oneself and the family, has motivated me to remember what it is I love about cooking. For while it seems an effort, as Nigella pointed out to me (I feel as if we've had a conversation or two after reading her book!), I do genuinely enjoy cooking once I manage to drag myself off the sofa and into the kitchen. Even when I'm doing nothing more than throwing together eggs on toast (and I have come to the realisation that actually, eggs on toast at 8 or 9pm is perfectly reasonable dinner fare), the gentle rhythms of the kitchen are very soothing and do much more to relax me after a long day of navigating my way through a new job and rush-hour traffic than any amount of vacant staring at the TV with a certain food-chain's burger grasped limply in my hand could. So thank you, Nigella, for your realism and your inspiration. I hope that my sanity and my food will be all the better for it!
* The exception to this rule is Sophie Dahl who appeared tried to be a bit like Nigella but managed to kill the concept completely. Talk about over the top. If your recipes don't hold up, then no amount of reading poetry to camera with a soft-focus lens gently blurring life's edges is ever going to make up for it. God, but she was annoying. Even I couldn't watch her, and I am generally known to a have pretty low TV standards threshold.
Nigella's oddly named book sounds wonderful! A beautiful friend just sent me a new cookbook: Ottolhengi's (sp?) 'Plenty'. It's gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteMy current TV food show is Jr MC. I know you don't do shellfish but would you take a look at what the kids cooked in the celeb chef challenge this week:
http://www.masterchef.com.au/prawn-tortellini-with-sauteed-marron-pumpkin-puree-and-prawn-oil.htm
And they did it in an hour. If they can do it in an hour, I figure I should be able to replicate at a more relaxed pace it in 2 next weekend. These kids are crazy talented. They've done some awesome pasta dishes. One kid made giant ravioli with an egg that cooks inside as the pasta cooks and then spills out gloriously onto the plate when you cut it. Another made a savory chocolate pasta - a little cocoa added to the pasta dough to help enhance the other flavours of the savoury sauce (though I can't quite remember the combination of flavours).
Wow - that's some impressive culinary talent in youngsters! I think I was managing spag bol and maybe lasange at their age! I'd love to see/hear the results of your replication challenge...keep me posted!
ReplyDeleteMeant to say, was that cookbook Yotam Ottolenghi? She/he (?) writes a regular vegetarian cooking coloumn in the Guardian and the food always sounds amazing! Have you tried anything yet?
ReplyDeleteYep, that's the one! No, but only on account of an empty fridge at present. I'll let you know how I go with it after I've been shopping. It's so beautiful, everything looks so appetising.
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