Nigella Lawson
Nigella Lucy Lawson (born 6 January 1960) is a British food writer, journalist and broadcaster. An Oxford graduate, Lawson originally worked in publishing, then as a journalist and restaurant critic, becoming the deputy literary editor of The Sunday Times in 1986.
She’s most famous, though, for her bestselling cookery books and programmes, which have won several awards. Her flirtatious (she claims it’s simply "intimate") style of presenting and stunning good looks has also earned her the title of "Queen of Food Porn." Although her reputation has been exaggerated by the media, it’s certainly true that this image alone has attracted plenty of fans.
Amazingly, she has had no formal culinary training, and does not like being called a 'celebrity chef', stating: "I am not a chef. I am not even a trained or professional cook. My qualification is as an eater." As a result, her books and programmes take a relaxed, informal approach to cooking, as Lawson believes it should be fun and even therapeutic.
She is the daughter of Nigel Lawson, Chancellor of the Exchequer for six years under Margaret Thatcher. She is married to Charles Saatchi, of the Saatchi Gallery. Yes, the guy who bought all that crazy art back in The Nineties.
- Caustic Critic: In her early restaurant reviews for The Spectator.
- Cooking Show: Several, for the BBC, ITV and the Food Network.
- Everything's Better with Chocolate: She is rather fond of the stuff, and How To Become A Domestic Goddess has a chapter specifically for it.
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"Sooner or later, everything turns to chocolate. Which is, after all, the natural order of things." |
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- Flanderization: There is a joke about Nigella’s work which says that, in her first book, there were pictures of the food; in her second book, after her first TV series, there were pictures of Nigella making the food, Nigella holding the food, Nigella eating the food...
- Food Porn: And how.[context?]
- Impossibly Delicious Food: Makes it all the time.
- Mountain of Food: Instead of wedding cake, one of her books has a recipe for an enormous mountain of profiteroles.
- Older Than She Looks: As mentioned above, she was born in January 1960.
- A Very British Christmas: Whole sections of her books are dedicated to this, and she often has Christmas episodes of her shows. When she stated that the best fat for roasting potatoes in was goose fat, stocks in Britain completely sold out.
- Not just sections. She has an entire book just devoted to Christmas and its cheery food.